This number… is illegal.
Well kinda.
I switched out a few digits to protect myself, since, you know, it’s illegal, but just
the possession of this number is enough to get you arrested in the US.
To understand why, we need to learn some cryptology.
Prime numbers are numbers that can only be divided by themselves and one.
For example, nothing multiplies together to get seven other than seven and one, nothing
multiplies together to get 29 other than 29 and one, this will be the same for all primes.
It’s not that hard to check if a smaller number is prime.
For seven you just check if seven divided by one is a whole number, seven divided by
two, by three, by four, by five, by six, nothing other than seven can divide seven into a whole
number.
As you get to bigger and bigger numbers you have to check more and more times to determine
if a number is prime.
For 43,721, you’d have to perform 21,861 calculations to check if its prime.
As it turns out, it is.
That means that its exceedingly difficult to find new primes.
The largest prime that we know of right now is 274,207,281-1.
There is an infinite number of primes since there is an infinite number of numbers, but
it just takes an enormous amount of computing power to find these primes.
So what’s the point of finding primes?
Well they’re actually quite useful for encryption.
For the sake of simplicity, let’s take two small primes, 11 and 13.
If we were actually encrypting data, we would be using primes with thousands of digits,
but that would probably make this explanation a little complicated.
Now multiply 11 and 13 together in your head.
You can probably figure out pretty easily that together they make 143.
Now how long would it take you to work backwards and figure out what multiplies together to
get 143?
Probably a pretty long time.
It’s the same with computers.
It’s very easy for them to multiply two numbers together and find out what the product
is, but its very hard for them to take the product and find out what the factors are.
When you’re logging on to, say, your bank account online, your computer will send the
number 143, which is known as the public key, to the bank’s server.
The bank will then check if 11 and 13, the private keys, multiply to 143 and if so, it
will let you in.
Everyone has the public key, but only the bank has the private keys.
If you wanted the find the private keys, you would need a computer to factor the public
key, which would take thousands of years because, once again, in the real world, the keys aren’t
11 and 13, they’re prime numbers with thousands upon thousands of digits.
With the amount of money it would take to set up a computer system that could actually
factor the primes, it’s just not worth it.
The bigger the prime number, the longer it would take to factor, and the more secure
it is.
That’s why organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation are willing to pay up
to $250,000 for new prime numbers.
Alright, that’s all the math we’re going to do today, I promise.
Back to our illegal number.
In 1998, The Digital Millennium Copyright Act was passed in the US, making it illegal
to circumvent copyright measures and to produce or distribute tools that can be used to get
around copyright protection systems.
Our illegal number, 8565078 and so on and so forth, is a prime number that is the source
code used to decrypt the copyright protection of DVD’s.
The copyright protection was used to stop people from downloading or duplicating movies
on their computers and, with this number, the protection was rendered useless.
Programs were created that allowed individuals to make bootleg copies of movies all because
of this number.
All the while, individuals were breaking the law not only by copying DVD's, but also just
by being in possession of this number, an easily findable prime.
I hope you enjoyed this week’s episode.
Last week I covered Big Mac economics which you can find here.
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Thanks, for watching, and I’ll be back next week with a special video not from That Wikipedia
List.