[free-sklyarov] Just how good a cryptographer is Sklyarov anyway?

[Paul Callahan]

All the anti-DMCA pro-Sklyarov 
comments have pointed out the childish weakness of
the Adobe encryption method (comparison to rot-13,
etc.).
I assume Sklyarov is a very clever guy--he's a grad
student in computer science, just like I used to be ;)
and he has been studying cryptography.  The fact that
anyone managed to break Adobe's encryption shows that
it's too weak, no doubt about it. But is it really a 
laughably bad system or did Sklyarov do 
some impressive code-breaking?  I suppose if I could
see his talk I would know for myself, but I didn't
and don't know where to find a transcript.

Anyway, I had an interesting and disconcerting chain 
of thoughts today while commuting to work.  I'm not
sure that our national security goon squad has noticed
that the cold war is over.  Is it possible that
someone
up there will think it's a feather in his cap to 
"capture" a "Russian cryptographer."?  Maybe this is
far-fetched.  I realize Dmitry is a student and 
privately employed software engineer.  I'm just
wondering if our federal government is sophisticated
enough to make that distinction.  Any thoughts?

--Paul



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