5 ms·

> In theory the copy is random bytes There is not any such thing as random bytes. Here's a byte: 0xca. Is it random? Well, if I got it from a fair die, per

> In theory the copy is random bytes There is not any such thing as random bytes. Here's a byte: 0xca. Is it random? Well, if I got it from a fair die, perhaps. But if I got it by printing the hex of a Java program, of course not. Bytes cannot be random, they can only be created in a random way (or not). In your hypothetical you are not creating the bytes in a random way, you are creating them from a book. So the bytes have nothing to do with so-called "random bytes", but are in fact a derivative work of the book, at the very least.

kedean 11y ago
Now your just getting into semantics. Do you have a problem with the term 'random number' too? Because that's all a byte is, a number between 0 and 256.
- drewcrawford 11y ago
  As a matter of fact, I do; as do many people who take cryptography seriously: > Any one who considers arithmetical methods of producing random digits is, of course, in a state of sin. For, as has been pointed out several times, there is no such thing as a random number — there are only methods to produce random numbers, and a strict arithmetic procedure of course is not such a method. - John Von Neumann But to your broader point, no, this is not a question of semantics. There is an actual syntactical difference being asserted here. That difference is this: randomness has nothing to do with numbers. 0xca--the same number--can be either "random" or "non-random" depending on how you got ahold of it. When we talk about numbers--prime numbers, even numbers, rational numbers, etc., we are talking about properties of the number; whether they are divisible by 2 and so on. But "random numbers" have no property by which we could recognize them. It is entirely a question of where the numbers were made, not what they are or what they look like.
scintill76 11y ago
I guess this is bit color, then (a similar "random" example is used in the Colour essay somebody else linked.) Thanks for mentioning "derivative work", it's a good key word to look into this further. After skimming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work I guess one question is, is applying cryptography "transformative"? To take it in a slightly different direction, since parody has been upheld, what about a deterministic, reversible, mechanical parodic transformation? AFAIK machine-created works can't be given a copyright, but I'm not asking for that, merely that a machine can create a sufficiently transformative derivative work. In fact, maybe it doesn't even need to be parody. In https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_10,_Inc._v._Amazon.com,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_10,_Inc._v._Amazon.com.... search engines were permitted to serve thumbnails of copyrighted images because the copies "served a different function than [the original] use – improving access to information on the Internet versus artistic expression." In the same way, an e-book could be "improving access" rather than offering "artistic expression." I guess establishing "transformation" is a bit tricky -- presumably ASCII-encoding an English book's text is not transformative. But it seems like somehow you could come up with something interesting and legal, even if it's not quite like my original formulation. Google Books' excerpts are probably like this. Oh, and after re-reading the Colour article, I see I am not even all that innovative: http://monolith.sourceforge.net/ http://monolith.sourceforge.net/

kedean 11y ago

Now your just getting into semantics. Do you have a problem with the term 'random number' too? Because that's all a byte is, a number between 0 and 256.

drewcrawford 11y ago
As a matter of fact, I do; as do many people who take cryptography seriously: > Any one who considers arithmetical methods of producing random digits is, of course, in a state of sin. For, as has been pointed out several times, there is no such thing as a random number — there are only methods to produce random numbers, and a strict arithmetic procedure of course is not such a method. - John Von Neumann But to your broader point, no, this is not a question of semantics. There is an actual syntactical difference being asserted here. That difference is this: randomness has nothing to do with numbers. 0xca--the same number--can be either "random" or "non-random" depending on how you got ahold of it. When we talk about numbers--prime numbers, even numbers, rational numbers, etc., we are talking about properties of the number; whether they are divisible by 2 and so on. But "random numbers" have no property by which we could recognize them. It is entirely a question of where the numbers were made, not what they are or what they look like.

scintill76 11y ago

I guess this is bit color, then (a similar "random" example is used in the Colour essay somebody else linked.) Thanks for mentioning "derivative work", it's a good key word to look into this further. After skimming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work I guess one question is, is applying cryptography "transformative"? To take it in a slightly different direction, since parody has been upheld, what about a deterministic, reversible, mechanical parodic transformation? AFAIK machine-created works can't be given a copyright, but I'm not asking for that, merely that a machine can create a sufficiently transformative derivative work. In fact, maybe it doesn't even need to be parody. In https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_10,_Inc._v._Amazon.com,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_10,_Inc._v._Amazon.com.... search engines were permitted to serve thumbnails of copyrighted images because the copies "served a different function than [the original] use – improving access to information on the Internet versus artistic expression." In the same way, an e-book could be "improving access" rather than offering "artistic expression." I guess establishing "transformation" is a bit tricky -- presumably ASCII-encoding an English book's text is not transformative. But it seems like somehow you could come up with something interesting and legal, even if it's not quite like my original formulation. Google Books' excerpts are probably like this. Oh, and after re-reading the Colour article, I see I am not even all that innovative: http://monolith.sourceforge.net/ http://monolith.sourceforge.net/