Posted by jeme (Thursday July 19 2001 @ 11:14PM PDT) \r\n<\/p>
\r\n\r\nA Russian computer programmer was arrested by the FBI on Monday after giving a\r\npresentation at an annual computer security conference in Las Vegas. Dmitry\r\nSklyarov is being taken to the district of northern California for arraignment.\r\nMr. Sklyarov's lecture at the DefCon-9 conference was entitled \"E-Book\r\nSecurity: Theory and Practice\". He was arrested at the behest of Adobe\r\nSystems, a San Jose-based software company responsible for PhotoShop,\r\nIllustrator and Premiere (all popular graphics packages for Microsoft Windows\r\nand MacOS). \r\n<\/p>
\r\nDmitry wrote a program for his employer Elcomsoft of Moscow that\r\ntakes a document in Adobe's eBook format and outputs a regular PDF document.\r\nThe eBook format is designed to extremely limit a person's ability to make use\r\nof the words and pictures in a book. A person can read and view the document,\r\nbut there is no printing, no cutting and pasting, no ability to highlight,\r\nunderline, or otherwise mark the book, no facility for taking notes in the\r\nmargins or excerpting passages into other documents. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nThese are all features\r\nthat we take for granted when we buy a book. Also, the eBook is \"tied\" to a\r\nparticular computer system and can only be decoded for reading on that system.\r\nIf you copy the document to your laptop, the reader software will reject it. If\r\nyou are done with it and want to pass it on to a friend, it will not work and\r\nyour friend would have to pay for the use of it on his computer as well. We\r\nthink nothing of giving away (or selling to recoup our costs) a book when we\r\nare finished reading it, but this format makes that impossible. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nIn Russia,\r\nevery person is gauranteed the right to make copies for backup or personal use\r\nof any work regardless of that work's copyright status or any license imposed\r\nin the acquisition of a copy of the work. Therefore, AEBPR is a valuable and\r\nlegal utility to have and use in Russia. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nWhile Dmitry Sklyarov is said to hold\r\nthe copyright for the program, his employer Elcomsoft is responsible for\r\ndistribution of the work. According to the provisions of 1998's Digital\r\nMillenium Copyright Act (US Code Title 17 Section 1201), trafficking in a\r\ndevice to circumvent a \"technological protection measure\" that \"effectively\r\ncontrols access\" to a work is a crime punishable by up to five (5) years in\r\nprison and $500,000 fine. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nIn at least one case, the \"technological protection\r\nmeasure\" that \"effectively controls access\" was a simple Caesar cypher. That\r\nis to say, the letters of the document were simply shifted a fixed number of\r\ncharacters across the alphabet. This is the sort of encryption a grade-schooler\r\nmight use to make his classroom notes unreadable by his enemies. The invention\r\nof this system is (however aprocyphally) attributed to Julius Caesar, making it\r\nthe oldest encryption scheme known to man. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nWhile Dmitry is the copyright holder\r\nand primary author of the work, this work was done in a country in which such\r\nwork is legal and encouraged. The distribution of the work in this country was\r\ndone by Elcomsoft, a Russian company. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nDmitry Sklyarov is a graduate student in\r\nhis native Russia where he has a wife and two children. Since his arrest, he\r\nhas had no contact with Russian Consul or his family, associates and friends.\r\nThe above is all fact. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nNow for some interpretation and opinion: First, the DMCA\r\n(Digital Millenium Copyright Act) seems to protect, and is certainly being used\r\nto protect, the ability of a corporation to add new controls to their already\r\ngranted copyright monopolies by simply adding technological measures that\r\n\"effectively\" protect the few rights a copyright holder can legitimately\r\nclaim and inhibit any other actions the copyright holder finds unsavory. In\r\nessence, I can take a work like this one: I AM A CRIMINAL, PLEASE INCARCERATE\r\nME UNDER THE DMCA. Submit it to my \"encryption scheme\" and get: V NZ N\r\nPEVZVANY, CYRNFR VAPNEPRENGR ZR HAQRE GUR QZPN. Now, distribution of a\r\n\"device\" that decodes this message could be construed as illegal under the\r\nDMCA. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nForget the fact that every unix system and every USENET newsreader in the\r\nworld has the capability to do what is called ROT13 translation (shifting every\r\ncharacter 13 characters to the right, so that A becomes N, B becomes O, etc.),\r\nwhich is the scheme I used to \"encrypt\" my message above. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nSecond, is Dmitry\r\nSklyarov responsible for the actions of his employer (distributing a\r\ncircumvention device)? Even if he wrote the program single-handedly, he wasn't\r\nthe entity doing the distributing. Not to mention the fact that all of it was\r\nwritten by a foreign national in a foreign nation. What jurisdiction does the\r\nUS have to imprison such a man? Beyond that, his work on the eBook was part of\r\nhis doctoral thesis (and hence, his authority to speak on the subject at DefCon\r\n9) and is clearly the work of a scientist for academic purposes. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nIf we have\r\ncome to a point where the FBI is prosecuting employees of a corporation for the\r\ncrimes committed by the corporation, I'd like to submit my list. The\r\nElectronic Frontier Foundation has offered legal counsel, but has been denied\r\naccess to Dmitry so far (as has everyone else). \r\n<\/p>
\r\nThere is a protest outside\r\nAdobe Systems' headquarters in San Jose, California on Monday, 23 July, 2001\r\nat eleven o'clock in the morning. They will meet across the street from the\r\nAdobe building (I believe the tallest building in San Jose) in Plaza de Cesar\r\nChavez near the statue of Quetzecoatl. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nThere are several solidarity protests at\r\nboth Adobe offices and federal buildings throughout the country. I am working\r\nwith the EFF and anyone else that can help to organize a solidarity action in\r\nPortland to be held in front of the federal building at the designated time. We\r\nwill talk about the case, pass out flyers, and hopefully just make a strong\r\nshowing to stop this international atrocity. Other cities hosting solidarity\r\nactions are Denver, Seattle, Chicago, Boston, an d Moscow. \r\n<\/p>
\r\nVisit the\r\ndemonstration coordination site There is also talk of an IT walk-out (more of a\r\nsick-out) in solidarity to show that information workers will not be treated\r\nthis way. The day of the walk-out has not yet been determined. \r\n<\/p>\n","contact":"","link":"http:\/\/www.tearitalldown.com\/stories.php?story=01\/07\/19\/9640027","address":"http:\/\/www.tearitalldown.com\/stories.php?story=01\/07\/19\/9640027","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/html","summary":"A Russian computer programmer was arrested by the FBI on Monday after giving a presentation at an annual computer security conference in Las Vegas at the behest of Adobe.","numcomment":1,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/2001\/07\/russian_pr.txt","filesize":"6.3 kibibytes","article_url":"\/news\/2001\/07\/8877.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[{"id":8880,"heading":"DMCA = MAD","article":"This is truly a monstrosity, to be added to many other monstrosities in the DMCA. How many people are aware that this flagrantly anticonstitutional piece of legislation makes the term of a copyright potentially extendible up to 95 years?!! (The Constitutions says, \"Congress shall have power to grant to inventors exclusive rights to their inventions FOR A LIMITED TIME\"(!)) By making the maximum copyright term far longer than the lifespan of most human beings, the US Congress has effectively given copyright holders rights in perpetuity.\r\n\r\nThe 1996 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Sonny Bono's\r\nlegacy to mankind, will go down in infamy as one of a raft of draconian laws passed in the 1990s that decisively shifted the balance of power and wealth into the hands of the owners of capital as never before.","author":"Guy Berliner","parent_id":8877,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2001-07-24 17:16:54","modified":"2001-07-24 18:00:01","fileurl":""}]}