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Illegal Prime Number? (2001)

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Re: Illegal Prime Number? (2001)

#41

Post by loeg »

skrebbel wrote: post #8

Some context for people younger than me: This was a Big Thing On The Internet back in 2000. It was lovely, and it was where I discovered how a bunch of motivated nerds on the internet could make a dent. So anyway, the thing was DVDs were pretty new, and DVDs had "region protection". Cutting corners, this means that data on DVDs could be encrypted with different keys depending on which continent you were on, to allow…

> Internally the encryption scheme was called CSS, chosen by people who I assume didn't code websites much.

"CSS" in this case stands for "Content Scrambling System." It may well predate the common use of CSS (stylesheets) on the web. They both originated around 1996.

Re: Illegal Prime Number? (2001)

#42

Post by ghaff »

Gargoyle wrote: post #40
ghaff wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd never have guessed that. Netflix must have been around for quite a while before it became a big thing.

This was circulating on Twitter this week: https://twitter.com/JonErlichman/status/947909247836319744 Here's how old these companies will be turning in 2018: Snapchat: 7 years Uber: 9 years Twitter: 12 years Facebook: 14 years Tesla: 15 years Google: 20 years Netflix: 21 years Amazon: 24 years Apple: 42 years Intel: 50 years HP: 79 years Disney: 95 years IBM: 107 years

Amazon and Google I knew had been around since the late 90s as I used both of them fairly early on. I still have a couple of coffee cups I got as "Christmas presents" from Amazon in early years as thanks for being a customer.

Facebook I started with while it still required a school address.

It does look though as if I started using Netflix in late 2001. So not that much later.

Re: Illegal Prime Number? (2001)

#43

Post by skrebbel »

sdrothrock wrote: post #18
skrebbel wrote: post #8

Some context for people younger than me: This was a Big Thing On The Internet back in 2000. It was lovely, and it was where I discovered how a bunch of motivated nerds on the internet could make a dent. So anyway, the thing was DVDs were pretty new, and DVDs had "region protection". Cutting corners, this means that data on DVDs could be encrypted with different keys depending on which continent you were on, to allow…

> This was a Big Thing On The Internet back in 2000 . . . before the Pirate Bay, broadband, and Netflix. Just a nitpick, but this was not before Netflix; I remember this vividly because I was called to a friend's house to troubleshoot their problems with Netflix DVDs and it was because their DVD player had been purchased off ebay for cheap and was region-locked. The super-cheap DVD rentals offered by Netflix were rea…

Just to nitpick your nitpick, that Netflix had little in common with the current Netflix. In fact, it supports my story because Netflix was a DVD rental service at the time.

Eg IMO it's fair to say that Motorola phones were there before Nokia. It's a true statement unless you mean Nokia, the well known Finnish manufacturer of bike tyres, rubber boots and television sets.

Re: Illegal Prime Number? (2001)

#44

Post by lakofsth »

skrebbel wrote: post #8

Some context for people younger than me: This was a Big Thing On The Internet back in 2000. It was lovely, and it was where I discovered how a bunch of motivated nerds on the internet could make a dent. So anyway, the thing was DVDs were pretty new, and DVDs had "region protection". Cutting corners, this means that data on DVDs could be encrypted with different keys depending on which continent you were on, to allow…

I still have that t-shirt with the decss code on the back.

Re: Illegal Prime Number? (2001)

#45

Post by pault »

ghaff wrote: post #39
sdrothrock wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This was a Big Thing On The Internet back in 2000 . . . before the Pirate Bay, broadband, and Netflix. Just a nitpick, but this was not before Netflix; I remember this vividly because I was called to a friend's house to troubleshoot their problems with Netflix DVDs and it was because their DVD player had been purchased off ebay for cheap and was region-locked. The super-cheap DVD rentals offered by Netflix were rea…

I'd never have guessed that. Netflix must have been around for quite a while before it became a big thing.

I remember having a Netflix DVD subscription when I was still using Yahoo search and getting my munchies from Kozmo.com. Funny thing, only in the last few years have new services begun to match the convenience of the original Kozmo. It was a sad, sad day when they burned through their last VC dollar. :)

Re: Illegal Prime Number? (2001)

#46

Post by wodenokoto »

bad_alloc wrote: post #9
skrebbel wrote: post #8

Some context for people younger than me: This was a Big Thing On The Internet back in 2000. It was lovely, and it was where I discovered how a bunch of motivated nerds on the internet could make a dent. So anyway, the thing was DVDs were pretty new, and DVDs had "region protection". Cutting corners, this means that data on DVDs could be encrypted with different keys depending on which continent you were on, to allow…

Thank you for this writeup, this was before my time on the internet. > People remixed each other's work until the core DeCSS algorithm was only a single line of code. Gzipped, there was nearly nothing left What was the actual number? Can you post it here?

Check out the gallery of css

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/

Re: Illegal Prime Number? (2001)

#47

Post by gcb0 »

DanBC wrote: post #17
lozenge wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another aspect you didn't mention is how the number came to be illegal in the first place. The law for it was signed in 1998 and is one of very few laws that outlaws distributing information regardless of how you got the information. It outlaws bypassing any DRM, regardless of how trivial it is mathematically, the legitimate purpose of doing so, or even whether the content inside the DRM is copyrighted.

Yes. > > You could change the "region" on your DVD player or computer, but only 3 times or so. Before this law the shops selling DVD players (for TVs, not computers) would also give you a sheet of paper with a controller code to turn your machine into a region free player. You'd tap some numbers into the remote control. After these laws (which were introduced across the world) shops would no loner do this because it…

they did that till the very end.

they just realized it was the ultimate killer feature so it was cleverly removed from the lower end models. the high end ones could always be turned region free. in the very end the ones with multidisk and what not could be factory reset to clear the 3 region change restriction.

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