09 F9 11 why don't you do something useful with your lives? 16 years, 11 months ago by Martey Dodoo

GNOME developer David Trowbridge on why the mobs posting a certain hexadecimal number around various places on the Internet are not being productive:

Most of the people copying this key did so under some delusional notion of "free speech" or "numbers not being copyrightable". Under current US law (regardless of what you think of it), this number is part of an "circumvention device", and as such is not under copyright, but is it also not protected speech. This number has no artistic merit or value beyond its purpose towards breaking the DRM on HD-DVD products. As far as I'm concerned, it's just garbage that I've had shoved in my face constantly for the last few days.

By posting this number on your blog/web site/google notebook/tattoo-on-your-chest (I'm not making that up), you are not making a valuable contribution to the world. You are not even inconveniencing the AACS-LA or their lawyers.

The vast majority of people only do what is easy for them. Posting a number in a comment on a website or at the bottom of your email is far simpler than doing something constructive, like complaining to the AACS-LA or boycotting HD-DVD products. Dell is going to provide Ubuntu on some of its laptops not because millions of Linux users sent in letters, but because Dell's IdeaStorm website made it ridiculously easy to voice support for new features. The members of the AACS-LA (which include several influential technology companies) have no such incentive to be transparent, so it is up to the public to attract their attention.