The 27-year old Russian programmer and hacker who was arrested after Defcon was last spotted at 3 pm Monday, when he made a brief court appearance in Las Vegas. He’s charged with violating the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
The 27-year old Russian programmer and hacker who was arrested after Defcon was last spotted at 3 pm Monday, when he made a brief court appearance in Las Vegas. He’s charged with violating the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Now he’s adrift inside the federal prison bureaucracy. A managing director of ElcomSoft, Sklyarov’s employer, says he has no idea where his colleague is. Says ElcomSoft’s Vladimir Katalov: “Of course they really worry about him, because FBI/police didn’t allow Dmit to talk to his family.”
An informed source in the U.S. Attorney’s office in San Francisco said that after Sklyarov’s court visit on Monday he was turned over to the U.S. Marshals. The source said Sklyarov is likely out of contact since he’s in transit to California. Typically prisoners are moved to a holding facility in Oklahoma until there’s a scheduled transport to San Francisco, much as FedEx routes packages through central hubs.
The government source said prosecutors receive almost no warning from the marshals when prisoners will appear — sometimes they get a phone call, and sometimes the marshals simply take the prisoner to the court with no notice.
The U.S. Marshals did not return phone calls. The U.S. Attorney’s offices in San Francisco and Las Vegas said they did not know where Sklyarov was.
An assistant U.S. Attorney in Las Vegas said that he wasn’t familiar with the details of the case, but in general meeting with a detainee isn’t a big deal: “Anyone can meet with a prisoner, you just head up to the prison and ask to see him.” (That supposes that you know where he is.)
Rene Valladares is an assistant federal public defender in Las Vegas who represented Sklyarov during the hearing on Monday. He said Sklyarov would arrive in California between now and two weeks from now (at the latest), at which point a judge will decide if he needs a public defender.
As a side note, the chief of security for the Alexis Park Hotel — where the Defcon convention took place and where Sklyarov was arrested — professed to know nothing. When asked about the arrest, he said: “I have no idea.” When pressed about contact with the FBI, he admitted: “The FBI advises us if they are going to be on our property, but they don’t tell us why. The FBI did advise us they would be on our property Monday morning.”
Background
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) says in section 1201 that: “No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof” that has as its primary use (or is marketed as) circumventing copy protection. Sklyarov is charged with one count of trafficking in illegal circumvention software.
Section 1203 of the DMCA includes civil remedies, which is what the movie studios are using against 2600 magazine. 2600 distributed DeCSS via its website at no charge.
Section 1204 of the DMCA lists the criminal penalties — up to a $500,000 fine and five years in federal prison. Those apply to “any person who violates section 1201 or 1202 willfully and for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain.” This section took effect in October 2000. Because Dmitry’s firm sold their software for “private financial gain,” the Feds believe they can prosecute under the part of Sec. 1204 that would likely not have applied to 2600.
A prediction: Because of the DMCA, U.S. conferences with cutting-edge technical content in this area likely will begin to move offshore or to Canada. If you present your paper at a U.S. conference and get paid to speak, you could be the next person nabbed by the FBI. Even if there’s no “financial gain,” you or the conference organizers could be sued civilly (see the threats against Ed Felten’s abandoned presentation at the Information Hiding Workshop in April).
Relevant links:
Department of Justice press release (7/17/2001)
free-sklyarov mailing list (7/18/2001)
BoycottAdobe.com (7/18/2001)
EFF notice on protests scheduled for July 23 (7/19/2001)
PlanetEBook report on arrest (7/16/2001)
Text of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
McCullagh.org photographs:
Photos from mccullagh.org of DMCA appeal (5/2001)
Photos from mccullagh.org of DMCA protest on Capitol Hill (4/2000)
Photos from mccullagh.org of DMCA trial (7/2000)
Photos from mccullagh.org of Defcon ’00 (7/2000)
Politech archives:
Politech archive on U.S. v. Sklyarov
Politech archive on DeCSS lawsuit against 2600 magazine
Politech archive on Princeton University’s Ed Felten’s struggle with the recording industry
Politech archive on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
News articles: (newest first)
Civil Liberties Group Blasts Adobe For Aiding FBI In Arrest
Jul. 19, 2001 19:35 ET
http://www.newsbytes.com /news/01/168152.html
Russian busted for breaking ebook code
Jul. 19, 2001 16:02 ET
http://www.taipeitimes.com /news/2001/07/19/story/0000094859
Russian computer programmer arrested at hacker conference
Jul. 19, 2001 15:15 ET
cbc.ca/cgi-bin/templates/view.cgi? /news/2001/07/19/hack_arrest010719
Jul. 19, 2001 14:14 ET
http://www.vny.com /cf/News/upidetail.cfm?QID=203955
Boycott Adobe campaign launches
Jul. 19, 2001 12:35 ET
http://www.theregister.co.uk /content/4/20499.html
Russian accused of ebook violation
Jul. 19, 2001 06:57 ET
http://www.lvrj.com /lvrj_home/2001/Jul-18-Wed-2001/news/16563325.html
Jul. 19, 2001 06:45 ET
http://www.wired.com /news/politics/0,1283,45342,00.html
Jul. 19, 2001 05:51 ET
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file= /chronicle/archive/2001/07/18/BU166008.DTL&type=business
Jul. 19, 2001 05:50 ET
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f= /c/a/2001/07/18/BU166008.DTL
Jul. 19, 2001 05:45 ET
www0.mercurycenter.com /premium/nation/docs/hacker18.htm
U.S. Arrests Russian Cryptographer as Copyright Violator
Jul. 19, 2001 03:35 ET
dailynews.yahoo.com/htx/nyt/20010718/tc/ u_s_arrests_russian_cryptographer_as_copyright_violator_1.ht…
Adobe Alerted Government To Russian Software Crack
Jul. 18, 2001 19:35 ET
http://www.newsbytes.com /news/01/168098.html
Russian to face US hacking charges
Jul. 18, 2001 19:14 ET
http://www.vny.com/cf/News/upidetail.cfm?QID=203680
Russian faces e-book copying charges
Jul. 18, 2001 17:15 ET
afr.com/it/2001/07/ 19/FFXO62NZ9PC.html
Russian Hacker Arrested After Las Vegas Convention
Jul. 18, 2001 17:11 ET
dailynews.yahoo.com/htx/nm/ 20010718/tc/tech_hacker_arrest_dc_3.html
Arrest fuels Adobe copyright fight
Jul. 18, 2001 11:10 ET
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2790369,00.html? chkpt=zdnn_nbs_hl
Jul. 18, 2001 05:45 ET
www0.mercurycenter.com/premium/nation/ docs/020263.htm
Russian computer programmer arrested
Jul. 18, 2001 05:45 ET
www0.mercurycenter.com/ business/top/011788.htm
Jul. 18, 2001 04:59 ET
http://www.securityfocus.com/ templates/article.html?id=225
FBI agents pounce on Defcon hacker
Jul. 18, 2001 04:47 ET
http://www.silicon.com/public/door?REQUNIQ= 995446010&6004REQEVENT=&REQINT1=45819&REQSTR1=newsnow
Russian Hacker Arrested After Las Vegas Convention
Jul. 17, 2001 23:11 ET
dailynews.yahoo.com/htx/nm/20010717/tc/ tech_hacker_arrest_dc_1.html
FBI nabs Russian expert at Def Con
Jul. 17, 2001 21:10 ET
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,5094266,00.html? chkpt=zdnn_nbs_hl
FBI Arrests Russian Creator Of E-Book-Decoding Software
Jul. 17, 2001 17:35 ET
http://www.newsbytes.com/ news/01/168042.html
Russian hacker arrested after convention
Jul. 17, 2001 15:40 ET
http://www.cnn.com/2001/ TECH/internet/07/17/hacker.arrest.reut/index.html
eBook security debunker arrested by Feds
Jul. 17, 2001 14:35 ET
http://www.theregister.co.uk/ content/55/20444.html
Jul. 17, 2001 12:45 ET
http://www.wired.com/news/ politics/0,1283,45298,00.html
Author: Declan McCullagh
News Service: Cluebot.com
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