[free-sklyarov] Russian anticircumvention law?

[Kurt Foss]

At 1:15 PM -0700 7/31/01, Seth David Schoen wrote:
>I suspect that this poster has just misinterpreted what AEBPR is, but
>I wonder if anyone's familiar with the law to which he refers.
>
>http://www.upside.com/texis/mvm/discuss/+NwwFqzvx98KwKmWxzmwww0/view_discussion.html?msgid=3b5c4d8f0;p=2

There was a bit of a flap a week or so ago that I've seen mentioned
recently in a few Russian sites about a radio interview in which
someone (Anton Nosik, a newspaper editor and Internet company owner,
as I recall) apparently said he approved of the arrest of Dmitry
Sklyarov, claiming it was a crime not only in the US, but in Russia,
too.

He cited an "Article 23" of Russia's Criminal Code that he said
applied -- had to do with creating harmful programs and/or changes in
existing computer programs that led to destruction, copying, etc. --
which is supposedly punishable by 3-7 years and a significant fine,
according to the interviewee.

Others quoted on the same topic disagreed with him, citing Article 15
that they said was more relevant, and under which Dmitry would not
have been arrested in Russia. It refers to the legality of making a
back-up copy of a program for specific purposes. (There was no
mention, as I recall, to the situation where in order to make a
back-up copy, one had to first decrypt the file.)

The same discussion repeated a theme a number here have touched on --
that *if* there was legitimate cause for an arrest, it should not
have been Dmitry, but rather one or more of his ElcomSoft colleagues
(heads of the company). [their suggestion, not mine]

Hopefully someone from Russia can clarify this matter further.

Regards ~ Kurt
____________________ Kurt Foss - Editor _______________________
Planet PDF - A world of Acrobat/PDF news, tips, tools and forums
mailto:kfoss at binarything.com | mailto:kfoss at planetpdf.com
http://www.binarything.com/ | http://www.planetpdf.com/
BinaryThing.com - The ePublishing Network
--