Not only the key is number, the text "The key for XXX is YYYYYY" is also a number. So is the phrase "decode this from bas64 - XXXXXXXXXXX" which after decoding contains the key. Any information may be presented as number in infinitely many ways, even just counting the ways that are understandable without context.
All numbers long enough can be proved to be illegal if just one of them is illegal if you allow clever encodings.
You cannot invent a way to say which number is legal and which is not, because there's infinitely many ways to encode each information. And context can be included in the information itself.
Outlawing all numbers bigger than certain X is obviously stupid.
Therefore the whole concept of intelectual property is absurd and should be abandoned ASAP.
In the end intelectual property enforcement requires censorship. What's more important - free speech, or slightly better protection of margins of a few industries? It's not a hard question. The only reason the IP is there is because these industries had monopoly on massmedia for a few decades, which gave them leverage over politicians.
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[ 1.7 ms ] story [ 10.2 ms ] threadAll numbers long enough can be proved to be illegal if just one of them is illegal if you allow clever encodings.
You cannot invent a way to say which number is legal and which is not, because there's infinitely many ways to encode each information. And context can be included in the information itself.
Outlawing all numbers bigger than certain X is obviously stupid.
Therefore the whole concept of intelectual property is absurd and should be abandoned ASAP.
In the end intelectual property enforcement requires censorship. What's more important - free speech, or slightly better protection of margins of a few industries? It's not a hard question. The only reason the IP is there is because these industries had monopoly on massmedia for a few decades, which gave them leverage over politicians.