illegal number
lorecryptographyprivacyops culture
A number whose mere possession or publication is claimed to be unlawful, the reductio ad absurdum of information control.
When DVD encryption was broken, Phil Carmody found a prime number that literally is the DeCSS decryption code, executable when unpacked, making a prime arguably illegal to publish. In May 2007 the AACS consortium sent takedowns for the 16-byte HD DVD processing key beginning 09 F9, and Digg's users answered by posting it in songs, images, and T-shirts until the site's operators surrendered to the flood. Every such episode restates the same theorem: bits are numbers, numbers are speech, and secrecy by legal threat does not survive contact with the Streisand effect.
Also known as: 09 F9, illegal prime