

Would it be more 'legal' to share XOR-ed files? - temepo

I did a search and found this post:<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=1399692<p>but I didn&#x27;t see any clear conclusion.<p>What do you think about this:<p>&quot;If I legally download a Ubuntu live CD image, I can&#x27;t possibly be infringing any copyright, right? Even if someone has constructed another image of the same size, that when XORed with the Ubuntu live CD yields a copy of Die Hard? Duh, easy: it&#x27;s obviously the other 700M blob of data that&#x27;s infringing copyright! Off to prosecute me if I do that, then.&quot;
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dTal
It solves nothing. The 700 megabyte XORd image may not be a plaintext version
of Die Hard, but it certainly isn't "random" like the original post asserts;
it is an encoded, recoverable copy. This is like saying "If I download Lady
Gaga's latest album from a torrent site, but the file is an encrypted RAR with
the password hosted on another website, is it still infringing?" You are still
passing around copywrited data, just in an obscure format.

You might find this interesting:
[http://qntm.org/number](http://qntm.org/number)

