Secret numbers and No maps allowed

This week a number has been deemed illegal or secret or something like that (the HDDVD people claim it's illegal to distribute the number). The number, a string of hex digits, is the decode key for the first generation of HD-DVD movies, and is now everywhere on the web.

As hard as the HD-DVD people will try to keep the next keys secret as well, the general consensous is that Pandora's box is now open and HD-DVD will be wide open for ever more. I fully expect the same to happen to Blu Ray soon.

It's strange, as the music biz is starting to realise that punters don't actually want any kind of DRM on the CDs and online music they buy. Maybe the movie guys will start to pay attention...

Also, in something that is completely bizarre, an American school kid has been sent to an Alternative Education Center (read: school for thugs, druggies etc.) for making a map of his school in Counter Strike. ie. They've thrown a geek (in a good way!) into an environment that he's probably not at all ready for.

The scary bit is this quote however:
[A fellow student] said, "If somebody can make a map like that of the whole school, I mean, it does kind of scare me a little bit, and make me wonder, you know, what else they could do."

It kind of scares me a little bit that this student is scared by it.

I just wonder how this kind of attitude by the authorities ties up with another article I read saying that tourism to the USA is going down hill...