Dr. Dobb's Journal October 2001
Upon coming to the United States, most visitors want to see the Statue of Liberty, the Washington Monument, maybe Mt. Rushmore, and perhaps other icons that have come to represent the land of the free and home of the brave. What they don't expect to see are the skylines of cities such as Las Vegas, Oklahoma City, and San Jose from the inside of a jail cell looking out. But then most tourists aren't Dmitry Sklyarov.
To recap, Sklyarov is the Russian programmer arrested not for murder or trafficking in drugs, but for allegedly violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Specifically, Sklyarov, an employee of a Russian software company called Elcomsoft (http://www.elcomsoft.com/), helped write a program that laid open the ineffective security of Adobe System's eBook electronic book technology (http://www.adobe.com:80/products/ebookreader/main.html). With this program, legal eBook owners could convert their encrypted files into standard PDF documents. Elcomsoft then began selling the software, called the "Advanced eBook Processor" (AEBPR), for $99.00 through the RegNow service (http://www.regnow.com/). Citing the DMCA, Adobe complained to the FBI, which laid in wait for Sklyarov to travel to the U.S. to present a technical paper before arresting him for trafficking in software designed to circumvent copyright protection measures. Sklyarov was then tossed in the hoosegow without bail before being inexplicably flown at taxpayer expense from Las Vegas to Oklahoma City and on to San Jose in a bad FBI remake of the movie Con Air.
After discussions with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (http://www.eff.org/), Adobe had the good sense to withdraw its complaint. Perhaps trying to make amends for everything from the Robert Hanssen and Wen Ho Lee fiascoes to J. Edgar Hoover's hypocrisy, the FBI refused to back off. To the FBI's dismay, a judge released Sklyarov on relatively low bail. In any event, what put Sklyarov in the FBI's crosshairs was his name listed as copyright holder on the AEBPR startup screen.
From all indications, Sklyarov did nothing illegal in his native Russia, which, from my understanding, does not recognize the DMCA. From the FBI's perspective, the rub seems to involve two issues: distributing or trafficking in the software, presumably by selling it over the Internet; and, more frightening, writing the software in the first place. The DMCA, you see, expressly prohibits the "invention" of circumvention devices and reverse engineering of document protection. On the other hand, the FBI has conveniently ignored DMCA provisions that allow for security research. And as security expert Bruce Schneier (http://www.counterpane.com/) astutely points out, the DMCA technically only applies to "effective" copy-protection technology (such as eBook). However, once the technology is broken (as with AEBPR), it can no longer be considered effective. Therefore, the DMCA can't be applied and the case of the United States of America v. Dmitry Sklyarov should be dismissed.
The DMCA in general, and the Sklyarov case in particular, are affronts to both the American people and the world at large, and the sooner both are thrown out, the better off we'll all be.
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On another topic altogether, we're presenting DDJ's 2002 editorial calendar this month, and we'll be looking for articles on these (and other) topics throughout the coming year. There are a few things to keep in mind when writing for DDJ. For starters, remember that the magazine actually comes out about 30 days prior to the cover date. Therefore, if your idea targets a particular month, plan accordingly. Second, not every article in an issue is related to that month's theme. Good articles on any topic can appear in any issue. Third, we do pay for articles. And finally, you can review our complete author guidelines at http://www.ddj.com/ddj/authors.htm. If you have any questions about articles (writing or otherwise), we'd welcome the opportunity to hear from you. Just contact us at jerickson@ddj.com or editors@ddj.com.
2002 Editorial Calendar
January - Web Services
February - Programming Languages
March - Scientific & Engineering
April - Java Programming
May - Algorithms, Protocols, & Data Structures
June - Communications & Networking
July - Graphics Programming
August - Software Design
September - Distributed Computing
October - Intelligent Systems
November - Computer Security
December - Database Development
Jonathan Erickson
editor-in-chief
jerickson@ddj.com