Nicholas Negroponte's oft-quoted dictum, "Bits are bits," seems to have come back to haunt the folks who seek to restrict the copying of digital entertainment files (Adobe, RIAA, Microsoft, etc.)

At its simplest, the digital model is analog-to-digital-to-analog (the universe translated into bits and back to a reasonable facsimile of the universe.) The problem with using a "secret code" on the bits is that the end-user still must experience an analog translation. That analog experience is relatively easy to capture in a non-encrypted digital format to be stored or transmitted.

This seemingly obvious paradox has been the "soft white underbelly" of "secret" human communication through the ages. Amazingly, it has been rediscovered by Ruslan Fedorovsky, managing director of British-based audiobooksforfree.com. I find the description of his "discovery" (audiobooksforfree.com Director Breaks Microsoft Reader) as humorous as the original notion.

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