12.05.07 – UPDATE:
and an article on forbes:
01.05.2007
What happened this night was quite amazing: one of the master keys to decrypt HD-DVD`s got posted on digg.
Ok, the key was aviable for quite a while then, since february this year, but now it got some serious publicity.
Around 11 hours later, the article had been ‘dugg’ ~13.000 times – before it was deleted.
01.05.2007: a copy of the article on digg and the comments upo to the 12250 digg can be downloaded here:
02.05.2007: a copy of the new ‘spread the number’ article AFTER Kevin has decided to let it run – again, at 5240+ diggs.
The plain html – document (no graphics etc.) is provided for documentation purposes only.
At some times, the ‘digging-rate’ appeared to be like 5 per second – and at one point forced the digg server to deliver a 404 – not found (http://mirror.longhornlive.net/crazy404.png , by gcnaddict)
14 more diggs…
*blink*
19 more diggs…
*blink*
Whoa. (elmedico27)
Now the article is gone and also unaviable via duggmirror, but several screens of the amazing event still exist:
breaking the 10K – barrier:
http://i13.tinypic.com/6f77z2s.jpg (by: pinthewind)
(by: diggsuckshard)
The article on digg linked to this: http://rudd-o.com/archives/2007/04/30/spread-this-number/
http://img413.imageshack.us/img413/1207/madnesszf3.png
http://img355.imageshack.us/img355/2264/diggca5.jpg
There were numerous other attempts to spread the word, in case of wikipedia leading to a little skirmish with the editors:
Other poeple looked into the ‘practical part’ as well:
- http://www.digg.com/linux_unix/Blu_Ray_and_HD_DVD_on_Ubuntu_the_steps_the_software_the_screenshots
- http://www.ehomeupgrade.com/entry/3737/how-to_play_blu-ray
while others went for some creative work:
All in all: it was quite an amazing event 
If you have more links, screenshots, creative artwork, please use the comment function
EDIT: at 19:05 EST the digg crew disabled my digg account because of ‘misuse’. the only thing i did was to post a link to this short docu and a request for help in documentating this little incident. Seems like digg wishes it never happened, since all other references to the ‘spread the number’ post have been deleted as well. Even http://duggmirror.com/linux_unix/Spread_this_number_Now is gone and the google cache scraped.
EDIT 2: Every article that people try to get into digg with references to the ‘spread the number’ is deleted quite fast – the last post i`ve seen survived ~20minutes.
Luckily, i saved ‘spread the number’ having 12250 diggs
This one might shed some light on ‘official reactions’ :
And yes, the key WAS posted in the takedown notice.
Update on 02.05.07
Digg has blocked this site.
A german news magazin covers the ‘digg-revolt’ here:
And here is what the original poster wrote about this ‘little incident’:
and because nothing is right without having heared the other side, here is
the post by Kevin Rose from Digg.com
which i need to cite in full:
Digg This: 09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0
Today was an insane day. And as the founder of Digg, I just wanted to post my thoughts…
In building and shaping the site I’ve always tried to stay as hands on as possible. We’ve always given site moderation (digging/burying) power to the community. Occasionally we step in to remove stories that violate our terms of use (eg. linking to pornography, illegal downloads, racial hate sites, etc.). So today was a difficult day for us. We had to decide whether to remove stories containing a single code based on a cease and desist declaration. We had to make a call, and in our desire to avoid a scenario where Digg would be interrupted or shut down, we decided to comply and remove the stories with the code.
But now, after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you’ve made it clear. You’d rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won’t delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be.
If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying.
Digg on,
Kevin
It`s a pitty that a company can get in danger because of something that has been publicly aviable for mor than a couple weeks.I think that all those guys who posted the ‘code’ or in other ways helped to spread it yesterday will ‘breake out the guns and ammo’ again once digg is in danger (myself included, even though i only got a leaking waterpistol .
Point is : what would we actually do then?
Supressing the spread of the ‘key’ is imho an perfect example for attempted information control – and it`s failing, at least here and now.
At the same time, cryptome.org got it`s contract with the isp verio cancelled… another example of information control at work? You bet!
But so far, we have won:
Thank you, Kevin Rose!
07.05.07 Update
With the famous userfriendly.org – Cartoon by Illiad featuring a ‘HD-DV D Sudoku’ in yesterdays strip, there isn`t much left to be said about recieving Cease-adn-desist – letters
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20070506
May 1, 2007 at 4:22 pm |
I dugg all those HD-DVD articles, and posted comments to many. Some of those comments included links to other Digg submissions on the same subject. I did not make any submissions of my own, neither did I post the “offending” encryption key. One post suggested that, as protest, everyone should bury everything. I suggested a couple of times that Digg was operating out of fear, and not out of legal requirement, based on the fact that Reddit still has the key up, and Wired published an article on Feb 13, 2007, with the key, and that is still up. I used no foul language at any time.
My account has been disabled for misuse. I have a short “Why?” letter in to support@digg.com.
May 1, 2007 at 4:50 pm |
Hi nougat,
thx for the comment.
Same here – no foul language, no inclusion of the key itself.
In fact i was just looking for the proper feedback-adress at digg.com
If digg actually takes a position like ‘it never happened’ – that would be a very bad and sad thing.
Deleting a post – ok. Removing links – ok.
But just ruling ‘misuse’ and disabling a user account because he posted ‘unwanted content’ goes a bit too far, imho (unless one wants to introduce censorship with punishment). For the typical spammer this might be appropiate, but not as a ‘mending fences’-action once the horse is way out of the barn and out in the countryside.
I`ll sent a letter to the digg support as well and post what they say
By the way: http://digg.com/users/chesterjosiah was also terminated, of course.
May 1, 2007 at 6:01 pm |
Interestingly enough, I was recently disabled for another reason – one where I made a comment at a comment spammer: “You, sir, are a ***,” where **** begins and ends with the letter ‘t,’ and contains ‘wa’ in the middle.
They responded quickly to my request, and reinstated my account. I later pointed out to them with a Google search that there were 7010 results in the digg.com domain containing that offensive word. Now there are 2590; so they’ve done some cleaning up, but stopped a long time back. They never got to the first ranked search hits.
They do respond to those accusing abuse rather quickly. I’ve reported some downright pornographic submissions myself. But they’re not considering the “rights of the accused” at all. Yes, I know I am using “rights” very loosely.
I suppose they’re not going to feel bad losing a bunch of Diggers who are most likely running Firefox with AdBlock anyway. It’s all about the Benjamins.