[free-sklyarov] He's free.... (fwd)

[Sonia Arana]

Hi Dan,

All books have copywrite protection. If you copy them without permission,
you are breaking the law. Adobe sells a product to authors of e-books
claiming that it will protect their work from unauthorized copying. Dmitry
showed that their product is quite primitive - anybody with a basic
understanding of cryptography can break it. Dmitry came to the US to speak
about these flaws.

Ask yourself - if you bought a security system for your house, and someone
spoke up about how easy it was to break into your house anyway, would you
want him to go to jail? Or would you want the company that made the flawed
security system to fix it?

It is true that Dmitry's company makes a product that circuvments
the encryption on ebooks - however, it is not sold as a
circumvention device. It is sold to ebook owners who want to add features
to their ebook, such as using text-to-speech readers, saving a copy for
themselves, or highlighting important passages. The product must
circumvent encryption to do so. Does this mean that people can make
unauthorized copies with this tool? Probably. But think of all your
household items that have legimate uses, and illegal uses. 

Furthermore, this product is not illegal in Russia. Why should we imprison
people for what they legally do in their own countries? He is accused of
importing the device, but he did not. Some people in the US have the tool,
but it is not Dmitry who should be prosecuted because of this. 

Hope this helps.

Sonia

> ---------- Forwarded Message ----------
> Date: Tuesday, July 24, 2001 9:01 PM +0000
> From: "dan at reed.nu" <dan at reed.nu>
> To: "circularfile at boycottadobe.com" <circularfile at boycottadobe.com>
> Subject: He's free....
> 
> I don't get it. The way I read the news articles is that this guy found the
> 
> loophole in Adobe's secure eBook program and the company he works for was
> 
> selling the services to circumvent the flawed security. (<-read as 'steal')
> 
> 
> 
> Isn't it wrong to steal?
> 
> 
> 
> If I don't keep my doors locked at my house and a .357 magnum loaded and
> within
> 
> reach, it's ok for someone to steal my things or the things of others that
> are
> 
> in my home?
> 
> 
> 
> Please direct me to some good reading so I can shake this ignorance.
> 
> 
> 
> Dan
> 
> Seattle
> 
>