IP: Illegal Prime Number?

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2001 16:07:28 -0400
> To: "David J. Farber" <farber () cis upenn edu>
> From: "Tice F. DeYoung" <tdeyoung () mail arc nasa gov>
>
> Dave,
>
>    A friend of mine sent me this.  I have not checked its validity, so 
> reader beware.  Nevertheless, this is interesting; but I wonder where 
> people find the time to do such things?
>
> Tice
>
> Use it for IP, if you so desire.
>
>
> > This may be the first known illegal prime. What folks often forget is a
> > program (any file actually) is a string of bits (binary digits)--so
> > every program is a number. Some of these are prime.
> >
> > http://www.utm.edu/research/primes/curios/485...443.html
> >
> > When written in base 16 (hexidecimal), this prime forms a gzip file of
> > the original C-source code (sans tables) that decrypts the DVD Movie
> > encryption scheme (DeCSS). See Gallery of CSS Descramblers (and its
> > Steganography Wing) for more information. It is apparantly illegal to
> > distribute this source code in the United States, so does that make this
> > number (found by Phil Carmody) also illegal?



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