[Foundation-l] 09-f9-...

[Yann Forget]

Hello,

So OK, various knowledgeable people said this number is illegal. Adding
it to non related articles is not appropriate.

Other have made quite strange and disproportionate comparisons. Some
talk about credit card fraud. I can't imagine what this serious crime
has to do with publish a number which can't be used alone as it is. We
don't get free DVDs with this key alone. Some talk about child
pornography. Should I remember them that child pornography is injury
done to a child. Where is the injury here? If anything, this is more
injury to our freedom that anything else.

Anthony a écrit :
> But that raises a question.  Is it illegal for a Wikimedia dev to add
> the number into the spam blacklist, or for Wikimedia to store the
> number in the spam blacklist, or for a dev to send an email to another
> dev with the number in it, for the purpose of telling them to set up
> the spam blacklist?
>
> How about the block log?  There are users blocked that have the number
> in their username.  Is the block log now illegal?

These are interesting questions. I think it shows how absurd is the ban
on this number.

> But I agree that it's silly to say it's OK to distribute the
> information simply because it can be expressed as a number.

That's exactly what I ask. A number can't patented. A number can't be
copyrighted. A number is just a code. To get useful information, you
need to know how to decode the information hidden in the number. So it
seems to me that a number alone is not usefull information (except as a
pure mathematical object) unless you know how to get the information out
of it. So where is the limit?

Further more, a ban on a plain number is completely absurd as it can
always be included in another number, or it can be broken up in a
formula. So to ban a number, you have to ban all numbers and all formulas.

Is 09-f9-... + 1 illegal?
Is x * y * ... + ... + z (= 09-f9-...) illegal?

I hope that people start to realise how the discussion stands on the head.

I think that we are making dangerous compromise with one of our basic
principles: freedom, we are impairing our capability to write a free
encyclopedia. I am afraid that if we can't stand up for this useless and
obsolete key, we will make more serious compromise with our basic
principles when we will face bigger challenges.

So we can't write this number in a news or a Wikipedia article about
this affair. So do we change our projects because the law prevent us to
do so? Ok, the objective of Wikipedia is not to change the law. But
where is the limit?

Ultimately I would like to know what people think about the limit we
have and we give to our freedom.

Todd Allen a écrit :
> What about publishing the number in an article that has everything to
> do with it?

Nobody has answered this which seems to me the most interesting question
of this thread.

Sorry for my broken English.

Regards,

Yann
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