Illegal Primes

So stupid it's begging for coverage.

Get It Try It

It turns out that at least in the US and because of the good old DMCA certain numbers are illegal. Yes you read that right: certain numbers are illegal.

And consequently if you're found to have these numbers in your possession you might be arrested, prosecuted, and tossed in the clinker.

Perhaps you'd better read that again too.

Phil Carmody: the creator of all evil. Carmody found a prime number which when written in hexadecimal becomes a self-extracting Windows zip file containing the Jon Lech DeCSS code. This is the first known illegal number and it's 1401 digits in length.

Here's the number - in strict defiance of all that is stupid.

4856507896 5739782930 9841894694 2861377074 4208735135 7924019652 0736686985 1340104723 7446968797
4399261175 1097377770 1027447528 0490588313 8403754970 9987909653 9552270117 1215702597 4666993240
2268345966 1960603485 1742497735 8468518855 6745702571 2547499964 8219418465 5710084119 0862597169
4797079915 2004866709 9759235960 6132072597 3797993618 8606316914 4735883002 4533697278 1813914797
9555133999 4939488289 9846917836 1001825978 9010316019 6183503434 4895687053 8452085380 4584241565
4824889333 8047475871 1283395989 6852232544 6084089711 1977127694 1207958624 4054716132 1005006459
8201769617 7180947811 3622002723 4482722493 2325954723 4688002927 7764979061 4812984042 8345720146
3489685471 6908235473 7835661972 1862249694 3162271666 3939055430 2415647329 2485524899 1225739466
5486271404 8211713812 4388217717 6029841255 2446474450 5583462814 4883356319 0272531959 0439283873
7640739168 9125792405 5015620889 7871633759 9910788708 4908159097 5480192857 6845198859 6305323823
4905580920 3299960323 4471140776 0198471635 3116171307 8576084862 2363702835 7010496125 9568184678
5965333100 7701799161 4674472549 2728334869 1600064758 5917462781 2126900735 1830924153 0106302893
2956658436 6200080047 6778967984 3820907976 1985949364 6309380586 3367214696 9597502796 8771205724
9966669805 6145338207 4120315933 7703099491 5274691835 6593762102 2200681267 9827344576 0938020304
4791227749 8091795593 8387121000 5887666892 5844870047 0772552497 0604446521 2713040432 1182610103
5911864766 6296385849 5087448497 3734768614 2088052944 3¾

What's that you say? There are 1402 digits there and there should only be 1401? That's correct: a single digit has been introduced so as to not violate the DMCA.

But if you're intent on breaking the law (US law counts anywhere on the planet in case you didn't know) and being outright evil you can still figure out where the rogue digit is.