
Illegal number - vinnyglennon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_number
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RcouF1uZ4gsC
This "Illegal number" argument needs to die. Child porn, revenge porn, trade
secrets, state secrets, identities of undercover operatives, etc can all be
represented as number. Are you arguing (some of) those things shouldn't be
illegal to disseminate because of "Illegal numbers"?

This is akin to someone arguing that laws against assault are making "Illegal
Force Vectors", and laws against threatening speech are making "Illegal air
molecule vibrations".

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dllthomas
> Child porn, revenge porn, trade secrets, state secrets, identities of
> undercover operatives, etc

I think we should probably move away from _pure_ possession of information
being illegal, in substantial part because it's comparatively easy to plant.
But regardless it doesn't have much to do with "illegal numbers".

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sephoric
Wow. I thought this was going to be some silly alternate meaning of "illegal"
within software, like a famous invalid memory address or something. Nope, it's
actually a number that's against the law.

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Tomte
This is a thing every young idealistic programmer discovers. And then he
thinks he has found a big, evil injustice.

Until he matures and realizes the "illegal number argument" is structurally
the same as the "I didn't murder her, I was just moving through the room with
my knife extended" argument.

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fenwick67
You are equivocating murder with sharing a small piece of data, I can't even
take this as a good-faith argument.

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Tomte
I am not, and the fact that you accuse me of that proves your malignant
intentions.

And maybe learn what "to equivocate" means.

~~~
dang
Would you please not break the site guidelines, regardless of whether someone
else did? Let alone escalating the malice.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

