Talk:Illegal prime/Archives/2013

NPOV? The Point?
I suspect that the attempt to be strictly NPOV has taken you a little too far. OK, I'm no mathematician, and I gave up programming when I sold my Z-80, but I have difficultly following the main thrust of the article - not the specifics, which are straightforward enough, but the implications of it. Tannin


 * There are no real world implications. The whole article is fanboy Mee krob, using a completely banal fact to make a political point. Greglocock 08:09, 4 February 2007 (UTC)


 * It's actually a fairly interesting concept, and I, for one, came here to look it up. It could use some work, and maybe a retitle, but I wouldn't say it's just to make a political point. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.142.101.23 (talk) 05:08, 2 May 2007 (UTC).


 * What is interesting about it? Greglocock 02:27, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
 * It's interesting because there is possible legitimate interest in this number that is unrelated to the program. That was the point of finding a prime and proving primality - the argument is no longer "why wouldn't I have the divx of, it's just a number!!!" - which, while correct in principle, is obviously just an excuse for piracy, since any unrelated interest in that number would be highly unlikely. Also, the fact that a number can represent different things, depending on how it's interpreted, is a very real logical flaw in the way we think (and create laws) about digital media, we just choose to pretend the flaw isn't there because we need stuff like copyright, so saying the article is making a political point is like saying critics of a law that defines pi as 3 are making a political point.


 * Imagine if someone discovered that digits 3948-5273 of pi, when saved as a binary number, are an "illegal program". Would we make writing programs that calculate pi illegal? Or would we make it illegal to publish "digits 3948-5273 of pi"? And the funny thing is, pi probably does contain many (or even all) such programs. Given computers powerful enough (not in the near future), you could probably define any file in terms of "digits A-B of pi" and let users generate the content themselves. So now you can make publishing the two numbers, A and B, illegal. But they can be generated from pi in the same way as well, so you have to make 4 more numbers illegal, it's an endless loop. :) Tapir (talk) 21:52, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

no prime number discovery
I do not think he discovered a prime number. He manipulated the program until it became a prime number and then wanted to use that prime number as a proof that the DCMA is ridiculous. I will not air my opinion about the DCMA, but since all information can be turned into a number, and without substantially changing its content, it can be turned into a prime number, the claim to have discovered a new prime number seems a bit ridiculous to me.


 * It's this verbiage that is ridiculous. The number in question is on a list of the largest known prime numbers.  All such numbers are, of necessity, discovered. -- Jibal 11:47, 27 May 2006 (UTC)


 * There's nothing ridiculous about it. It just doesn't just "become" a prime number. So you've got this huge 1400 digit number, how the hell do you know if it's prime? The achievement is not in getting at the number, its the proof. -- Arvindn
 * And, if I use tea leaves and find 1500 digit prime numbers, does that mean I'm all wet? Or dowsing to continue the moisture theme? Discovery in mathematics (and science as well) is not legitimate or not depending on the methods used, but on the results obtained. My new string theory which unites quantum mechanics and general relativity would still be the best available (assuming it makes testable predictions which are experimentally found) even if I got it from my cat -- the one with the string jones. I agree with Arvindn, with reservation. ww 19:29, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)


 * Prime numbers are "discovered" in the same way that stars, "new" species and anything else is discovered. It always exists, it's just that some human has now observed it in some fashion and written it down in a book. This just happens to be a special prime, one usable for more than just the curiosity factor. ~Nec


 * That's debatable (the first two sentences). — Daniel 21:08, 27 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Daniel do you have a point to make? If so, please let us in on what it is.Cuddlyable3 (talk) 07:27, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

detail on illegality under US law
Here's the point: U.S. courts have ruled that it is illegal under the DCMA to distribute the DeCSS code, which can be used to decrypt DVDs. This entry notes that there is a large prime number which is equivalent to the hexadecimal representation of a gzip compressed form of the DeCSS C source code. This number, if downloaded, converted to binary, and uncompressed, would produce the DeCSS source, which could be compiled and used to decrypt DVDs. Thus it is presumably illegal to publish this number, which would amount to distributing the DeCSS code. Hence the web page which lists the twenty largest prime numbers identified by the technique used to find this prime would violate the DCMA.


 * I don't think the table of primes in itself would be illegal, but telling somebody "take the third prime from this table, decode it as hex and unzip, and you have DeCSS" would be illegal. AxelBoldt 01:38 Jan 4, 2003 (UTC)


 * Publishing 20 text strings, all but one of which is gibberish, that one being a CSS decrypter, would rather obviously be illegal even without telling someone which one is the decrypter. That's no different than publishing 20 digit strings that -- as is now well known -- yield those 20 text strings upon being gunzipped.  The illegality is in publishing the means to decrypt CSS, and publishing the list of primes clearly provides the means. -- Jibal 11:35, 27 May 2006 (UTC)


 * It's just as easy to convert a child porn image into such a prime number. This obviously doesn't mean anyone would throw out child porn law because it's ridiculous.  Anarchopedia 22:47, 4 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't know why you posted that as a response to my comment, since it isn't relevant to it. The discussion here is about what is or is not illegal under the DMCA, not what is or is not ridiculous, which is beyond the scope of WP.  As for equal ease -- only for very very small images.  i.e., you're mistaken, it's not "just as easy". -- Jibal 04:46, 6 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Did you know that for any number n, there exist a prime number greater than n? Thus prime number can be arbitarily large.  It can be a million, or a billion digits long. 70.48.250.130 17:41, 12 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Non sequitur. That there are infinitely many primes has nothing to do with how easy it is to produce a prime of a given length. -- Jibal 12:27, 18 June 2006 (UTC)


 * See below pdf, deterministic prime generation can be done in polynomial time, so it's considered easy to compute problem.
 * http://www.math.princeton.edu/~annals/issues/2004/Sept2004/Agrawal.pdf 70.48.251.7 08:59, 25 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Again, the fact that testing a number for primality is easy does not mean finding a prime number with a given property is easy. --Ihope127 21:12, 15 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Put plainly, anonymous, it took days to prove the primality of this number, which represents less data than even a thumbnail image. It would take a huge amount of time to represent even a single image in a reasonable resolution. You might be able to break down an image into smaller components and convert these into primes that could be used for some purpose, but I'm still not sure what the practical advantage would be. If someone went through all that trouble, the image might very well be "intrinsically archivable" as a piece of digital history, though there are moral and legal implications of archiving an unpleasant part of history before it becomes ancient. Zuiram 20:52, 6 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Another interesting question would be: is it illegal to link to the top 20 primes and describe how to use the nth prime to decypher CSS DVDs. Further, if this is illegal, how has it stayed on WP? &mdash;Memotype:: T 22:24, 4 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Is that interesting? What, pray, are the top 20 primes? Is this a chart published somewhere? Are the top 20 primes judged by popularity, weekly sales, or what? Perhaps the Olympic committee runs a top 20 primes contest, in which primes from all over the world duke it out manno a manno. It probably isn't illegal, just stupid. And wiki is full of stupidity.Greg Locock (talk) 22:11, 5 November 2008 (UTC)


 * The top 20 primes are at http://primes.utm.edu/top20/home.php and are explained in the last paragraph of Illegal prime. I think the top 20 page for ECPP proofs at http://primes.utm.edu/top20/page.php?id=27 was created in 2003. If it had existed in 2001 then it would have included at least one illegal prime, but they have all been too small for the top 20 since mid 2001. However, illegal primes were and still are listed in the prime database at the site: . There is a button to show all the digits. In 2001 the top 20 ECPP proofs did not appear to have their own page but they were included in longer lists of record primes. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:54, 5 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Ah, so it is a popularity contest. Well, it is a WP:RS and they do define their criteria, so it is a valid list. Go ahead and mention it if you think it is relevant, it can hardly make this silly article worse. Greg Locock (talk) 00:53, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

derived work rubric under copyright law

 * I suppose it's related to the concept of "derived work" that's found in copyright law. If the number was obtained by transforming the DeCSS code, and supplied with instructions on how to convert it back to DeCSS, I suppose it would be found illegal.  If the same number appeared in a list of primes which was plausibly claimed to be produced and published for some reason unrelated to DeCSS then I suppose it would be found legal.  But as noted above, any digital work can be written as a number, and whether it's legal to put a given number on your website will depend on whether someone can argue that it was created as a derived work.  This is just speculation, when dealing with copyright, who knows? ( 18:08, 4 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * No no no, the issue has nothing to do with illegal copying of DeCSS code. It's the writing of DeCSS code in the first place that is (purportedly) illegal, because it provides the means to decrypt certain copyrighted material. -- Jibal 11:53, 27 May 2006 (UTC)


 * This brings about an interesting question. If I use copyrighted data as the seed of a random number generator, or randomized the order of the bytes in copyrighted data, does that constitute a "derived work" even though the outcome is not in any way recognizable as the original work? Where is the line drawn? &mdash;Memotype:: T 20:56, 11 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Memotype, copyright or IPR protection applies to unique value that can be shown to lie in the original protected work. Neither using a published book as a doorstop, nor reciting the text backwards to invoke Beelzebub, nor IMO using its content to seed a random number generator, infringe any protectable value though they do exploit the book's objective (not valuable, not intellectual) uniqueness. As to "randomising" copyrighted data, you have not truly randomised it unless it becomes unrecoverable, like burning a book. I think you mean PSEUDO-randomising where the data can be recovered with knowledge of the pseudorandom generator, and under copyright law you are still liable if you distribute it, similarly to having translated a copyrighted book into a different language. Cuddlyable3 12:43, 25 May 2007 (UTC)


 * It is in fact very easy to generate primes that can be transformed directly into any given number. There are two primary (hehe) ways, addition of primes and multiplication/factorization of primes. The one in the article is another interesting one (based on similarity to the original number), there can be other ones based on various algorithms and properties. Most of them would require you to have a list of primes, but you don't need to have one in advance, you can make one on the spot.
 * One, addition: If you take random number N, you can subtract it with the largest prime that is smaller then N, write down it's place in the list of primes, take the new number and repeat. In the end you'll get exactly 0 and a list of primes that adds up to the chosen number.
 * Two, factorization: Divide the number with a bunch of primes until the result is another prime. You then just write down those two primes. This takes much more computing power then the previous one, but the output is much smaller.
 * It would be very interesting to see how a court would respond to people using a list of all the first primes that fits in a database that is about 5 GB large on a computer hard drive (you can choose to have a bigger one). Would it ban having such databases? That would be ridicolous and be overturned in seconds. Would it ban just listing numbers like 3, 5, 99, and 4055? Those are not even primes, but in the list of the first primes, there are primes on those locations. Those primes together might result in a previously copyrighted file. So can I mention those numbers or not? What happens if I reorder them? That doesn't matter anyway due to the math, it's just addition only or multiplication only. 109.58.22.190 (talk) 20:46, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

URLs and blocking due to protest
The last two URLs don't work. Edward 00:05, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * Hmm, they do for me. Odd. Lupin 09:54, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * Both of them redirect me to, you don't get that? Edward 16:14, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * Apparently he detects which IPs are from countries supporting the Iraq war and blocks them! Arvindn 16:57, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * Exactly. So I put the warning text back, with a notation not to remove it unless you've seen the protest before.  I've set myself a monthly reminder to check it. TreyHarris 18:50, 11 May 2004 (UTC)

Image
This article so needs a photo of one of the illegal prime T-shirts - David Gerard 15:14, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * DG, very good idea. Anyone got one? ww 19:29, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Dirichlet's theorem
The article states, "The existence of infinitely many such primes is guaranteed by Dirichlet's theorem." It would be nice to mention why it follows from Dirichlet's theorem - it is currently explained better in Prime number. Dan Gardner 12:51, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)


 * I cannot quite see how it follows from Dirichlet's theorem at all. It's essential for this particular solution to keep the data before the "null byte" intact, and in any arithmetical progression, sooner or later the relevant data will start to be changed. Thus, one cannot simply start with one number representation and one offset and simply hope for Dirichlet to save the day - if there really are infinitely many (not very improbable as such...) illegal primes, then this definitely would merit further proof than just a reference to Dirichlet to hold up. Michiexile 14:33, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

How likely is it for a code file to be a prime number?? lysdexia 09:48, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Unlikely. ^_~ -- Schnee 12:46, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Actually more likely than one would think - probability of an N bit file being prime is about 1/N (that's the prime number theorem). Arvindn 21:20, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Really? Isn't it actually about ln 2/N? Whatever... Through the article, it speaks of "the" illegal prime. Aren't there multiple illegal primes? (multiple versions of the DeCSS and other codes that are primes.) --Fermatprime 22:25, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * Not sure what you mean about the probability, as log 2/N is negative. As for "the" prime, one of the illegal primes is special because its the one that is archived on primepages.org. This aspect is easily missed, but the major reason for the fuss about the number is because it is archived in the large prime database and they (arguably) have perfectly reasonable response to a takedown notice. At least that's my understanding. Arvindn 04:11, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I guess you meant (log 2)/N. I'm a theory-head, so I tend to ignore constants all too often :) Arvindn 04:13, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The number!
I've added the number, as listed in The Register. (They've had it up for three years, there's no reason we shouldn't.) - David Gerard 08:23, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC) : Wait - is the 154th digit a "4" or an "8"?


 * There are two prime numbers mentioned in the text: the source code and an executable. Which one is 'the number'? 202.37.96.11 21:22, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * The first number has leading zeros, 00004 85650. So if 101 is a 3-digit prime, is 0101 a 4-digit prime? Ken Jackson 10:55, 28 May 2010 (UTC)


 * The leading zeros were added without explanation (maybe a misguided idea to improve formatting). They are not in the Register source. The article says 1401-digit number elsewhere and that is without leading zeros. I have removed them  and corrected the digit count to 1401 in that place. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:13, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Reference to copyright protection is incorrect
The article describes the illegal primes as describing "a computer program which bypasses copyright protection schemes on some DVDs". There is a similar description as the caption under the DeCSS image.

This is incorrect. The CSS scheme in question does not prevent copying. The data on a DVD is a stream of bytes, which can be copied by any device or program that copies bytes. The CSS scheme prevents unauthorized playback (eg playing back Region One DVDs on Region Two players, etc). Describing CSS and DeCSS as being related to copy protection is factually incorrect, attempts by the DVD Consortium to muddy the water not withstanding. Steven (no user account). 203.173.29.99 14:02, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

More importantly, it's NOT ILLEGAL to possess a circumvention device. The article, as written, is flat wrong. See section 1201: http://straylight.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00001201000-.html -- any problem with changing this? The term "illegal" is woefully imprecise, though I understand its rhetorical value in this context. "Illegal to distribute" packs most of the same punch, and might actually be *true* (though rather debatably). Dreamword 06:28, 16 April 2006 (UTC)


 * From your source: "No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology... that is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing". If it is illegal to make something, and illegal to transfer it to another person, how can one legally posses that item? Washod 18:11, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
 * You have to have owned it prior to the law going in force. As the act does not forbid ownership, only manufacture and sale, anyone with a circumvention device they bought prior to the act has an entirely legal device. — ceejayoz talk  00:33, 4 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Ceejayoz, any actual use of the technology with consequent profit (hard to disprove) could be argued as being "traffic in" the technology. Compare this with prostitution and gun law (in US) where having the means is not prosecutable but using them gets one arrested. No matter how ancient the street lady or firearm may be. Cuddlyable3 12:57, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Personal Publishing
Since 'The Number' is published both here and at The Register, would I be committing a crime/illegal act by also posting it on, say, a Weblog? I'm just curious.(The Swami 05:08, 25 August 2005 (UTC))
 * Maybe if you're in the US. As the article says, "this question has never been tested in court". &mdash; Matt Crypto 09:07, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Hmm, good point... I've decided to put it on a weblog, without a description of what is it or how it could be used. It's simply listed as "The Illegal Prime", and then the number itself. I also put a disclaimer on it saying I don't condone its use for malicious purposes, and that I would remove it if any figure of the law or the operator of the weblog service requested that I do so. I figure this is the best way to cover all the bases; does this seem addequately safe? (The Swami 03:24, 26 August 2005 (UTC))
 * Sounds good to me...

Problem with Dirichlet's theorem
I have removed the line about Dirichlet's theorem guaranteeing an infinite amount of such primes, because basically it doesn't without an extensive argument backing the claim up. Using some 10^n*data as base to start looking for primes, Dirichlet will guarantee that in all arithmetic progressions beginning at that point, there will be infinitely many primes. However, only finitely many of them will take place early enough as to still have data+zero byte unchanged. There probably still are infinitely many primes, but it's not that easy to show. Michiexile 08:55, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Executable on what?
It would be useful to state what the prime number is executable on (what microprocessor family) and in (if it requires a particular OS). Does anyone know? - grubber 16:04, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
 * says "ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), statically linked, corrupted section header size" - so, Linux i386. Phlip 18:31, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the info! I suppose I should've guessed it was going to be Linux and Intel. - grubber 22:55, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
 * That's important information for the main article, imo 128.2.184.59 05:49, 2 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I removed the verbose "file" output and put the relevant information: ELF binary (i.e. runs on linux as well as other systems, e.g. unix systems), i386 architecture. I think the example source code (now included in the article), which allows anyone to convert the number to an executable file and see for him/herself what format the file is (by running the "file" utility on it), is better than a reference to the discussion page. J. K. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Eldacan (talk • contribs) 16:06, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Fundamental doubt
...as our Indian friends would say. A compression algorithm can process ANY given piece of text to ANY compressed value. It will only work for that one piece of text, obviously. Usually people demonstrate this by using a single 'one' as the output of the compression algorithm. Therefore the fact that a a given prime number expands (via gzip) to a workable piece of code is interesting, but not really remarkable.

Feeding the digits of long prime numbers into a core, and executing them as machine code, is amusing, but is reminiscent of Core Wars, not maths. I think this article should be removed.

Greglocock 23:18, 15 April 2006 (UTC)


 * gzip isn't just any algorithm, it's a very common compression program. These primes are interesting because it pushes the idea of what is copyright, what is trade secret, and what is protected speech. - grubber 05:45, 16 April 2006 (UTC)


 * It's just as easy to convert a child porn image into such a prime number. It is easy to convert ANY information into such a prime.   70.48.250.130 22:44, 4 June 2006 (UTC)


 * No, it isn't, as it clearly depends upon the size of the compressed data -- otherwise, it would be "easy" to produce primes of any size. -- Jibal 04:52, 6 June 2006 (UTC)


 * It's easy to generate highly probable primes via probabilistic prime generation algorithm. 70.48.250.130 17:40, 12 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Non sequitur. It is harder to produce larger primes than smaller primes; that's why people bother to have lists of the largest primes. -- Jibal 12:29, 18 June 2006 (UTC)


 * lol, no, people make a list of largest prime because mathematical curiosity, no one needs a prime with million digits. It's very easy to generate extremely large primes for any practical purpose.  See below pdf, deterministic prime generation can be done in polynomial time, so it's considered easy to compute problem.
 * http://www.math.princeton.edu/~annals/issues/2004/Sept2004/Agrawal.pdf 70.48.251.7 09:01, 25 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Finding large primes amounts to much more than mathematical curiosity; they have cyptographical significance (see RSA). Generating "highly probable primes" isn't the same as generating primes (see Probable prime). Talking about generating "extremely large primes" depends on what scale of magnitude you're speaking; 232,582,657 − 1 is currently the largest known prime, and took approximately nine years to generate; so at this point in our ability to uncover them, primes of this magnitude are obviously not an "easy to compute problem" 170.20.96.116 22:20, 10 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, people may store a list of primes for curiosity, but it's also a memory-time tradeoff. It is far easier to reference the 100 millionth prime in a table than it is to generate that prime. Metaprimer 22:16, 15 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I have an algorithm that generates the n'th prime in the list, but it is too small to put on this page. Greglocock 02:27, 16 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Greglocock, put up or shut up.Cuddlyable3 09:27, 16 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Oh dear. Sense of humo(u)r failure. Perhaps Fermat will give you a cuddle instead. Greglocock 11:14, 17 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Please do share--Hu12 19:16, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Publishing the primes on Wikipedia
Is it OK to publish the primes on Wikipedia and in the same breath say that distributing them may well be illegal according to U.S. law (and Wikipedia's main servers are in U.S.)? According to the policies, copyright infringement is not allowed because it "threatens our objective to build a truly free encyclopedia that anyone can redistribute, and could lead to legal problems." The same could be said about including the primes (especially as DMCA technically is about copyright), which are trivial recodings of data already deemed illegal by the courts. They don't really add anything to the article either, except by the visual appearance of their length (people would not notice at a glance if you changed random digits in the numbers, but would if their length changed substantially). I may be overly cautious, though.-- Coffee2theorems | Talk 07:30, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

I can't give any kind of formal legal opinion on this one, but I suspect that 1) the number, taken in conjunction with the article and the connected links may be a technical violation of the DMCA, 2) there's probably a better than even chance that it is not illegal, and 3) the risk of any kind of legal response is close to zero. If you wanted to be a bit more cautious, you could provide a link to the number.  I would leave it there.


 * I'd go a bit further and point out that any number, can represent any program, in a certain compression algorithm. Therefore wiki should prevent the publication of all numbers. For instance, I have just encoded Microsfot Word as the number "1". I haven't written the decode module yet. This entire page is a bit of fanboy geekdom. Greglocock 06:50, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, from that point of view, yes, you can have all sorts of mappings from integers to programs. However, it's very likely the case that law will treat some mappings differently to others, particularly if your mapping just takes an integer to its binary representation. This is a general problem with all copyright law in general, not just DMCA. It makes it illegal to distribute certain numbers (primality is a red herring, IMO) without permission if those numbers can readily be transformed into copyrighted works. I think Wikipedia should steer clear. &mdash; Matt Crypto 07:48, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
 * The thing is, I seriously doubt any court is going to rule that certain numbers are "illegal," even those that can be converted to... well, anything. I don't see any problem with the numbers being posted here, and in fact it's important that they are for the sake of completeness. Jeff Silvers 07:13, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, IANAL, but by the article's own admission, the numbers "represent information forbidden by USA law to possess or distribute." We have to err on the side of caution. Plenty of numbers are "illegal" to distribute without permission: pirated films & music are usually large binary numbers. &mdash; Matt Crypto 07:32, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
 * In that case it would probably be safer to delete the entire article. Or re-title it nerd-boy trivia. As a matter of interest exactly whose laws are we obliged to respect? Given that Wiki is a world wide community and all. Greglocock 00:32, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I disagree. I think the article covers a very important point: once you go into the digital realm, _everything_ is just a number. So trying to ban software is equivalent to trying to ban use of a number. Trying to copyright software or data files is equivalent to claiming that you can own a number. Looked at in those terms, the entire idea of banning or copyrighting software becomes ludicrous... most people just haven't realised this yet. Mark Grant 15:57, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
 * And not just software, of course. As (arguably) the most abstract form of knowledge, people view mathematics as being a universal and unownable resource. I guess the "illegal prime" argument is an attempt to confront people with the idea that information in general is not really any different from mathematics in that respect. Then, if we can "own" information, why not let people own parts of mathematics? Conversely, if people shouldn't own mathematics, why do we allow people to own information? (Hmm...I'm moving off-topic here...) &mdash; Matt Crypto 16:10, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I think that since they were already were published on Wikipedia and are pretty easy to find in the article history that they should stay up until they are removed from the history. What is the point of removing them from one part of the site yet leaving them on another part if legal threats are feared? JerTheRipper 10:44, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
 * The Alphabet is public-domain, as are most punctuation marks. Why are books copyrightable?  Because of the information they contain.  Why are scanners and copy machines legal?  Because they can be used for more than copying of copyrighted material and illegal duplication of currency.  Ultimately, it's a matter of enforcement on the part of the copyright holders, and respect for copyright law on the part of the consumer of copyrighted works.  Society and law agree to protect the right of intellectual-property right-holders (licensees, creators, owners, distributors, etc.) to profit from their work as they see fit, and as the market allows.  My cousin is a locksmith, and one of the parts of doing his job is picking locks that have no keys / lost keys.  Does owning and operating a lock-picking tool make him a thief?  Is a person a software pirate if they are playing their store-bought region-1 DVD on a Linux system using DeCSS in private in a region-1 locale?  By regulation, yes.  By common sense, no.  Are copy-machine vendors and 1200-dpi color scanner vendors considered counterfeiters by the Secret Service?  No.  Should the primes be published on Wikipedia?  See Thermonuclear bomb and lockpicking, then consult a lawyer. --205.201.141.146 17:52, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Should Illegal Number still redirect here?
The new HDDVD/AACS hex number strikes me as possibly existing properly under the heading of "illegal number" yet that page redirects directly to "illegal prime" which the HDDVD number definitely does not fit within. 76.172.89.201 02:53, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

So, does HD Key removed DVD actually mean anythign?03:43, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, and it should be listed on the page. Otherwise I don't know what this page would exist for. --Jackson 04:38, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Please try to avoid jumping on the bandwagon and posting materials to Wikimedia servers that might well get our poor underfunded Foundation sued by the giant media conglomerates. Thanks! ~Kylu ( u | t )  04:59, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
 * If Wikipedia got sued, they'd win. It's a matter of free speech with numbers, not copyright.  There's no infringement.  But that's neither hear nor there.  Soccernamlak 05:07, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a storage locker for encryption circumvention and encryption keys. The problem with Wikipedia being sued would be that the MPAA and friends have much, much deeper pockets than we do. I'm afraid I have no faith that the MPAA couldn't simply forum-shop and buy whatever they needed to damage us far more than Wikipedia posting the key is worth. At least wait until after our legal representatives have looked the situation over before putting us in jeopardy? ~Kylu ( u | t )  05:17, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm glad you feel wikipedia operates under regulation from major affluent organizations. That's really what wikipedia was built for.  but hey--68.148.43.152 07:09, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

User 68.148.43.152 I would suggest writing them a check then to cover any and all legal costs they would incur from fighting this. Unless you plan on doing so, I don't understand why you would expect them to take on those costs themselves. And by, they, I mean the Wikipedia Foundation. The same people who already pay for the servers and bandwidth. Kchambers 07:23, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I understand the wiki foundation operates on a low budget, and donations are required to keep it up. But the attitude of living in fear and submitting to insane amounts of bureaucracy is damaging it.  Removing an illegal number after legal blackmail from a large organization is understandable - in fact, I'd bet many MPAA employees are wikiers as well.  Actively suppressing information for no reason than to impress those higher up in the food chain counters the principles of open source - the foundations upon which this encyclopedia was built.  I don't care if there was a cease and desist; it's not like many of the wiki users are expected to watch over every page for a black information.  Even more unnerving is when one wiki user (for lack of a better word) threatens another with the possible costs wikipedia would be subjected to because the MPAA says so.  I'm a regular wikier (protecting my identity now, I'm sure you could probably find out if you're a mod).  These constantly increasing "copyright restrictions" is damaging the wiki, and events such as this could even be distantly considered encouragement of POV toward the richer organizations.  I'm not personally attacking anyone, I'm attacking the attitude of fear and submission toward the more powerful - it's very unencyclopedic.  Somewhat related...see here for inspiration.  Regards, --68.148.43.152 07:58, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

As far a the AACS number, any digital data (text, movies, music) can be represented as a number, so a number can be copyrighted (and a trade secret). The number, while probably illegal, is not a prime. I think the HD-DVD section should probably be removed, or at least the hex itself should be. (just my opinion)--60.225.193.35 07:22, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry for starting this storm of sorts with this topic on this page. It was a question that was on my mind.  I agree that the AACS number is almost definitely in the same category of "illegal numbers", but is most definitely not a prime, and as such doesn't belong directly on this page, except maybe as a related link.  My assumption is that while the field of "illegal numbers" used to be an iff statement with illegal primes, that the umbrella term of "illegal number" has now expanded, and may very well expand more in the future, and as such probably should be no longer forwarded to "illegal prime". 76.172.89.201 07:34, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

The "illegal number" page points here, however the intro makes no mention of this fact, violating Wikipedia style guides. Lets fix that!--Cerejota 07:26, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Restoring numbers
Even if the number is large, it has encyclopedic value. Removing it substantially substracts from the value of the article.

Removing it without discussion even after it was a featured article with the numbers, well, that is a big lapse in judgement, I will offer...--Cerejota 07:15, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Allegation of densitude
User:Unloud accuses me of being dense and of having an agenda. However, it seems we are all to dense and agenda-ridden to discuss in the talk pages.

I am restoring his edit, and hope he will discuss his comments. He might be right, but we do not know, as he chose accusations and inuendo to discussion.--Cerejota 07:21, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

protection template
It's incorrectly put as semi, but I'm a mature account and can't edit. Can a kind admin change it to full protection? Thanks. 68.41.65.7 11:23, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

editprotected
 * The article itself is only semi-protected. (You seem to have been logged out by mistake.) --ais523 11:25, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Yup. I was somehow logged out on this computer. Oops.... xDD ~Crazytales 11:26, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Clarification
I don't understand this:
 * Protests against the indictment of DeCSS author Jon Johansen and legislation prohibiting publication of DeCSS code took many forms. One of them was the representation of the illegal code in a form that had an intrinsically archivable quality.

"One of them" - one of the forms of protest? It doesn't make much sense to me. I would like to know what is special about something that is "intrinsically archivable". There seems to be something about the historical context missing here. Also, is there any discussion about whether the numbers actually are "illegal" and what the ramifications of that are? Stevage 14:28, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

executable
one should tell which computer architecture is the mentioned executable for. Torzsmokus 00:52, 3 May 2007 (UTC)


 * This is discussed above, under "Executable on what." I don't understand the topic well enough to be confident adding the info and attached reference, but you should go ahead and do it. Inhumandecency 00:08, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Redirect/Merge?
Someone just redirected Illegal number page to Illegal prime. I just undid that; if anything, I would recommend merging Illegal Prime into Illegal Number (all primes are numbers, but not all numbers are primes). In any case, discussion is required, we should not go for an immediate redirect. samwaltz 01:25, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Isn't this a violation of freedom of speech?
Please add the following text somewhere in the main article:

"Many people feel that this notion that a number can become "illegal" to possess, utter or propagate, is a direct violation and threat against the inalienable human right to freedom of speech." —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.74.105.1 (talk) 10:22, 5 May 2007 (UTC).
 * Wikipedia requires reliable sources for the content of aticles. We have many articles related to Freedom of speech in Category:Freedom of expression. This particular article is about a concept which I believe was called "Illegal prime" by the inventor at creation time, but as far as I know has not (in the articles form) been the subject of lawsuits or threats of legal action. I don't think this article is the best place to mention concerns about hypothetical things which haven't happened and may never happen about this articles subject, "illegal primes". Talk:DeCSS is probably a better place to discuss your concerns. PrimeHunter 13:16, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Patented primes
It would probably be appropriate to mention US Patent 5373560, which has been described by Mathworld as a patent on two specific primes. The patent actually also covers some specific non-prime numbers too (the "generators" mentioned in claims 36 and 40, qv.) so it might be of interest to the Illegal number article as well, once the dust settles over there. 67.158.73.188 01:48, 9 May 2007 (UTC)


 * That patent is worthless if the goal was to patent a number. A method of reaching that number can be patented, but not the number itself. --  Orbit  One    [ Talk 05:21, 10 May 2007 (UTC)


 * They changed the policy on that a while ago, they will now consider patents for numbers themselves that have novel uses. --Ray andrew 18:25, 10 May 2007 (UTC)


 * The patent has been described by a reliable source as a patent on the numbers per se. 67.158.73.188 13:50, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Except, it doesn't work in courts. I looked into the case of Roger Schlafly. He did patent a number, but this case is different in that the company didn't find the number itself and the number was produced by a program not written by them. The patent is therefor worthless and should not be taken into consideration when deciding on if it should or should not be included in this article. --OrbitOne (talk) 16:23, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

"executable"??
I assume this is trying to say that the number is machine code of some kind. But for what machine? Numbers of course cannot have the property of being "executable", instead, a number (in binary representation, of course) can have the coincidental attribute of being a valid program for a given system.

Perhaps this should be better explained, at at least specify what target platform this number is executable on? I.e. x86? i686? PowerPC? Java VM??

143.127.3.10 20:47, 11 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, this should definately be cleared up. x86 if it is that is not the only machine code in existence and it has many subarchitectures. --MarSch 13:17, 13 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Again, this is mentioned in a section above1812ahill (talk) 01:24, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Illegal Prime in Rock Paper Scissors
Illegal prime in the game of Rock Paper Scissors is a prime (hand movements before throwing down your play) that are done in illegal fashion. One of the longer segments in the telecast involves a player's repeatedly engaging in an ``illegal prime, which antagonizes the crowd but also disorients his opponent. '' — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.189.120.119 (talk)
 * A blog is not considered a reliable source by Wikipedia. I could not find signs that this meaning of "illegal prime" is used in reliable sources. PrimeHunter 16:55, 16 May 2007 (UTC)