Sklyarov Discusses the ElcomSoft Trial 270
DaytonCIM writes "Dmitry Sklyarov talks openly about the ElcomSoft trial to CNET News. The 'Russian programmer thinks it was unfair of prosecutors to play his videotaped deposition at the ElcomSoft trial rather than calling him to the stand.'"
Whats the difference... (Score:2, Insightful)
Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like someing you'd hear about in a _really_ backwards country somewhere...
The 5th amendmant (Score:3, Insightful)
If he had something to say his lawyers would call him to the stand in rebuttal to the prosecution.
Re:Hmm... (Score:2, Insightful)
I swear, I'm gonna move to New Zealand, or Australia, or Canada or something.
It's Amazing (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Whats the difference... (Score:5, Insightful)
Cross examination.
It's, like, a fundamental part of our legal structure. The opposing side gets to IMMEDIATELY challenge your statements on the stand, obviously with the intent to lessen the impact of those statements on the jury.
Breaking US laws in Russia (Score:0, Insightful)
Sad times... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sure he was told his previous project was legal. It's sad that now lawyers will have to say "Yes, this is legal. Except in the USA."
Re:Whats the difference... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmm... held under guard in a foreign country and not allowed to go home until you make a video tape that incriminates you and/or your friends... nope, I can't think of any reason the testimony might be faulty. Of course, when folks in "the axis of evil" do things like that, our freedom-loving leaders tend to call it "hostage taking" and "terrorism".
Re:Hmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
In the US, it is not the job of the prosecution to fairly present both sides. The prosecution's job is to make the best case they can against the defendant and the defense's job is to rebut the case. The judge has the task of making sure that both sides have the opportunity to present their case, within the rules of evidence.
Re:It's Amazing (Score:2, Insightful)
And no, it isn't illegal to kill someone if you are defending yourself. Not in the US anyway. Which is exactly the example Sklyarov made.
I'm hardly misrepresenting anything... (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact is, he did all his work on the product (which is legal in its country of origin) in Russia, where, last I heard, US laws don't apply. The fact that they were waiting to arrest him, apparently, for giving an academic lecture on a product he produced where it was legal is far more disturbing than you make it out to be.
ISTR that Skylarov isn't the first person to whom this sort of jurisdictional knucklebones has happened at the behest of some large, US-based money-wielding entity. As you may recall when the DeCSS story broke, the US wanted Jon Johansen to stand trial in the US for breaking a US law when he wasn't even in the US when he allegedly "broke" it (how can you break the law of another country when you aren't even there, I'd like to know?), but that quickly passed off around the same time as the Norwegian authorities decided to go ahead and prosecute him for related offenses, real or imagined. Also, you may recall Edward Felten's legal difficulties surrounding his paper on encryption.
All of which, in my (paranoid?) mind, adds up to the US's playing very fast and loose with international law (what else is new?) and an immense chilling effect in the technology field.
If it were provable that Elocomsoft was deliberately and knowingly (with malice aforethought) selling products to customers not legally able to buy them, that would be another matter, which I think was upheld with the verdict here. However, the very clear perception that I'm getting from the Elocomsoft case in general is that the US wants to enforce the DMCA worldwide, and will do just about anything it can to make sure that it gets what it wants. Note, please, I'm not a US citizen, and so don't have US patriotism getting in the way of my natural impulses to be skeptical and cynical of the US government's motives in any given instance, so I could be erring on the side of hostility here.
More unjust than most DMCA cases (Score:5, Insightful)
Dmitri didn't get to vote in those US elections. He wasn't represented by any of the people who passed DMCA. His responsibility is Russia and its own load of problems. He really wasn't responsible for DMCA, not the way US Citizens (even those of us who oppose DMCA) are.
You can say it's all part of the risk of working in a foreign country, and he didn't have to do that. Much like the missionary who goes to Afghanistan (pre-9/11/1) and gets in trouble with one of the Taliban's demented laws, he should have known to stay out of the more dangerous parts of the world. But it was still more deeply unjust than all the other DMCA cases have been.
Dmitri, I'm sorry and ashamed that we did this to you.
The lasting result: Bad publicity for Adobe (Score:3, Insightful)
There is one lasting result of the Dmitry Skylarov trial: Adobe got bad publicity that won't go away.
Adobe found an amazingly efficient way to get its name in front of the computer-using public. By attacking Skylarov, Adobe got $100,000,000 in almost free, extremely negative, publicity.
Remember when Adobe attacked Dr. Kai-Uwe Sattler [uni-magdeburg.de] who named the KDE illustrator program Killustrator [slashdot.org]? (See also Killustrator Author Required to Pay Two Grand [slashdot.org].) It is entirely understandable that the program was named that way; every KDE program begins with K. But Adobe didn't see any humor in it. The company attacked Dr. Sattler legally instead of calling him up and joking with him about the name, and asking him to change it. This had the following results:
- Tons of bad publicity.
- Dr. Sattler's program was advertised internationally, possibly attracting
developers and hastening the day when the program can compete with Adobe
Illustrator.
- Millions of good programmers decided maybe they didn't want to work for
Adobe.
This was all done under the guidance of Bruce Chizen, Adobe CEO. He also was responsible for attacking China, a country with a piracy rate of "90 percent" that also has a poverty rate of maybe 80 percent. See Adobe Considers Withdrawing from Asian Markets [slashdot.org]. By Monday after he made this statement, Adobe's publicity department was trying to undo the damage.