In the meanwhile many news sites, radio stations and even tv networks published stories about what was happening on the Internet distributing the key exponentially on the Internet. If you search for the code today you find that more than 1.3 million websites reference it. The AACS nevertheless decided to take on the fight which leads to question that I would like to ask “Have not they learned a thing from last weeks events ?”

Even if it would be technically possible to send Cease and Desist letters to all 1.3 million websites they would not have eliminated the key from the eye of the public. They probably can force American websites to take down the key but what about sites that do not care about American laws ? China, Russia or even Sweden for instance. Those sites most likely won’t react at all to letters that they receive.

If they are really going to send those letters out it will generate even more hype which leads to even more sites posting that key. The funny thing here is that not many users even know what they could do with that key. How is this key helping them defeat the copy protection of HD-DVD / Blue-Ray movies ?

The commercial pirates already know the key and produce copies using it but what about you and me ? Do we profit from that key in any way ? I don’t think so. At least not at the moment. The casual user will not be able to use the key until someone does write a good program that does everything automatically.

The actions of the AACS remind me of someone running with his head against a wall and instead of learning from this painful incident they decide to do it again because they still believe this was the only way to get past it.

I don’t want to talk about the obvious ones here which are: registered domain names, t-shirts, mugs and other merchandise with the number or e-mail addresses with it. I link to several images at the end which are worth a look as well.

• Random String Hex
• Train your Memory
• Spell with Flickr
• Vote for your favorite number
• The Piratebay
• Oh nine, eff nine, one one oh too!
  Nine dee, seven four, eee three, five bee.
  Dee ate for one,
  Five six,
  See five,
  Six three, five six, ate eight sea oh!
• 13256278887989457651018865901401704640
• add hl,bc
  ld sp,hl
  ld de,09d02h
  ld (hl),h
  ex (sp),hl
  ld e,e
  ret c
  ld b,c
  ld d,(hl)
  push bc
  ld h,e
  ld d,(hl)
  adc a,b
  ret nz
• Digits 1,7 are zero
  2,4,9 are all nine
  3 is f
  5,6,20 are one
  8 is two
  10,17 are d
  11 is seven
  12,19 are four
  13 is e
  14,26 are three
  15,21,24 are five
  16 is b
  18 is eight
  22,25 are six
  23 is c
• cfddca0b93558c11cd6d2a7023a544bf (md5sum)

• Pictures:
• Tinypic
• Colors
• 300
• 300 2
• Another picture
• T-Shirt

If you got more let me know please.

Did you know that this was the processing key that ends with 63 56 88 C0 ? I did not until I read an article where the AACS sent some takedown notices to websites owners who mentioned the key. So, what is actually happening now is that this key will be reproduced on thousands of websites who report about this takedown notices, it will be available in caches, in forum entries and in many other places including custom created T-Shirts, Mugs and Mousepads. It seems that the takedown notice somehow backfired on the AACS, don’t you think ?