
DeCSS Haiku - kick
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeCSS_haiku
======
Rotten194
The haiku itself:

[https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/decss-
haiku.txt](https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/decss-haiku.txt)

------
messe
Also related is the idea of an Illegal Prime number[1], the binary
representation of which is a compressed version of the DeCSS source code while
also being sufficiently large to be published on the list of largest prime
numbers at the time.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_prime](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_prime)

------
moonchild
See also descramble.mp3 -
[http://audio.textfiles.com/music/descramble.mp3](http://audio.textfiles.com/music/descramble.mp3)

------
artsyca
A lot of us may espouse the view that "code is poetry" and may even have the
sticker to show for it on our laptops -- but how many of us have actually
written a code poem in this fashion?

In their infinite wisdom our technological ancestors created high level
languages to help us on our way and this article reminds me that code is
language, it tells a story.

Code is meant to be human readable and it's meant to be the ultimate design
document. Code is in its very nature self-documenting however we must attain a
level of mastery before we can write code others can actually read.

I'd say the disparity between people who can write any old code and people who
can efficiently write readable code is the greatest challenge to our industry
and will likely always be.

Code is at the nexus of mathematics and poetry and sure we can choose
convenient notations to make the output more elegant but without input from
the author's hand it'll only ever be machine readable.

~~~
matheusmoreira
> how many of us have actually written a code poem in this fashion?

Does it have to be written in this fashion? The PGP community defeated US
export restrictions in the past by literally printing books filled with source
code. Books are protected free speech in the US.

~~~
knodi123
Funny anecdote, from an article about the novel Cryptonomicon by Neal
Stephenson:

> One of the noteworthy features of the novel CRYPTONOMICON is that it
> contains a new cryptosystem invented by Bruce Schneier, called Solitaire.
> [...] Since Solitaire is strong enough to be subject to U.S. laws governing
> export of crypto technology, this means that when the text of the novel is
> rendered in electronic form it becomes an export-controlled good.

They relaxed that restriction shortly afterward, so Neal got to have his cake
(having his ebook classified as weapons-grade), and eat it too (sell it
anyway).

