There's a funny hysteria going on over at Digg (a great source of people ranting about impeaching Bush, BTW) over the complete sequence of the above code. Apparently with it, and an expensive DVD-HD player, and expensive HD DVDs, you can copy the movie of Pearl Harbor to your computer, assuming you have a really big hard drive, and watch it whenever you want!

http://digg.com/news

Strike a blow against The Man! Memorize that code!

You've got the story mixed up a bit, but you can learn more by visiting any of the 22,000+ sites from this Google search, all of which the movie industry apparently thinks it's going to sue:

http://www.google.com/search?rls=GGG...=Google+Search

A random sampling will show that a few are intimidated but most are not.

Hell's teeth who would ever want to watch such a complete stinky flop of a fillum to go to the trouble of copying it?

Yeah, I know I just have a vague idea about how this sequence is actual used to crack the encryption, but it's fun to see the upsurge of postings after the movie industry started trying to suppress the code. Full story http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/0...w_hddvdbl.html

This is a good one. The hex codes for the colors in this image are the sequence if you add c0 to the end. Clever.

Hell's teeth who would ever want to watch such a complete stinky flop of a fillum to go to the trouble of copying it? - Leccy

Yes, kids playing baseball at 7 am on Sunday morning. Only in Hawaii....er, Hollywood.

It royally sucked worse than anything I could have imagined. The posters were great though. (really, Tolliday, they were great!, especially the three paneled one.)

Originally Posted by Treetop

Yes, kids playing baseball at 7 am on Sunday morning. Only in Hawaii....er, Hollywood.

It royally sucked worse than anything I could have imagined. The posters were great though. (really, Tolliday, they were great!, especially the three paneled one.)

Thanks for the kudos. I was very proud of the work we did, and then I saw the movie.

Uggh!

You should see some of the ones that didn't make it. I have one poster which looks almost like a rice paper painting with the vertical Japanese title much larger then the small English title. Sort of like the poster was done in post war Japan. It's way cool.

There's always some dissaffected malcontent that has a jones that "Information should be free".

That the "Information" consists of someone else's private property is irrelevant apparently.

I for one, learned something from that movie!

How NOT to open a champagne bottle!

Sounds like a case of spending a dollar to save a dime.

Given the potential ramifications of investigations and/or legal action against the responsible 'hackers' (if traced down), and possibly against individuals who are found to be using the hacks, it makes a lot more sense to just borrow or buy the dang movies.

The movie industry has at least as much money for hiring investigators and attorneys as the music industry does. I wouldn't want to be caught trying to use these kinds of hacks, or even asking specific questions on blogs about them. People leave footprints on the web that they don't even know about in most cases, and corporate attorneys love making examples out of such people who think their small-time status or anonymity shields them from prosecution, then publicizing it.

Rick

As far as I know that particular string of numbers and letters is not copyrighted. A little late for that now, I'm afraid.

The lengths companies go to to prevent copying is rather intense. From my point of view it's annoying as heck. There are alot of games that you won't be able to play if you have certain software installed (Nero Imagedrive, for instance), there is software that will not run unless the *original* CD is inserted (even though 99.99% of it is on the HDD), and there are DVD's that won't play on computers. It's very annoying but luckily there are computer whiz's out there that provide work arounds so I can have the convience of using software I buy without jumping through a million hoops. I also don't particularly like being unable to use something because I have another companies product on my machine. Daemon Tools, I love you.

It is futile to expect encryption to hold on a widely distributed media that is going to be playable on a manufactured device. It's not when it will be hacked, but how long will it take. Apparently, not very long.

Originally Posted by Wufnu

As far as I know that particular string of numbers and letters is not copyrighted. A little late for that now, I'm afraid.

Just like owning a 'random' string of characters separated by dashes (AKA a Product Key) isn't illegal, since random letters and numbers aren't generally copyrighted.

It's what you do to a copyrighted piece of software with them that creates the legal issue.

It amazes me how so many people can come up with so many arguments relating to being 'inconvenienced', wherein they feel justified in either pirating or circumventing copy protections.

I know it's as widespread as air, but that doesn't make it legal or moral. It's outright theft in the worst case, and violating the agreed to terms of the software EULA at the very least. In the end, it costs everybody more.

One thing is for sure, software publishers are probably losing almost as much revenue in software theft and illegal use as they are making through legal sales. I don't know what the answer is, but I do feel for them. Further, it angers me that I probably have to pay more for my legal software as a result of companies trying to minimize their losses from this type of theft.

Rick

No doubt about it. I DOES cost you more, and has for a long time. I believe they get money from each disk sold, no matter what they're used for? Both the RIAA and MPAA.

As for legality, I'm not sure there's anything illegal about having a product key either. If someone happens to guess it, is that also illegal? Is the string of numbers themselves illegal or only when they're used to activate software? I can only wonder. Most likely it's somewhere in the EULA, but if it's in the EULA then the key itself isn't illegal to own as long as you don't use it. Of course, we know why it was cracked so lets not even pretend.

And the stuff they put on their discs is amazingly annoying. You can downplay it if you want but they've gotten crazy about it. It will not only say that it won't run with certain programs but it'll load other software onto your computer that is nigh unto impossible to close; if you do manage to close both processes fast enough that they don't automatically reload each other, the program won't work. If the processes are working, other software won't. Hey, last I checked, this was MY computer o.O

Originally Posted by lrsudog

There's always some dissaffected malcontent that has a jones that "Information should be free".

That the "Information" consists of someone else's private property is irrelevant apparently.

Word. Many if not most people using this code are most likely thieves. And if the motion picture folks can't sue all 22,000 sites, they should hire more laywers and figure out how to, or hire them all and come up with some unique ways of messing them up in return. Theft requires no fairness in return.

Here is a question, I purchased a VHS tape of a movie, is it permissable to create a copy onto a DVD for my own personal use? Many of the movies that I purchased in VHS format are not available on DVDs and with good VHS players becoming scarse I would like to transfer my collection to DVD.

Jerry