I thought that was stated on the piece of film that was found in The Arrow? Eko found that and Locke spliced it with the rest of the Orientation film.

Desmond acknowledged that there were missing parts, so I don't think he could have known that the Dharma Initiative didn't want the computer to be used for communication.

If that was the case, I think he may have attempted to communicate and possibly succeeded (though there is also the chance that he didn't think that the computer had any other working function other than allowing entry of the code).


That's an interesting thought, I like that idea.