Remarks by the Presumptive Vice Presidential Nominee Sarah Palin to the 2008 Republican National Convention

Washington, D.C.

So I do a Google search of the number “09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56
C5 63 56 88 C0″ I find a Wikipedia article and go to the page only to
find a message that the article has been removed and blocked from being
reposted! Wikipedia denied me information! I go to Wikipedia to find
the answer to everything…. what is going on?!

Well… it turns out that this number 16 hex pairs number is the HD-DVD processing key that was discovered months ago. This little number allows the unauthorized playback of copy protected HD-DVD’s. So why all the fuss today?

This number is flooding the internet because the AACS, the company who created and manages the HD-DVD copy protection, issued cease and desist orders to Google, Blogger.com, Digg, and other websites ordering that they stop the dissemination of this number. You can see the letter to Google here. Google and Blogger.com forwarded the letter to users of their products that had the number in emails or other data stored on their servers requiring them to delete the information. Digg took a more drastic approach deleting articles and banning users. In response almost every article on Digg now is about the hex number or has the hex number in a comment. People are creating email addresses with the number, people have created pictures with the number, there is a mySpace page for the number!

As far as I know you can’t copy protect a number, I mean I really like the number 23 but can I own it? What has made people so upset it that Google, Digg and other blogging sites have stretched forth the heavy hand of censorship. It’s one thing to be actively encouraging the breaking of laws and instructing on how to do it, it’s an entirely different matter to be discussing it.

Long live freedom of Speech!

We’ll see if Digg and this post survive to see May 2nd.

Update: 10:50pm, I noticed that the story has even made it to The Drudge Report

and of course Gizmodo

The DRUDGE REPORT has obtained an exclusive copy of a “scary” campaign advertisement created by Hollywood producer and director David Zucker that was intended to be used by GOP organizations in the closing weeks of the 2006 campaign.

However, the advertisement was deemed “too hot” by GOP strategists all across Washington, DC who have refused to use it!

In the ad, Zucker, producer of SCARY MOVIE 4, recreates former Clinton Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s 2000 visit to North Korea. During the visit, Secretary Albright presented North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il with a basketball autographed by former NBA superstar Michael Jordan.

An actress playing Secretary Albright is shown presenting Kim Jong Il with the Michael Jordan basketball, painting the walls of Osama bin Laden’s Afghanistan cave and turning a blind eye to suicide bombers. In one scene her skirt rips as she changes the tire of a Middle Eastern dictator’s limousine.

One GOP strategist said “jaws dropped” when the ad was first viewed. “Nobody could believe Zucker thought any political organization could use this ad. It makes a point, but it’s way over the top.”

Zucker is the producer and director of comedies such as “Airplane” and “The Naked Gun.” In 2004, Zucker, a longtime Democrat, embraced the Republican Party based on concerns he had about national security issues and voted for President George W. Bush.