I don't think it is so simple as that. In this thread many people are arguing something to the effect of "factoring numbers and posting it online is not illega

I don't think it is so simple as that. In this thread many people are arguing something to the effect of "factoring numbers and posting it online is not illegal". I tend to disagree. Not with the argument itself, but with the deception in covering the original issue with a much toned down one. The hacker who did this was not trying to innocently post the results of some factoring problem. He posted the results to a specific factoring problem. Then he posted an article titled "83+ OS signing key cracked!". Clearly he was not trying to just factor those numbers. How Texas Instruments should have ideally reacted to these results is debatable, the fact remains that what the hacker did was not pure white. How would you feel if somebody figures out your SSN and post it online? Is it just another mathematical truth that is allowed to flow freely through the universe? Dear HN, everything cannot be explained by math.