Pardon my soapbox. was: Re: [PLUG]Protest for Skylarov / DMCA

[foodog]

I asked a friend who learned Russian in the military.  A reasonable
approximation of what he said would be skill-yuh-roff  -- except you
pretty much leave out the short "i" in "skill".  His first name's a snap
though, di-me-tree, the "di" pronounced as for "dip".

Here's an easy one to yell: boy-cott uh-dough-bee

<mounting soapbox>

The DMCA, Digital Millennium Copyright Act, is bad, dangerous law that
Adobe Corporation endorses and wields.

So, "What's the big deal about a Russian hacker getting busted?". 
That's the popular media, fifteen-second-attention-span spin of the
story. It's about a lot more than that.  *Please* visit one of the
websites and read about what's happened.  Please also consider attending
the protest Saturday -- it's a very nice library if you need an excuse
:-)

This isn't just about getting Dmitry out of jail although that's the
immediate concern.  It's about the first amendment - free speech.  It's
about intellectual freedom, and it's also about the security and quality
of software and systems.

Dmitry isn't a "cracker".  He's a professional programmer whose company
pissed off and embarrassed Adobe Corp.  He didn't pirate any ebooks, or
encourage anyone else to, and there's no evidence presented to suggest
that anyone ever has as a result of his work.  In Russia his program is
legal, and the Adobe ebook protection scheme is illegal since it doesn't
allow the purchaser to make a legitimate backup copy.

According to the U.S. government, Dmitry "...willfully and for financial
gain imported, offered to the public, provided, and otherwise trafficked
in a technology, product, service, and device that is primarily designed
or produced for the purpose of circumvent[ing] a technological measure
that effectively controls access to a work.".   

It's getting easy for computer professionals, particularly those
involved in security research, to become "felons" in the course of their
legitimate work thanks to laws like the DMCA and UCITA (another huge
mess worth learning about).

<digression>
In 1992, one of my tasks was installing software on a Netware server for
students to use.  One challenge of that job was getting programs to run
from a read-only volume.  We didn't want students deleting or adding
files to the application directories or infecting them with viruses. 
Most software wasn't a problem.  The worst were the one's that were
supposedly "network aware".

I wrote a tiny DOS TSR that intercepted file opens.  If it was an
"exclusive open with write" to drive G:, I changed it to a "friendly"
file open.  That was so the network version of Lotus 123 would work
(safely) in our student labs despite their lame attempt at copy
protection. We owned licenses for everything we ran and used our own
homegrown software metering. My program was "primarily designed or
produced for the purpose of circumvent[ing] a technological measure that
effectively controls access to a work.".   Oops.  I guess I wouldn't do
that today.  Under UCITA I'd be a criminal just for having investigated
why Lotus required write access to the server.  Too cute.
</digression>

The U.S. is close, and Europe is even closer to having laws making it
illegal to write or posess "hacker tools".  Lawmakers are pondering how
to take into account the intent of the author.  Did the author write it
to test the security of his own network, or to break in somewhere? 
Suppose you can't prove you have a tool to legitimately test security? 
Gosh, I guess you must be a dangerous criminal.

"First they arrested the Communists, but I was not a Communist, so I did
nothing. Then they came for the Social Democrats, but I was not a Social
Democrat, so I did
nothing. They arrested the trade unionists, and I did nothing because I
was not one. And then they came for the Jews and then the Catholics, but
I was neither Jew nor
Catholic, so I did nothing. At last they came and arrested me, and there
was no one left to do anything about it." 
- Pastor Martin Niemoller

The are coming for the programmers now.

</soapbox>

L8r

Chris Cowan wrote:
> 
> Anyone know how to pronounce his name exactly... I don't want to run around
> shouting the his name if I can't say it correctly?
> 
> Chris
> 
> on 7/31/01 1:37 PM, Michael March at march@indirect.com wrote:
> 
> > http://www.dmcasucks.org/free.html
> >
> >
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