illegal number

English

Noun

illegal number (plural illegal numbers)

  1. (law) a number that represents information which is illegal to possess, utter or propagate. Any information that can be represented in binary format is, ipso facto, representable as a number, and therefore if the information itself is illegal in some way, the pure number itself may be called illegal.[1][2][3]

See also

References
  1. Phil Carmody (), “An Executable Prime Number?”, in (please provide the title of the work)‎, archived from the original on 2007-03-29:
    Maybe I was reading something between the lines that wasn't there, but if arbitrary programs could be expressed as primes, the immediate conclusion is that all programs, including ones some people wished didn't exist, can too. I.e. the so called 'circumvention devices' of which my previous prime exploit was an example.
  2. Thomas C Greene (2001-03-19), “DVD descrambler encoded in ‘illegal’ prime number”, in The Register‎, retrieved 2007-05-08: “The question, of course, is whether an interesting number is illegal merely because it can be used to encode a contraband program.”
  3. “The Prime Glossary: illegal prime”, in (please provide the title of the work)‎, accessed 2007-05-09: “The bottom line: If distributing code is illegal, and these numbers contain (or are) the code, doesn't that make these number [sic] illegal?”
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