We’re all for digression in the comments, but when we saw that cryptic alphanumeric sequence posted in response to Kelly Clarkson’s “Never Again” clip, our curiosity was piqued. Security code to Kelly’s garage? An encoded message regarding the song’s deeper, much more profound meaning (ha)? Some google sleuthing later, we came upon our answer.
Via TechCrunch:
To say what happened today on Digg was a ?user revolt? is an understatement. The Digg team deleted a story that linked to the decryption key for HD DVDs after receiving a take down demand and all hell broke loose. More stories appeared and were deleted, and users posting the stories were suspended.
That just got the Digg community fired up, and soon the entire Digg home page was filled with stories containing the decryption key. The users had taken control of the site, and unless Digg went into wholesale deletion mode and suspended a large portion of their users, there was absolutely nothing they could do to stop it.
Co-founder Kevin Rose posted this on the Digg blog:
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.
In case you need a mnemonic device so as to hack DVDs on the fly … someone wrote a song about it. Like to hear it? Here it go…
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I wondered what in the world that was supposed to be. Although it had absolutely nothing to do with the Kelly Clarkson post.
http://homemademusicvideos.blogspot.com
Dang. Kevin Rose, you rock.
a1 b2 c3 d4 e5 f6 g7 h8 i9 j10 k11 l12 m13 n14 o15 q16 r17 s18 t19 u20 v21 w22 x23 y24 z25
where’s the “p”? Here http://www.stereogum.com/archives/005260.html
the p is in the pool, of course
interesting! i saw it posted here and in the youtube comments for the “never again” video and was like totes confused. i thought it was some lost shit or something.
That was pretty awesome. You should see screenshots of the Digg homepage during that revolt.
Ill Gill also created a song/video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZG4vRjin80
Yeah, it’s easy to revolt from the safety of your bedroom, through a computer, with a user name. Not so easy for Kevin Rose, who has to deal with this now.
There goes the movie industry!
Vondruke,
you have to be a little more open-minded. things (like a “revolt”) have the potential to work differently in 2007.
This is the nature of the internet, and its probably a good thing. dont necessiarly feel bad for kevin rose. whether he likes it or not (or anyone else for that matter) the internet will stay interactive. Im not saying its right, and im not saying you have to agree with what happened, but you have to realize that the internet is not a “top-down” media. and i think its great that, judging from rose’s response, that he understands this as well.
I love that the kids on Digg are equating this to the Boston Tea Party. Not in scale, but in principal. Right, because Digg is a public company with revenue that stretches beyond ads.
thanks for solving this one for me. someone printed out each letter/number on a sheet of paper (in what might be the biggest toner-waste in history) and posted them up at my school. gotta love tech schools.
Kevin Rose rocks it. simple as that, really. Long live ‘the dark tipper’!
Times just caught a hold of the story…
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/03/technology/03code.html?hp
here’s how it all went down
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsCW34UWldA
The lawyers are trying to ban a number??? Has the whole world gone insane?
incredible