Between the time when the oceans drank Atlantis, and the rise of Silicon Valley, there was an age undreamed of…
Movies were sold on big reels of tape, wound up inside little plastic boxes.
And played on machines called VCRs.
And if you wanted to create a copy of a movie, you could hook two of these machines together and do it with no problem. In fact, it was ruled in a court of law that it was a fair use of someone elses copyrighted movie to make yourself an archival copy, so that if your tape broke, or the machine ‘ate it’ you wouldn’t have to buy another one.
Hollywood didn’t care for this.
So, when the digital age dawned, someone came up with the bright idea of selling movies on DVDs. And one of the big selling points, so far as Hollywood was concerned, was that you could encrypt the data of the movie on the disc, and put hardware to decrypt it in the DVD player, in such a way that it wouldn’t play if two DVD players were hooked together, and so that someone who put a DVD into a computer couldn’t copy it.
Techies and hackers didn’t care for this.
So, they started trying to figure out how to cryptanalyze the DVDs, which were encrypted with a tech called CSS, for Content Scrambling System. And they didn’t have much luck, because crypto is hard, and breaking it is harder. And then one day they caught a lucky break.
Some manufacturers of DVD players, from Taiwan iirc, put out a new product, one of which was bought by a hacker somewhere, who tinkered with it and realized that the makers had made a mistake. They hadn’t properly protected the chips that contained the CSS decryption key, which allowed this guy to get access to it and copy it. He then created a program called DeCSS, which would allow you to put a DVD in a computer and then ‘rip’ the data to your hard drive, then write it to another DVD. He posted it online, and within hours the news, and copies of the key and code, had spread all over the world.
Hollywood flipped their shit over this.
They brought the legal hammer down on this guy, and it ended up in court. He said he had a right, as per the previous Fair Use ruling, regarding VHS tapes, to copy DVDs as well. When people had previously complained that encryption was stripping them of their rights, Hollywood had argued that there was nothing in the law that said they had to make copying easy, and basically challenged them to figure out how to break it. In the court case, Hollywood argued that under a new law that had passed, the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, it was illegal to circumvent an DRM, or Digital Rights Management system. The plaintiffs counter-argued that they hadn’t really reversed engineered anything, that the dumb machines had been built wrong, that they had a right to tinker with it and see how it worked.
So, sitting between these parties was a judge who… to put it kindly, was probably in over his head. Probably some old guy, the kind of guy who still owned a VCR with the clocking blinking 12:00 PM because he didn’t know how to adjust the time. An old grandpa sorta guy. Maybe not a bad guy, just clueless about how tech works. So, when Hollywood argued that there should be some sort of injunction against the spread of the DeCSS software online, that it should be illegal for people to host it, or for others to download it, or to tell people how it worked, or even to link to it, gramps said, “Sure, why not? Here you go, here’s an order that says it’s illegal to possess this software.”
Well, the tech people freaked out about this, because it contradicted a number of already established precedents. Like Phil Zimmermann publishing the source code of PGP and shipping the books containing it to Europe, despite the fact that the encryption tech it contained had been ruled a munition that couldn’t be sold overseas. The precedent, that code was speech, and therefore subject to first amendment protections, seemed to be being thwarted in the DeCSS case. And the tech/hacker community wanted to make it clear that they weren’t going to stand for that.
So, some bright person somewhere, went out and got himself a shirt made, that had the source code of DeCSS printed on it, along with some quote from the order basically saying that it was illegal to buy or own this shirt, then started selling them on his website. This clever idea opened a floodgate of people coming up with unique ways to spread the source code of DeCSS, in a way that was tempting the court to try to stop them, on the grounds that the ruling would then go to a higher court and be turned over on first amendment grounds.
“Take t5’s low byte (AND t5 with two hundred fifty five) to put it
in the ith byte of the vector called k. Now shift t5 right eight bits;
store the result in t5 again. Now that’s the last step in the loop.
No sooner have we finished that loop than we’ll start another; no rest
for the wicked nor those innocents whom lawyers serve with paperwork.”
One of these people, Phil Carmody, raised an interesting argument. He said that software is just numbers. In fact, every piece of software is a single number, that is also a infinite number of numbers (or practically so) as there are nearly an infinite number of mathematical conversions or encodings you can perform on a number. So he wrote a little script version of DeCSS, then converted it to a number, then started to look to see if this number was the same as another somewhere. Was it hidden somewhere in pi? Or the Golden Ratio? What if you doubled it? or added 1 to it?
And after some searching, he found a list of the largest known prime numbers, wherein the 19th largest prime that had been found by that time, was the same as his code for DeCSS. So he posted this info online, and said, “If you go to this website, take this prime number, and save it in a file, then compile it, the output is this piece of software that is illegal to possess, transmit, or share information about.” Here it is, by the way:
Carmody argued, if the ruling that it’s illegal to do these things with the DeCSS software
holds up, then it’s also illegal to possess, transmit, or share
information about this prime number. It will become an illegal number. It would have to be redacted from websites, and whatever books it might appear in. People searching for new primes, or any other number, will have to worry about sharing them online, that they are on some list of illegal numbers somewhere. The lists will grow exponentially, as the precedent that this software is forbidden to possess or share, will lead others to demand that software, and numbers, they don’t care for be made illegal as well.
And then… I forget the rest. Whether it was finally ruled in the favor of common sense, or if the case simply petered out and nothing more was ever heard about it. I do know that no one was ever brought up on charges for possessing a number, and DeCSS has been widely available ever since the day it was first posted online (if you’ve ever used a movie ripping software like ffmpeg, you’ve used DeCSS or it’s descendents.)
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At the risk of taking Gingrich’s nonsense seriously, just imagine for a moment what translating his proposal into action would mean. The government would round up 3.3 million American Muslims, then “test” them to see “if they believe in Sharia,” a notion about which Gingrich doesn’t have the remotest clue. Sharia is the Arabic word for “law”; there’s no guidebook of official Sharia, and Islamic scholars have a multitude of ideas about how Koranic ideas could or should be translated into civil rules. But even if there were, Gingrich is literally proposing to prosecute thought crimes, as well as jettisoning the First Amendment to throw people in jail for visiting certain web sites. And where is he going to “deport” the Americans whom he decides believe in Sharia to?
Frankly, I think we need to ask just how Newt Gingrich got radicalized, and what caused him to reject the values of the country that gave him so much. Was it some radical cleric who did this to him? Is there a church somewhere in Georgia we need to be monitoring?
– James Madison “accidentally” buys prostitutes for foreign ambassadors
– Jefferson eating a tomato like an apple at a dinner and everyone rushing off to find a doctor because Americans thought tomatoes were poisonous
– Washington and Lafayette falling asleep under a tree after Monmouth
– Washington cursing out Charles Lee after his retreat
– James Armistead Lafayette, who was a badass spy during the revolution and gave Lafayette vital information which led to the victory at Yorktown. Lafayette freed him and James was so grateful he took Lafayette’s last name
– Lafayette being given an alligator as a gift and, not knowing what to do with it, regifting it to John Quincy Adams
– the Constitutional Convention going out and getting turnt two days before the signing of the Constitution, and some of the additional charges being a broken chair, cups, and chamber pots
– John Hancock being smol
– Alexander Hamilton’s argument against hanging John Andrè basically being “he’s too pretty”
– Aaron Burr sleeping through Valentine’s Day
– Lafayette naming his ONLY son after George Washington
– Ben Franklin and John Adams once having to share a room with one bed and falling asleep arguing whether or not they should sleep with the window open or closed
– Ben Franklin taking “air baths” which consisted of him sitting naked in a bathtub for hours a day
– Aaron Burr having a knife hidden in the handle of his umbrella, and then LOSING said umbrella
– John Adams’ kid Charles once ran naked across Harvard Yard
– Alexander Hamilton losing his check book and having to write the bank of New York for a new one, while also requesting his account balance which he didn’t know, which he wrote in the check book, which he lost
– Aaron Burr hitting his head on the same pipe twice jfc he’s such a mess
– Thomas Jefferson getting a terrible headache for two days after behaving awkwardly in front of a girl
– John Adams naming his dog Satan
– Alexander Hamilton’s letters to his totally hetero bro™ John Laurens being censored by his descendants
– George Washington running for the House of Burgesses and getting his constituents totally smashed so they would vote for him
Okay the last bit was common practice for all politicians in Virginia because if they wanted to win, they had to have the best booze. I remember because once James Madison was like “How about you elect me because I would be good at this job?” And all the voters were like “How about you go f**k yourself?” Then he lost.
Sherlock blinking and talking nonstop in his head, instead of out loud? Yeah. He’s going to do that in bed, too, the first time.
I must admit I believed this would never happen
John Watson in my bed
John is in my bed and he is taking off my clothes and he is very good at taking off my clothes but then again John Watson is talented in many unexpected ways
For example John Watson is kissing me now and despite having dissected many human tongues over the years I never would have imagined that a tongue could do THIS but then again it is John Watson’s tongue
Such interesting textures and sensations warm wet slippery this really should be vile and repulsive this commingling of saliva but mmm oh was that me I think I made that sound
I hope John Watson will not think he has injured me as I did make an alarmingly loud moaning sound just then
Where is he going with that tongue of his I have discovered I quite like it in my mouth
Oh well that is very interesting considering the male nipple is a vestige of the embryonic stage and serves the male of the species no real purpose holy GOD what YES upon further study the purpose appears to be primarily one of pleasure what is he OH that is rather YES stimulating
And here we have a perfect example of brain synapses firing and nerve endings communicating throughout the BODY I will have to study this again, at a different OHHH my nipple is connected to my penis I’m not sure I knew that before
Hello penis
I have observed John Watson’s hands on many occasions and thought I was aware of their many capabilities but he is so full of surprises is my John Watson JESUS MARY AND JOSEPH his hand is on my penis or should I say erection pull it together Holmes don’t lose the plot now HE IS STROKING MY ERECTION HIS HANDS ARE OF GOD
How did my legs spread themselves of their own volition and where is John going with that mouth and those hands I am not done with my observations where is
OH GOD WHAT? HOW? FOCUS HOLMES! John Watson’s tongue is stroking my erection up and down FRENULUM! FRENULUM! in a manner lewd and entirely fascinating I must say had I known
FOR THE LOVE OF perhaps it had not occurred to me he would be able to fit both in his MOUTH concurrently OH OH OH but he certainly can there is no denying the evidence
A FINGER is that a FINGER I BELIEVE THIS IS WHAT IS REFERRED TO AS DIGITAL STIMULATION OF THE AN-AN-ANUS
THE PROSTATE IS A GLAND THAT PRODUCES
HOLY FUCK
FOCUS
FOCUS
IT APPEARS I AM APPROACHING CLIMAX TWELVE MINUTES THIRTY-SIX SECONDS SOONER THAN PREVIOUS ESTIMATIONS ALLOWED
HOT HOT HOT TIGHT TIGHT WET SUCKING SUCKING
HOW IS THIS EVEN
OH OH OH YES IMPENDING ORGASM ORGAS- ORG- OR-
And at the end of it all, John says, “Are you aware you said all of that out loud?” And Sherlock is speechless.
Anthologist and Guest Editor Rachel Kramer Bussel is looking for women authors to submit their most amazing stories of erotica for the third volume of Best Women’s Erotica of the Year, to be published in 2017 by Cleis Press.
Volume 3 will publish the sexiest, most imaginative and varied erotica stories created by and featuring a broad spectrum of women, from single to coupled, residing in large cities and small communities throughout the world, of differing sexual preferences, ethnicities, curiosities, and life encounters.
