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The fine folks at Freedom to Tinker were nice enough to deed me my very own 128-bit number. They have a script that will generate a bright, shiny number for you too if you just go over to the article. This is in response to the debacle over the last several days involving another 128-bit number–namely the AACS decryption key that allows HD-DVDs to be played. The key was recently discovered and a utility was posted to back up HD-DVDs to the computer.

AACS responded just as you’d expect a cluebag anti-piracy company to: DMCA notices to tons of bloggers. This obviously didn’t go over so well, and resulted in an amazing backlash by bloggers around the globe, who posted the key, or links to articles with the key, to Digg. I have to say, I’m simply amazed at the responses of companies in this day and age; the bigger the deal you make out of something, the more you can assure yourself that everyone will seek it out and broadcast it.

Now, that said, let’s turn to another angle in this case: the utter stupidity of ‘Digital Rights Management.’ WHY are companies allowed to get away with protecting ‘their’ rights at the expense of my fair-use rights? Yet another bullshit example of this and the statements by AACS Chairman Michael Ayers allows me the privilege of awarding him and AACS in general the very first DecafGeek Heads-Up Award:

Congratulations, AACS; I’m sure you won’t learn anything from this entire ordeal. And you better not use my number in your next futile DRM scheme!