A Peculiar Blog

Texas Instruments (TI) calculators have for a long time been a subject of hobbyist interest.  In particular is the TI-83.  However TI has long been known to be very uncooperative to say the least.  Recently news came out that somebody has managed to crack the RSA signing key for the programmable calculator’s operating system.

This development means that it will now be a LOT easier for people to load new custom operating systems into the calculator.  Unfortunately, TI seems to have a problem with this.  According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, some TI execs have decided from the comfort of their fancy barcelona chairs that this is not tolerable and they have since been issuing DMCA takedown notices in an effort to suppress any mention of or links to the keys in question.

Fortunately for TI hobbyists, those keys are going to be very difficult to suppress.  Not only have preserved on Wikileaks and other sites, they have also been posted on a Freenet 0.5 “freesite” the URL to which is:

SSK@eaYn7lrnws~202trApiznva4-QkPAgM,r45BnHpoDlD-r2ozUE7I6g/TI83+OS//
(*note* you must be running Freenet 0.5 on 127.0.0.1:8888 for this link to work.)

Even if TI manages to get those keys totally suppressed and removed from Internet sites, which I think it’s already too late, They’ll never get it removed from Freenet, If only because once something is inserted into Freenet you CAN’T delete it, ever.

[Tags]texas instruments, ti 83 calculator, ti signing key, signing key cracked[/tags]