There have been some stories in the geek blogosphere about a string of numbers.

They were featured on a story in Digg, but it was deleted by them. Not once, but twice after it had been submitted again, and had over 15,000 Diggs.

Why, you ask? Why is a string of hexadecimal numbers so controversial they need to be banned? Well, the MPAA and movie studios are going nuts because that string of numbers is what to use to break the DCMA and decrypt most movies so you can watch HD-DVDs on any operating system. And apparently it’s copywrited.

Yes, a string of numbers are copywrited. That is just nuts.

Read more, from the guy whose story was yanked from Digg and another post on the person who was banned from Digg after he submitted it, and why this is important.

Digg’s response? Just following orders so we don’t get sued.

This post has been brought to you by the numbers:
09 -9 11 02 9- 74 -3 5- -8 41 56 -5 63 56 88 -0

And the letters:
– F- — – -D — E- -B D- — – C- — – — C-

(Yanked that from a response to the Digg story. Too good not to!)

UPDATE 5/2: Looks like Digg shot themselves in the foot. By trying to preempt a lawsuit, they caused a backlash of their users. Now almost every story on the front page has the numbers. Plus, check out this site. The embedded music sucks, but it shows just how determined geeks are when you try to censor them.

ONE MORE UPDATE: Digg has come around. Kevin Rose, founder of Digg, put out this announcement. Rock on, and yes, stick it to the man. And if you’re interested, read the details of how this all evolved over at Rudd-o.

Technorati tags: mafiaa, censorship, drm