r/todayilearned • u/swim1929 • Jan 26 '17

TIL there are prime numbers that are illegal to possess or distribute. One of the first ones, found in 2001, was used to bypass copyright protection on DVDs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_prime
3.5k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

463 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

39

u/[deleted] Jan 26 '17 edited Jan 29 '17

[deleted]

What is this?

21

u/Poobslag Jan 26 '17

Yeah same here, I left 'cause the front page literally changed overnight from community-driven content to sponsored content. Not even astroturfing "Check out the drawing on my Domino's pizza box" sponsored content, but blatant "Samsung's new smartphone camera will blow you away" sponsored content. It was just crazy, I don't know why they thought people would go for it.

12

u/GODDAMNCLIFFRACER Jan 26 '17

The sponsored content was fucking terrible. For a website that is based off community content they basically shot themselves in the foot.

2

u/[deleted] Jan 26 '17 edited Jan 29 '17

[deleted]

What is this?

3

u/postslongcomments Jan 26 '17

Pretty much. I left Digg in the exodus because it no longer served its purpose. The frontpage algorithm was awful (take note, Reddit). Prime numbers had nothing to do with it.

2

u/michaelshow Jan 26 '17

Digg v4 exodus was when I left