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Title

Sklyarov out, Johansen In

Description

Dmitry Sklyarov has escaped sacrifice on the altar of the DMCA. He is the programmer for the Russian software firm <a href="http://www.elcomsoft.com/">Elcomsoft</a> that cracked the pitiful copy-protection on the <a href="http://www.adobe.com">Adobe</a> E-Book Reader in order to allow users to make backups of books they bought. After an initial outcry, Adobe dropped the case, but the U.S. Attorney's office pursued the first case to prosecute for violating the DMCA. He was eventually released 5 months later and spent the holidays at home, in Russia. However, the <a href="http://www.oreillynet.com">O'Reilly Network</a> reports in <a href="http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/weblog/view/wlg/983">Dmitry Sets the Record Straight</a> that the U.S. Attorney's characterization of the case's result is deliberately misleading. In fact, Sklyarov has made no plea agreement and is still employed at Elcomsoft, despite U.S. Attorney announcements to the contrary. In his own words: <bq>... I am extremely disappointed with any implication that I am, in any way, cooperating with the [U.S.] government. My perspective is simply this: I am a man of integrity and as such am doing nothing more that telling the truth... I am not for or against anyone.</bq> It seems that the U.S. Attorney's office is attempting to save some face. They had to let him go because they had no case, but couldn't resist making it look like he'd been fired, had changed his story (after being shown the light of U.S. justice) and had copped a plea to help out the U.S. government in prosecuting foreign nationals and corporations for violations of a U.S. copyright law that is still untested (and sorely contested). On the other hand, <a href="http://www.securityfocus.com/">Security Focus</a> reports in <a href="http://www.securityfocus.com/news/306">DeCSS Creator Indicted in Norway</a> that the Norwegian hacker responsible for cracking the encryption standard for DVDs (and writing DeCSS) has been picked up by Norwegian authorities. He was picked up for breaking a law: <bq>which prohibits the opening of a closed document in a way that gains access to its contents, or breaking into a locked repository. The law also prohibits the breaking of a protective device in a way that unlawfully obtains access to the data.</bq> However, as ever, "Johansen [has] maintained that DeCSS was intended not to make copies, but rather to create DVD playback software for computers running the Linux operating system."