An illegal number is a number that represents information which is illegal to possess, utter, propagate, or otherwise transmit in some legal jurisdiction. Any piece of digital information is representable as a number; consequently, if communicating a specific set of information is illegal in some way, then the number may be illegal as well.[1][2][3]
- ^ Carmody, Phil. "An Executable Prime Number?". Archived from the original on February 16, 2014. Retrieved December 30, 2018.
Maybe I was reading something between the lines that wasn't there, but if arbitrary programs could be expressed as primes, the immediate conclusion is that all programs, including ones some people wished didn't exist, can too. I.e. the so called 'circumvention devices' of which my previous prime exploit was an example.
- ^ Greene, Thomas C. (March 19, 2001). "DVD descrambler encoded in 'illegal' prime number". The Register. Archived from the original on November 27, 2010. Retrieved December 30, 2018.
The question, of course, is whether an interesting number is illegal merely because it can be used to encode a contraband program.
- ^ "The Prime Glossary: illegal prime". Archived from the original on February 28, 2023. Retrieved December 30, 2018.
The bottom line: If distributing code is illegal, and these numbers contain (or are) the code, doesn't that make these number illegal?