IP: Programmer arrested for cracking Adobe PDF encryption

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date: 18 Jul 2001 12:02:12 EDT
> From: David Chessler <chessler () usa net>
> To: farber () cis upenn edu
>
> This is from Telecom Digest (comp.dcom.telecom):
>
> Date: 18 Jul 2001 02:49:14 -0400
> From: "Jean Bernard Condat" <condat () posteasy org>
> Subject: No more restrictions on encrypted Adobe Acrobat files
>
> Bonjour,
>
> I note this uncredible story today in my mails. Do you mind it's really bad?
>
>
> "LAS VEGAS -- FBI agents have arrested a Russian programmer for giving away
> software that removes the restrictions on encrypted Adobe Acrobat files.
>
> Dmitry Sklyarov, a lead programmer for Russian software company ElcomSoft,
> was visiting the United States for the annual Defcon hacker convention,
> where he gave a talk on the often-flawed security of e-books. This would be
> the second known prosecution under the criminal sections of the
> controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act, (DMCA) which took effect
> last year and makes it a crime to "manufacture" products that circumvent
> copy protection safeguards.
>
> Vladimir Katalov, Elcom's managing director, told PlanetEbook that Skylarov
> was arrested for distributing the company's Advanced eBook Processor as he
> was on his way home and that he is being held in a Las Vegas jail while
> awaiting transfer to California.
>
> This is the latest round in an increasingly nasty battle between Elcomsoft
> and Adobe, which fired off a stiff letter to the Russian firm a few weeks
> ago claiming "unauthorized activity relating to copyrighted materials," and
> requesting that the $100 eBook decoder be taken off the market.
>
> At the time, Katalov replied on the comp.text.pdf newsgroup by dismissing
> Adobe's complaints as specious: "We'll just move our site to another ISP, in
> another country (where there is no Digital Millennium Copyright Act). And/or
> make our software available for free, under the GNU license."
>
> So far, hackers and open-source advocates have paid the most attention to
> the DMCA's civil portions, which eight movie studios used in an attempt to
> compel 2600 Magazine to remove a DVD-descrambling program from their
> website.
>
> The recording industry threatened Ed Felten, a Princeton University computer
> science professor, with a civil suit under the DMCA if he presented his
> research on copy protection plans, prompting the Electronic Frontier
> Foundation to file a lawsuit trying to declare the DMCA unconstitutional on
> free-speech grounds.
>
> Federal prosecutors in Florida have filed one case against a man who
> allegedly distributed cards that circumvent satellite content protection
> systems. Dario Diaz, the defense attorney involved in the case, said in an
> interview last week that he did not know of any other DMCA prosecutions.
>
> Sklyarov, who works in Moscow, was arrested at the Las Vegas airport on
> Monday morning, according to his employer.
>
> During its exchanges with Adobe, Elcomsoft has taken the position -- with
> which many security experts agree -- that any kind of eBook protection
> system running on insecure hardware, including Acrobat PDF, is inherently
> insecure.
>
> "We would like to state our intention to publish the sources of our software
> in the Internet, and do our best to make them available to everyone all over
> the world if Adobe Systems continues to pursue us," Elcomsoft says on its
> website.
>
> An e-mail message dated June 25 from Adobe's anti-piracy team to Elcomsoft
> says: "Offering of this product without Adobe's consent constitutes
> contributory copyright infringement.... This violation is a matter of great
> concern and will be pursued aggressively by Adobe Systems."
>
> Adobe also pressured Elcomsoft's former Internet provider, Verio, to pull
> the plug on the company's website. Elcomsoft has since moved its online
> operations to a Russian provider.
>
> An earlier version of Elcomsoft's decoder appears to have caused
> BarnesandNoble.com to temporarily yank some eBooks from its online store
> last month. Adobe quickly released an improved encoder, sparking a kind of
> virtual arms race between the two firms.
>
> Since the U.S. is alone in having a law as broad as the DMCA -- though
> Europe is weighing a similar scheme -- the threat of criminal prosecution
> could prompt overseas security researchers to boycott American firms.
>
> After Felten, the Princeton professor, initially bowed to threats from the
> recording industry and did not present his paper at a conference in
> Pittsburgh in April, organizers predicted an American boycott could happen.
>
> Ross Anderson, a reader in security engineering at Cambridge University,
> said at the time: "There is a question whether it will be prudent to hold
> certain types of security conferences in the U.S. in the future.... We can't
> really tolerate a situation where anyone who breaks a system that
> embarrasses someone gets served with a writ."
>
> - -- Jean-Bernard Condat
>    Posteasy SA,condat () posteasy org,
> -
> ------------------------------
>
> End of Telecom Digest V2001 #170
> ********************************
>
>
>
> --
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>                              chessler () usa net
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