Can a number be protected?

The decoding key for AACS, the encryption used by HD-DVDs and Blu-Ray discs, has been discovered and published all over the 'net.  It is 16 hexadecimal numbers (09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b -d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0).  Basically, it is just 16 numbers.

Some sites such as digg.com have been removing any posts that include the number and blacklisting users who try to post stories with the number within ( See here for further background).  Wikipedia.org has removed the pages created that contained the number and locked any pages that might have users wanting to add the number to them.

Why is this?  These websites are afraid of being sued by entities such as the MPAA (www.mpaa.org). 

This begs the question, does a US company should have exclusive rights to a number? 

Scary stuff...

In Quarter we trust...

In case anyone reads this that doesn’t already know me, let me introduce myself: I am a corporate stooge, stuck in cubicle land.  Think Dilbert, without the glasses or tie.

 

The corporate world sometimes (usually?) makes absolutely no sense to me.

 

Today’s rant is brought to you by the almighty Quarter End Crunch™.

 

We have a project that has always been planned for the customer to come and approve our built equipment in early July with shipment in mid-July.  However, some intelligent person with a spreadsheet full of metrics realizes that our quarter performance will look much better with the revenue recognized in the fiscal 2^nd quarter, which ends in June.  To recognize the revenue, we need to ship the product.  Dilemma!  Customer coming in July (and cannot come in June, we have already asked), factory wants to ship in June.  Potential solutions? 

• Screw the customer, the quarter is God,
• Screw the quarter, the customer is God,
• Ship the product around the block and have the customer accept the equipment in a van down by the river.

 

Can you guess which option the company has decided to pursue?

 

 

Corn Ethanol Factoids...

1. 6 of the last 7 year's world corn harvests have been below world consumption (we're using up the stockpile) - the inference being that harvests are going down because of higher temperatures - which negatively affect corn - and water issues

2. ethanol-for-fuel is ramping up like crazy in the US. Apparently in a few years, 30% of the corn harvest will go towards ethanol production.

3. the amount of corn it takes to make a tankful of ethanol will feed a family of 4 Mexicans for a year. Corn prices have doubled there (spawning the "tortilla riots") because of diversion of grain stocks to ethanol production. If this keeps up, corn prices will move towards their "equivalent fossil fuel price"....which prices it beyond human consumption in most parts of the globe.

This is scary.