>Beware Of Hex Offenders! Look Away And Do Not Read This: It’s 2000 All Over Again!
The old cliché is that if you don’t learn from history, you’re doomed to repeat it.
Let’s go back to 2000, DVD is fairly new to the market, and it’s a locked down format. AH HA! DeCSS (descrambler code) comes out and defeats the protection on DVDs, and the legal war over the right to access and copy your own DVD ignites a free-speech and free-use blaze that still haunts studios and content creators today!
Flash-forward to 2007, these numbers: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 have become a new scandal! They can be used to read data from a HD-DVD and BluRay disc! Oh No! We MUST stop these numbers from escaping! They are going to destroy the world! By the way, they add up to 799 (if you know how to add in hexadecimal).
Here are some examples of the peaceful protests about DeCSS from 2000:
David Touretzky’s T-shirt bears the code for DVD unscrambling software the movie industry is trying to stop.
from Digital use of movies sparks free speech fight in lawsuit
In protest, the entire source code for DeCSS was printed on t-shirts and worn into the courtroom and around the world to prove that once the genie was out of the bottle, a court case wasn’t going to stop the assimilation of information into our culture and world knowledgebase!
There was also the DeCSS source code SONG:
In general, DeCSS got out. For fun, go to 42 ways to distribute DeCSS it clearly shows how this information is out there. But whatever you do, do NOT click on this link and if you do accidentally, LOOK AWAY! Now, in 2007, the peaceful protests have begun again:
Taken directly from the available Hex Offenders Website (Thank you guys for coining the term!):
Underwear!
Shirts!
Buttons!
Mouse Pads!
Let the games begin! Be sure to visit their website and start your own peaceful protest.
Now, as for the numbers above, they aren’t going to destroy the world, or even present anyone with a way to remove data from any disc. They are simply numbers that if someone knew how to enter them, would open up a security hole. This brings up the simple question:
Am I breaking the law by saying “Open Sesame?” By trying to stop the dissemination of these numbers, they are actually drawing attention to them, and making sure that the proverbial “Cat is out of the bag,” or “Pandora’s Box has been opened.” Right now, DIGG is in the sites. Here’s their story.
To not feel left behind and to help contribute to people learning all about how the alphabet and hexadecimal number system work, we’re preparing our own tribute to this collection of numbers and letters. Stay tuned for some additional examples to share and enjoy with your friends!
Sometimes reality is far more unrealistic than fantasy. Sheesh!
If you thought this was foolish, check these out: