[free-sklyarov] Yahoo! News modifications

[Peter Boerboom]

Apparently, Yahoo's content management system was breached by an outsider
recently. An article about Sklyarov was changed as described below.

http://www.securityfocus.com/news/254

from the article on securityfocus:

Yahoo! News, which learned of the hack from SecurityFocus, says it has
closed the security hole that allowed 20-year-old hacker Adrian Lamo to
access the portal's web-based production tools Tuesday morning, and modify
an August 23rd news story about Dmitry Sklyarov, a Russian computer
programmer facing federal criminal charges under the controversial Digital
Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

Sklyarov created a computer program that cracks the copy protection scheme
used by Adobe Systems' eBook software. His prosecution has come under fire
by computer programmers and electronic civil libertarians who argue that the
DMCA is an unconstitutional impingement on speech, and interferes with
consumers' traditional right to make personal copies of books, movies and
music that they've purchased. 

Lamo tampered with Yahoo!'s copy of a Reuters story that described a delay
in Sklyarov's court proceedings, so that the text reported, incorrectly,
that the Russian was facing the death penalty.

The modified story warned sardonically that Sklyarov's work raised "the
haunting specter of inner-city minorities with unrestricted access to
literature, and through literature, hope."

The text went on to report that Attorney General John Ashcroft held a press
conference about the case before "cheering hordes", and incorrectly quoted
Ashcroft as saying, "They shall not overcome. Whoever told them that the
truth shall set them free was obviously and grossly unfamiliar with federal
law." It's more difficult to get into their advertising reporting statistics
than their news production tools. 


Peter Boerboom