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HD-DVD Key Furor Creates Opportunity for Local Developer
1points
An article was recently posted on the technical news site digg.com that announce the cracking of the security key that encrypts the information contained on the new HD-DVD disks. After receiving a cease and desist style letter, the operators of digg.com decided to remove the story.
Unfortunately, in the age of Citizen Journalism, this wasn't the best move. It kicked of a firestorm of protest posts, all containing the encryption key, with thousands of comments decrying the action of digg.com's editors.
A Perth web developer, Myles Eftos, noticed that the key resembled the codes used to designate colours on web pages, and created a web site to sell t-shirts that contain the colours represented by the code.
The security code is part of a system designed to control the content on the disks, preventing unauthorised use. There is a large contingent of anti Digital Rights Management campaigners who say that by locking in the content, the manufacturers are in fact limiting their markets. The reaction to the events on digg are a manifestation of this sentiment.
Comments
gotta get me a tshirt they are just so cool!
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If I say I like them, does that proof I am now a geek… It’s not like I really know what it all means…much…
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Digg it here:
http://digg.com/programming/Buy_that_code_on_a_tee_as_hex_values
and here
http://digg.com/tech_news/HD_DVD_T_Shirt
And it’s on Boing Boing!
http://boingboing.net/
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Strange as it may seem, all colours used in digital media are encoded as bits. Typically, 3 colours per point (Red, Green, Blue) and then 8 bits for each colour. The 8 bits just represent an intensity level from 0-255 where 0 is no colour and 255 is full intensity Red, Blue or Green.
Some basic colours are represented as
Red = 255,0,0 (Full Red, no green, no blue)
Green = 0,255,0
Blue = 0,0,255
Black = 0,0,0
White = 255,255,255
…easy so far…
Now… since computers work in Hex codes, each number from 0-255 is written as the hexadecimal equivalent, 00-FF. So really, a colour is just a string of 3 hex codes.
Now…if you think for a moment, ANY string of 3 hex codes can be read as a colour. In fact, any string of decimal numbers (since decimal is a subset of hexadecimal) can be read as a colour - all you need is 6 digits, and if you can throw in any of the letters A through F, so much the better.
There is no way that any random string of numbers “resembles” the way computers encode colour. Computers encode everything in hex, colour, data, names, phone numbers…its all in how you interpret it. For 16 pairs of digits (the key listed above) … you get 5 colours (each colour needs 3 pairs) plus the last pair all on its lone some. Of course you can interpret that “C0″ at the end as “C0C0C0″….a dark grey, the colour of the shirt….
All in all though…I like Myles’s entrepreneurial style in finding a market for a random string of numbers.
Well done.
PS: take any six digits (birthday, phone number etc), split it into 3 pairs, convert from hex to decimal, and then start Windows “Paint” and use the three decimal numbers to discover your personal “Magic Colour”
My mobile number (not counting the telstra prefix) is: 538 234 or 53 82 34
Thats 83, 130, 52 in decimal. 83 Red, 120 Green, 52 Blue gives a kind of darkish, pine needle green….
My phone is Scandinavian green.
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Thanks Ozone!
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Recommended reads about it on slashdot (browse at +3):
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