[WikiEN-l] Fwd: IDG press enquiry regarding the HD-DVD controversy

[geni]

On 5/4/07, Todd Allen <toddmallen at gmail.com> wrote:
> No, it is assuming that Wikipedia's mission is to be a reference work,
> otherwise known as an encyclopedia. The last message we want to send
> is "If you're big and bad enough, and you don't like what we say, make
> rumblings about a lawsuit. It'll be gone within the hour." The message
> we want to send is "We're a reference work. We publish numerical
> values all over the place. It's not a "circumvention tool", it is a
> -number-. Its decimal value is somewhere around 1.325E37.
>

It is however part of a technology, product, service, device or component
that is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of
circumventing a technological protection measure that effectively
controls access to a work protected under this title

> That's it, that's all. Avogadro's number is around 6.022E23. What if
> this number also happened to be Avogadro's number? Would that now be
> an illegal number, that chemists and physicists fear to speak?

No because it has a commercially significant purpose or use other than
to circumvent a technological protection measure that effectively
controls access to a work protected under this title

>If it's
> the number of atoms in a sample that a scientist comes up with while
> writing a paper, has that scientist written an "illegal paper"? What
> about the number of kilometers from here to a given point in space?
> This number could represent any or all of those things, and I
> guarantee you, somewhere, there's a sample with that many atoms in it,
> and a point in space that many kilometers away.
>

In the first case the scientist would be fired for lying in their
paper (there is no way to count that number of atoms that exactly). In
the second well we will worry about that when it happens.

> A number is not a "circumvention device". It is a numeric value.

This number is part of a circumvention device. That is the only reason
people are spreading it.

> The
> hex code makes it look all exotic (if you're not a programmer,
> anyway), but it's -just a number-. God forbid they ever use really
> weak encryption, or we'll be prohibited from saying 2+2=4. More on
> that below.

Um actualy my plan was to make an encryption device useing "1" as the
key but no matter.

In reality Sec. 1201 2(b) & Sec. 1201 2(c) largely prevent that kind of abuse.

-- 
geni