Ask HN: Fable hacked my piano, can I release the results? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Fable hacked my piano, can I release the results?

#61

Post by radicalcentrist » Mon, Sep 07, 2026, 7:09 AM UTC

lodovic wrote: post #57

saturn8601 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the companies start auto subpoenaing the AI companies to try and tie the code to an account?

Do companies in the US really have the right to do that? I would think that kind of investigation is reserved for law enforcement only. If the design was made over email, would the piano company be able to subpoena Google for someone's private gmail messages?

Consider previous cases where companies like Reddit have unmasked their users at the behest of court order.

Re: Ask HN: Fable hacked my piano, can I release the results?

#62

Post by loa_in_ » Mon, Sep 07, 2026, 7:11 AM UTC

arjie wrote: post #12

The nature of these tools is that your post and the device should suffice to replicate so in some sense you have already published the encoder and the decoder.

I imagine it hexdumps it and looks for patterns.

Re: Ask HN: Fable hacked my piano, can I release the results?

#63

Post by ted_dunning » Mon, Sep 07, 2026, 7:23 AM UTC

gbnwl wrote: post #49

This is a nit but his name is actually Erik Satie not Eric Satre.

It's a nit. They made a typo.

Re: Ask HN: Fable hacked my piano, can I release the results?

#64

Post by ted_dunning » Mon, Sep 07, 2026, 7:27 AM UTC

jmpman wrote: post #5

Redster wrote: post #2

IANAL, but it might be relevant to others trying to answer what jurisdiction you are in. (US, EU, CN, JP, elsewhere?) Also, when you bought from PianoDisc, did you agree to abide by a certain jurisdiction's laws in your use of PianoDisc? And did you explicitly agree to not share any sort of decoder/encoder in any ToS?

US. https://store.pianodisc.com/pages/terms-of-service-and-condi... I don't see details about them mentioning and decoder or encoder.

I think that is the terms and conditions of the web site, not the hardware product.

Re: Ask HN: Fable hacked my piano, can I release the results?

#65

Post by layer8 » Mon, Sep 07, 2026, 7:31 AM UTC

Rather than publishing the decoder and/or encoder, it would be more interesting to publish how the decoy scheme works in detail. We want to understand how things work, not blindly use tools that we could build ourselves based on that understanding.

Re: Ask HN: Fable hacked my piano, can I release the results?

#66

Post by Tepix » Mon, Sep 07, 2026, 7:35 AM UTC

Doohickey-d wrote: post #32

Giefo6ah wrote: post #15

If you live in the USA, the "decoy notes" may be considered an "effective technical measure" from the "Digital Millennium Copyright Act". If you live in Europe, this restriction may be considered "gatekeeping" and exempted by the Digital Markets Act. Don't bring attention to yourself by asking for permission. Publish your codec, and if the company cares about this they will send a cease and desist. If you want the wo…

If you don't want to be responsible for it, another way is to just publish it anonymously: make a GitHub that isn't attached to your real name etc, perhaps using a one-off disposable email address, and put it there. Then you don't have to think about what the lawyers think. Worst case it'll get taken down, but by that point it'll likely be popular enough that there'll be plenty of copies. [Pirate flag emoji here]

Sure, on github it will (still) get the most attention, but perhaps another repository outside the US is a better fit.

You could also create a text document instead of a software that details the mechanism used to fool other MIDI decoders and publish only that (for now).

Finally, familiarize yourself with the Art. 6 Software Directive (2009/24/EC) / §69e UrhG — decompilation for interoperability. It may be your ticket for a legal status in Germany/EU.

Re: Ask HN: Fable hacked my piano, can I release the results?

#67

Post by nmeofthestate » Mon, Sep 07, 2026, 7:39 AM UTC

You should just ask AI, since you used AI to make the encoder and write your HN post.

Re: Ask HN: Fable hacked my piano, can I release the results?

#68

Post by piefayth » Mon, Sep 07, 2026, 7:40 AM UTC

layer8 wrote: post #65

Rather than publishing the decoder and/or encoder, it would be more interesting to publish how the decoy scheme works in detail. We want to understand how things work, not blindly use tools that we could build ourselves based on that understanding.

I do think that “decoy notes” is the kind of potential hallucination that warrants manual investigation.

Re: Ask HN: Fable hacked my piano, can I release the results?

#69

Post by sdoering » Mon, Sep 07, 2026, 7:40 AM UTC

One caution regarding the suggestions to publish this anonymously: this Ask HN post has already linked the project to your existing HN account. Your public comment history contains enough self-disclosed geographic, professional, family, purchase and ownership details that identifying you would likely be fairly straightforward for a motivated investigator.

I won't enumerate those details here.

The AI provider may also have account, payment, IP and conversation records connecting the generated code to you. An unrelated GitHub account and disposable email would therefore provide only superficial pseudonymity, not meaningful anonymity.

If attribution would create a material legal risk, I would assume the project is already attributable. A civil plaintiff could potentially seek records through discovery, and law enforcement could use the appropriate legal process. Getting actual legal advice before publishing seems safer than trying to anonymize it after posting this thread.

Re: Ask HN: Fable hacked my piano, can I release the results?

#70

Post by doawoo » Mon, Sep 07, 2026, 7:40 AM UTC

Did you really need to ask a massive LLM and burn tokens on this?? A few minutes of googling has revealed a huge amount of this information just laying out in the open, and, a whole tool to author your own files that someone sells as independent software! (https://www.kinura.net/mid2pianocd/)