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Say Here Why Sklyarov Should Go Free
Skylarov's fate has significance far beyond encryption programs. It goes directly to the very idea of security online, of hacker exploration, the open sharing of software processes, and to the creativity and challenge that is at the heart of the Net. This process of sharing, exploring and challenging is one of the primary reasons for the Net's growth, from gaming to messaging to system software to open source. This case also involves the future of copyright and intellectual property. Sklyarov is in jail because of a poorly-conceived provision of the DMCA written by entertainment company lobbyists that goes far beyond existing copyright law.
Sklyarov violated no aspect of traditional copyright law -- only the outlandish provisions of the DMCA. His behavior is similiar to that of many journalists and critics who, over the years, have obtained secret, classified or copyrighted corporate or governmental information to expose flaws, weaknesses or more serious forms of wrongdoing. Few have been arrested and thrown in jail. The federal courts have always taken the view that the greatest threat to freedom is the unchecked power of large institutions, from governments to auto manufacturers. In a sense, the future of Net security depends on people like Skylarov probing for weaknesses and flaws. Whatever his motives, Sklyarov's behavior was in this protected tradition.
Even if Skylarov is freed tomorrow, his arrest and persecution will chill criticism of corporate products and power, and threatens the survival of individualism online. This is a major escalation for increasingly aggressive and monopolistic tech and media corporations, some of which are aggressively moving to control content and communications. Copyright is their new wedge. This criminal case should be dropped, and Sklyarov freed.
Freedom to speak should exist even when a US corporation finds such speech uncomfortable.
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Give me LIBERTY, or give me a check.
2. Fair Use: What fair use? ;-) This has been beaten to death, but I must mention it simply because it is so compelling. I am allowed to copy things for my own personal use. You can try to stop me with anti-copying measures, but if I succeed there is nothing you can do about it. Which means that a device that allows me to do this cannot be illegal. (this is all supposing that fair use rights have not been summarily thrown out the window by the DMCA).
3. Punish the crime, not the tool. This is my own personal opinion, but I think the US could really look to this when making laws. I can kill someone with a ballpoint pen, and it would still be murder. I could also do this with a gun, a knife or just about anything. It is the murder that is the crime, not the gun (or pen, etc.). I know many do not agree with me on this, but we need to draw the line somewhere. Making extra penalities for commiting a crime with a certain weapon or possessing a weapon that enables you to commit crimes is simply stupid. Similarly, just because I have the tools to commit copyright infringement doesn't mean I will do it. I used to download songs from Napster that I already owned on CD just because it was a pain to rip them all.
4. Code is Speech. If you claim that it is not, please explain how RSA encryption was exported as a book, or how DeCSS can be printed on a T-shirt. Anything that can be written in a book or on a T-shirt is speech, and is protected (as long as it isn't a death-threat or a threat to national security).
5. The DMCA sucks. :-) The above are most of the reasons. It is a law that was passed after huge lobbying efforts by enormous corporations for one purpose only: their own bottom line. It was not passed to protect the artists or writers, give me a break. It was passed to protect the publishers. They need to get the message that if widespread pirating is being done, they need to focus on quality of service and ease of distribution. Why didn't the VCR kill television or movies? Because it is easier to pay for cable and a better experience to go to the movies. Plus you can RENT tapes. As long as a CD costs $18 there will be a poor college kid trying to pirate it because he DOESN'T HAVE THAT MUCH MONEY.
Those are most of the reasons I could think of off the top of my head.
"He's more machine now than man, twisted and evil."
Not that this is particularly a new view point, I will post it to be heard; for what that is worth.
My first point is that the DMCA overrides many of the copyright issues that people have lived with for years, in fact, they take them for granted. Issues like so called "fair use," although tricky, is a major issue that the DMCA throws out the window. Also is the issue of the expiration dates on copyrights. I think this is required, not only because the earlier laws require it, but it is required for an innovative country. Without this, I think America wouldn't be what it is today.
Secondly, the DMCA was passed without the knowledge or consent of the people of the United States. I know that we live in a representative government, where our elected officials speak for the people at large, but this particular law, and alarmingly, many like it, were passed on behalf of the recording industry, movie making industry, etc. This is not the will of the people. In fact, how can someone say that the people are benefited by this law? I say that they are not. Their rights are being trampled by this abomination. In most, if not all states, if a contract is signed that isn't beneficial to both parties, it can be easily contested as invalid. This law is similar, I think it would be over-turned, because it doesn't have the best interests of the American people at heart.
Thirdly, in what way is Adobe hurt by Dmitri Sklyarov's actions that it would have been able to avoid if this didn't contain one of the political buzzwords like "encryption" or "hacker"? In the past, when a company was guilty of lying or committing a crime, it is usually up to a private citizen (American or otherwise) to point it out before the public at large and the Judicial system would take notice? Adobe tried to tie something to a single instance of computer hardware, making it non-copyable. This is shaky legal ground without the DMCA, as it probably violates "fair use." Furthermore, the encryption used is flimsy and easily breakable. If I am betting my company on the quality of this encryption, the low quality of the Adobe product constituted a defective product. Only because it is illegal now (under the DMCA and no other law) to try to break encryption, would this even have the possibility of not being broken and turned into a copyable medium. What Mr. Sklyarov did was to enable people and corporations to understand the risk of using Adobe's defective eBook product. This has never been a crime, and it shouldn't be a crime. Without this type of "expose," we are in the position of the king in the children's story "The Emperor's New Clothes." We know that there are problems, but they are never fixed, because no one is allowed to talk about the problems, thus Adobe--or any other company--has no reason to improve, thus killing the innovation that I mentioned in my first paragraph.
Lastly, it is a crime to talk about encryption subversion under the DMCA. This treads on dangerous territory, that being free speech. Yes, there are instances where we give up free speech for the greater good (the classic yelling "fire" in a crowded theater for example), but this isn't one of them. There is no greater good, only the good of a few wealthy companies, the ones which lobbied this law into existence. In fact, I believe that the criminalization of talking about this if a disservice to America. It is only by talking about things among peers that real scientific advances come.
I still think a run-of-the-mill petition would be in order as well. I think until we actually take action that the "old school" politicians will recognize, we are just shouting to the converted.
room101 -- how much can you stand before they break you?
(they always break you eventually)
Check out Roger Parloff of Inside.com's column on why Dmitry should not be freed. I don't necessarily agree but it's good to play devils advocate.
We are setting a precedent that is going to come back to haunt us. Consider that we have imprisoned a foreign national, who entered the country on a Visa from the US government. His act is only illegal within the boarders of the US and the act did not occur here.
This policy puts all of us who travel abroad for business at risk. Consider that we have people setting up phone networks, running fiber, etc. in countries like Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and a host of third world countries. Can you tell me what is illegal in those countries? Would you like it to be in the US? That is what we are saying. If you violate our laws while in your country, never come here.
Extreme example? The only people who believe the world loves the US have never traveled. While they do not dislike us individually, we are considered arrogant and inexperienced as a country. Most countries have homes older than we have existed. We think we are right most of the time and are more prone to "my way or the highway" mentality, with the view shared by many that we are a bully that needs a good thrashing.
We have now set the precedent that you can arrest an American for violating your laws while in America. This is bad on so many levels.
Sklyarov should not be summarily released. Yes, I said it.
Why? Because the DMCA is fatally flawed. Its concepts make dangerous and possibly unconstitutional precedent, and criminalize the rights of invention ('freedom to innovate') in ways previously relegated to dark-future fiction.
Will Congress repeal the DMCA? Unlikely. Political pressure from lobbyists is far greater to keep it in place, and that's where the money is.
Will the president do anything about it? This president? Not likely. (Besides, he's going on vacation for a month.)
The courts are the only arena where the DMCA will be chipped away until it falls apart, but that can't happen if we stage 'free hacker-x' demonstrations every time the DMCA is to be put on trial.
This case is perfect. It's highly public, it hits upon the core of the DMCA, and it's one where the victimized party (Adobe) also feels that the defendant should not be prosecuted. If there's another test case that stands a better chance of chinking the DMCA's multi-platinum armor, I don't know what it is.
But none of this can happen if we don't push the trial through. Look at the big picture. Free Sklyarov, and next month there will be another Sklyarov in his place (anyone want to publish a paper on DeCSS?), but break the DMCA in court, and all Sklyarovs will be free.
Kevin Fox
One of the primary injustices of Sklyarov's arrest is that US law enforcement officials have no jurisdiction over this matter. Even if his actions did violate US laws, he broke Adobe's encryption while living and working in Russia. It is absurd that the United States government should arrest him while travelling in the United States for a his (legal) actions in another country. Arresting a Russian citizen for an alleged violation of the DMCA, which occured in Russia, if at all, is analogous to arresting a Dutch citizen for smoking marijuana while at home in the Netherlands, where such activity is perfectly legal.
Anonymous Luddite: "What do you think of the dehumanizing effects of the Internet?"
Andy Grove: "Not Much."
href="http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=0
discusses the resignation of Alan Cox, a major force behind open software, from the USENIX organization for fear of unconstitutional seizure by the FBI while traveling in the US...
The question of whether there was probable cause that Sklyarov was personally responsible for distribution of an alleged circumvention device at the time of his arrest is certainly beyond my legal expertise and I suspect that most people who are stating an opinion on the subject are equally clueless.
That being said, the main reason this man should be released is that the supposed injured party and original source of the complaint, Adobe, has withdrawn its complaint and expressed its desire that Sklyarov be released. Yes, yes, someone will say, you don't need to take the "victim's" desires/feelings into account for there to be a crime. But it helps. We have enough serious criminals that need to be in jail without filling cells with people like Sklyarov.
The real story here is why Sklyarov is sitting in jail still at all, not being indicted, not having a bail hearing. I suspect the simple answer is the FBI is trying to figure out what to do with him that will not A)further embarrass them in the middle of their most shameful year in recent memory or B)wind up getting the DMCA thrown out of the law books on appeal. Headline: Russian Hacker Brings Down Landmark Intellectual Property Law. Nice one, Feds.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
While I feel incredibly sorry for Dmitry and his family, there's absolutely nothing about this incident which couldn't be fully predicted from the DMCA itself, and the general legal trend in the US for the past 50+ years. Corporations are in the business of maximizing profit and minimizing risk, and governments are in the business of maximizing order, increasing control, and growing their headcount, prestige, and budgets. This is the logical result of evolution through time.
Without strong protections, enshrined in contracts like the US Constitution, Bill of Rights, and in the everyday behavior and norms expected by a well-educated, informed, and active citizenry, things will naturally become more and more authoritarian. We've seen it in the US with DMCA, CALEA, and other new laws, as well as administrative actions taken by government agencies. We've seen it in the UK, with abominations like the RIP Act. We've seen it in the EU, which passes laws which ostensibly protect individual privacy but in fact create new bureaucracy. And Asia and Australia are even worse in a lot of ways.
Absent a major change in public perception (which I think is highly unlikely), the only path to individual liberty is technical. Perhaps it is now the case that security researchers, mathematicians, and pro-liberty activists must go underground, communicating using anonymous remailers, pseudonyms, and strong cryptography. Certainly groups have been forced underground in the past, but given certain conditions, it is impossible for them to be totally silenced. There are plenty of places in the world where people can live in freedom, due to a policy (intentional or unintentional) of tolerance -- Holland, Costa Rica, islands in the Caribbean, the Pacific -- for those who can't live underground in their own lands. Hopefully, HavenCo and Sealand can play some role in safeguarding liberty for those who live in other nations, by hosting servers for sensitive projects, remailers, and other infrastructure, as well as serving as an example of rational security policy for other nations. However, systems like Mojonation, Gnutella, Napster, ZKS Freedom, Mixmaster remailers, OpenPGP, and BitTorrent are perhaps more important for enabling this kind of research to be conducted, if not openly, at least securely.
If you're going to campaign for political change, don't just campaign for Dmitry to be released, or the DMCA to be overturned -- the core issue here is the continued erosion of individual liberty, at the hands of government, "well-intentioned do-gooders", and corporations.
I look forward to seeing people at HAL 2001, which thankfully is being held in a fairly free country.
Ryan Lackey
http://www.venona.com/rdl/
http://www.havenco.com/
It should exist especially when they find it uncomfortable.
Nope, no sig
Arresting a Russian citizen for an alleged violation of the DMCA, which occured in Russia, if at all, is analogous to arresting a Dutch citizen for smoking marijuana while at home in the Netherlands, where such activity is perfectly legal.
Not exactly. They'll draw a much finer line than that. They'll prosecute him for distributing his tool in the US, which is a crime under the DMCA. Following your analogy, it's the same as if a Dutch citizen arranged for a hundred pounds of hash to be shipped to the US - even if he never leaves his house to do it, it's still a crime under US law the instant that stuff touches US soil, and therefore falls under US jurisdiction.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
Everybody, think real hard about how much money you can part with. Surely most people here can let go of at least $100, without blinking. Hell, a lot of you wouldn't blink at spending $500 on a night out. or maybe you can only spare $20, you can still help with that. Now do two things with that money:
1) Donate to the EFF, or Join the EFF. They're a great organization, and they can use your help. You, on the other hand, can use the tax break.
2) Purchase Elcomsoft software.