[sirsuki]

If you save digital data (ASCII) on an analog form like a cassette tape is that okay? Seems you could alternativly put metallic strips in a book. What about QR Codes? Could you have a massive QR Code on each page which contains a section of source code? Could you use an alternative encoding like dots and lines (.||.||....|.|.|..|) to represent 1s and 0s which is easy to scan (and not require OCR/checksums)?

To what extent does analog encoding fall under the illegal threshold?

[sagebird]

This is exactly what I am getting at. For the most extreme example, consider a swarm of nano bots hovering in the atmosphere that implement a computer that can understand and directly execute algorithms spoken in human speech transmitted through pressure fluctuations. There is no distinction that can universally separate speech and computer programs.