'Free Sklyarov' Protests Scheduled

After the arrest of Dmitri Sklyarov, the EFF has been busy organizing protests for next Monday - check to see if there's one near you. A Las Vegas TV station apparently managed to interview him, though I can't get their video feed to work for me. The free-sklyarov mailing list has been set up to, well, you can probably guess. Read their archives before jumping in. And website BoycottAdobe.org is an easy URL to remember. Alan Cox has resigned from the Usenix committee which organizes the annual Linux Showcase, citing concerns about DMCA enforcement in the United States. And finally, Professor Touretzky has built on his DeCSS Gallery with a Gallery of Adobe Remedies for showcasing methods to remove restrictions on PDF files.

The event organizers are GOOD...

They know the types of people most likely to be informed about, and attend these protests. (Computer programmers, digital artists, etc.) Here is an excerpt from the description of one of the protests:

"From "the Snake" we will walk the two blocks to Adobe together."

Two blocks. I'm going to have to bring my rolling office chair, or I won't make it!

-BlueMoo

Protests?

Protests are ineffective, if not counter-productive, in most cases. The thing to do is not shout and wave banners for a one time shot on TV, but to seek out mainstream journalists and get them to relay the Sklyarov story to a larger, more receptive audience. Here's the first mainstream opinion piece that I've seen so far. [msnbc.com] Get more attention paid to the issue this way and you won't need to dress up like turtles and attack police in riot gear.

As a US Citizen, do not come to my country!

My government's unconstitutional enforcement of the DMCA is only one example of the blatant disregard for the rights and liberties of both US Citizens and foreign nationals.

We are no longer the land of the free. For your own safety, stay out.

slight problem with your arguments...

Say, Russia, where a former KGB thug became president and is trying to suppress independent media (makes W. look stellar).

And this is different from ex-CIA director George Bush Sr. or his thug son in what way?

Oh, yes, GW Bush used his connections to steal the national election, then watched California plunge into the worst energy crisis of the decade while doing nothing because they didn't vote for him?

And we haven't degenerated into a banana republic? Hello?!

Or the Third World, where US companies- freed from our watchful government and Constitution- have dissidents murdered (Nigeria) or ethnic minorities massacred (Myanmar) by the local despots to pave the way for new pipelines.

Ever heard of Jimmy Hoffa?

I'll admit the US record on civil rights and liberties is spotty at best. In few cases, however, has the moral high ground failed to win.

Scopes monkey trial?

The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Someone here obviously hasn't been paying attention.

Don't forget to vote!

At the bottom of the article [msnbc.com] is a voting box to recommend the article to other readers.

This article is not yet in their top 10 list - only you can make it so :-)

Alternative to ACROBAT DISTILLER

JAWS PDF Creator [jawssystems.com], which is every bit as good -- and in some ways better -- than Distiller.



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Re:Alan Cox has it right....

Insofar as American professionals have more disposable income to travel than professionals from other parts of the world, it's always struck me as a bit unfair that so many international professional conferences wind up in the US as it is. Internationalizing the venues is fairer from that perspective alone.

Besides, I think more conferences should be in Rio de Janiero, don't you?

Re:Free Skylarov

This has been said in many other /. threads relating to political activism, but here goes:

Generally, email is an ineffective way of contacting many, if not most, Congressmen. For better or for worse, Congressmen attach less of a value to email than they do to regular postal snail mail.

Whenever you write your representative or senator, make sure you include your postal return address in their district. If you don't show that you're one of their constituents, your message will not be seen by anyone besides a low-level staffer or intern (who will summarily discard it).

Some good magic words to use (which are not always effective) are, "I am one of your voting constituents", and "I would appreciate the courtesy of a written response."

Also, form letters will get form responses. Brief, polite, but personal/unique letters get noticed (slightly) more.

I'll say it again: It's better to send snail mail. If you must send email, state that you're one of Congressman ____'s voting constituents right off the bat, and provide your snail mail address in the first paragraph.

Re:As a US Citizen, do not come to my country!

Not only that but a non-us company (Canada based Adobe) can have a Forign citizen harassed,arrested,and thrown into our prison system... Not the nice White collar prison, nooo but the one with the Child molesters,mass murders,and phycopaths... Kinda like the US version of a Gulag.

I am a US citizen, and I am deeply ashamed to be one right now. This is a perfect example to the world that our government is not what we tout it as or claim it to be, but is in fact exactly what we condemn and attack. (Saddam Hussien and George W have a-lot in common... they both support the opression and imprisionment of people that do not agree with his polotical agenda.

George W, if you are a real man, order him freed now, offer restitution to the man, and publically apologize to the entire world for the travesty you allowed to happen.

Hacker missing!

Not only was the arrest troubling, now they don't know where he is!

Hacker missing [cluebot.com]

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Poliglut [poliglut.com]

The politics of martyrdom.

So Adobe decided to make an example of Sklyarov and made a martyr instead, at least among those already informed and inclined to worry about the DMCA. Even if it never catches the public attention, though, the arrest was a bad blunder, as it just may have finally galvanised some of the army of anti-DMCA forum-posters into real productive action.

This demonstrates yet again how political activism is the slave of the irrationalities of human nature: thousands of people knew this time last week, and last year, that the DMCA could and would be used for precisely this purpose (among others), yet waited until after it had happened to take up arms. It also demonstrates how badly the people who profess to lead the anti-DMCA camp need to learn the moves necessary to campaign successfully in the real, irrational world of politics. They should have been actively trying to force the DMCA's supporters into having people arrested. They should also have been trying to drill their lackadasical supporters into a properly effective grass-roots lobby group.

Did you notice...

... that in the Gallery linked above, the key to unlock a $99 piece of software had been posted? Doesn't that strike anyone as being a bit ironic?

Martyr's Cause

While the geek public has been ranting over DMCA since its inception, the general public was exposed only through corporte PR and spin.

"Hackers are bad. They are the cause of the high prices on CDs, videos, DVDs, books, tapes, etc. Poor starving artists. Evil hackers."

Adobe's insistance on the arrest has presented the opportunity to push our views of the DMCA into the more general public via the news media. What was an obscure little argument all of a sudden becomes cause celebre that needs to be exploited.

The MSNBC article [msnbc.com] makes the wonderful point that it is not the application on the law that is the problem, but the law itself.

America has advanced further into the realm of a corporate state than most people realized. What big business wants, big business gets.

This opportunity shouldn't be wasted with irrational rhetoric and ranting. If the spotlight of the mainstream media continues to shine on this issue, it should be used to show the DMCA for what it is -- a frontal assault by Corporate America on the Constitution and the Freedoms of our Citizens.

--
Charles E. Hill

Minneapolis/Saint Paul

I've volunteered to be the Minneapolis/St. Paul contact for the Adobe/DOJ protests this Monday.

Please send an email to [e-mail], or my qwest email listed above, if you are in the area and would like to help coordinate or provide services. The protest will be at the Federal Courthouse at 301 Robert Street in downtown St. Paul from 11am - 1pm.

Minneapolis/Saint Paul

The Minneapolis/Saint Paul protest will take place from 11-1 at the Saint Paul Federal Courthouse at 316 N Robert Street downtown.

Please contact me at [e-mail] or at my qwest address above if you want to help coordinate or provide services, or have questions about the location.

Free Dmitry!

Re:Protests?

To hell with the media. They are owned by the very corporations which pushed for the DMCA. Honestly, how sympathetic do you expect mainstream media to be?

WTO-style protests may be counter-productive, but peaceful, organized, and non-violent protest is one of the most effective ways of getting the public to focus on a given issue, and history is full of examples. So I must disagree with you.

My gut feeling is that this case is the proverbial "it". An arrest has been made, charges pressed, and a foreign national has been denied access to the diplomats of his native country. So Adobe cant back out with "just kidding" tactics like the RIAA. Nor can the Feds.

DMCA will be tested in court, with all that entails for the First Amendment. Why would we want to let the very organizations that drafted the faulty legislation in the first place set the tone of the debate???

:Michael

Interview with Sklyarov's boss

Didn't see this [theinquirer.net] article mentioned. It cites an interview with Alexander Katalov, president of Elcomsoft and former KGB operative(!). Apparently, Elcomsoft has done quite a bit of work for the FBI itself, selling them, you guessed it, password-cracking programs. Now FBI is running around arresting its business partners. Sheesh...

Except DMCA seems constitutional...

Okay. I've got to admit, until just a few minutes ago, I hadn't really read the DMCA in comparison to any other laws.

Basically, what it does is add a provision to the US Code title 17 (the copyright section) which additionally makes it illegal to gain unauthorized access to a copyrighted work. Well, technically, it makes it illegal to "circumvent" a technological access control measure, but that's basically the same thing.

The thing is, there is an exception that makes it legal to breach COPY protection to excersize fair use right. But you still can't breach ACCESS protection, since, get this, there's no "access" provisions in the fair use section of title 17.

Basically what the DMCA does is convert copyright law into "accessright" law, or "controlright." Accordingly, we need additional provisions in the fair use sections to allow access for all the purposes for which we are currently allowed to make copies. After all, legal copies don't mean anything if they're still illegal to access.

Anyway, isn't this all unconstitutional? Maybe not. The constitution (Article I [cornell.edu], section 8) grants authors and inventors "exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." Seems like this could conceptually include access restrictions.

The only real argument I see is the "limited times" provision in that same section of Article I. As currently implemented, access control is permanent and irrevocable - there's no conceivable way to call this "securing [the rights] for a limited time." Maybe a judge could force them to insert an expiration date on their encryption, after which it would let anyone in. But other than that, the DMCA looks constitutionally defensible.

Counterarguments?

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Boston Protest

The Boston protest will happen at high noon, downtown Boston. We're still working on the exact place. There's a mailing list set up for all those interested: send mail to [e-mail] with the word "subscribe" in the subject or body to join. Archives are at http://lm.lcs.mit.edu/~cananian/hypermail/dmitry-b oston/ [mit.edu]. See http://freesklyarov.org/boston [freesklyarov.org] for latest news.

Repercussions?

It seems that whenever a company takes legal action against one person who cracks their lame "encryption", it backfires on them. How many people have now copied Skylarov's work simply because of the action taken against him? How does this help Adobe? Lawyers...sheesh.

A Nation of Six Year Olds?

What the hell is wrong with our corporate structure? Marketing makes promises to customers without asking Engineering if it can be done. Scientists say a task is impossible, so Management just lobbies Congress to simply make it illegal. If we had this mindset in the 60's, would NASA simply have tried to sue it's way to the Moon?

This has to stop. Corporations are behaving like kindergardeners. As Americans, we pride ourselves saying that whoever is more creative, or is the hardest worker, gets ahead. But more and more it appears that whoever is the biggest bully in a meeting, or whoever pushes others around the most, gets what they want, even if it's not what the company or the customer needs. And now, at the very height of hubris, companies are having people arrested because we don't like them pointing out the flaws in our products...

Sure the job market sucks, but Engineers should simply walk out of these companies, en masse. I guess I'm just too proud to work for a company that follows these tactics. Maybe the company will say "sure, leave, we'll just hire new programmers," but we all know the learning curve cost of new employees - they'd be screwed. Clearly engineers are not the only important human assets that a company has, but it's just as clear that bull headed managers who lie, cheat, bully, and pad their golden parachutes so that they always get their way are indicative of the worst of short sighted American attitudes. If this country ever wants to truly be respected on a global scale, and once achieve feats of artistic and scientific greatness that are not simply fueled by the bottom line, someone needs to start setting an example.

To paraphrase Tyler Durden, "We enable your e-commerce, we set up your Stock Exchange Network, we build your military weapons. We are your engineers, your scientists, your software developers. Don't fuck with us."

We Need Johnny Cochrane!!!

"If their encryption is shit, you must acquit"

Who's gonna start collecting for this? :)

Another fine mess the DMCA has given us...

I question whether or not the arrest should have been allowed. I'm having trouble reading through the media spin, but it looks to me like he was arrested because he wrote a program to circumvent copy protection. Something the DMCA criminalizes in the U.S.. However, since he is a student at a Moscow university, it does not look to me like the crime occurred in the U.S..

More to the point, he was paid by his employer to do exactly what he did which is completely legal in his country. Not only that, but in his country allowing someone who made a legitimate purchase of a copyright work to make a backup is a requirement.

I'm afraid Alan Cox had it right. And I'm an embarrassed American right now. I urge every other embarassed American to sit down with a Pen and Paper and write their congressional representatives. Don't use email folks, too many zealots spamming hate have ruined that as a way to effectively communicate with congress.

Re:Interview with Sklyarov's boss

Here's a Babelfish [altavista.com] translation [altavista.com] of the interview. Not the best in readability, but you can get the general idea.

Re:Except DMCA seems constitutional...

I would argue that the "exclusive rights" referenced are traditionally interpreted as the right to reproduce and distribute. The very heart of what's wrong with the DMCA is that it adds the right to control access to what is already legally distributed by the creator. Is this a constitutional right to grant? Unfortunately Congress and the President chose not to consider this when they passed the DMCA into law. To me, the bottom line is it violates my freedom of expression in interpreting intellectual property that I've legally acquired as I see fit (yes yes I know that isn't guaranteed per se anywhere in the law but it should be). I can walk out during the commercial, fast forward past the preview, read Hamlet backwards. I should be able to watch the bits that comprise a DVD the way I see fit on whatever machine I want, PROVIDED the machine does not violate existing copyrights or patents (ergo I should have the right to watch a DVD on a Linux box running decryption based on a non-proprietary algorithm)

But there's more to it than that. One big constitutional beef with the DMCA is that it looks a lot like prior restraint. Meaning: it restricts expression (to hell with the idea that code isn't expression; if you can copyright it it's damn expression and all you dissentors can just shut up. Shut the hell up!) that is not itself a violation of intellectual property rights on the basis that it COULD be used to violate intellectual property rights (Whether or not it will in fact be used for that purpose).

And although this is not perhaps set out plain and simple in the constitution, DMCA is a redundant law (prior copyright statutes fully protect copyrighted material from unlawful reproduction and distribution, and anyone who is willing to create/distribute/consume bootleg whatever is also going to be willing to use illegal circumvention to serve their cause) which does not add significant protection to intellectual property (The whole DeCSS debacle demonstrates succinctly that the law can only restrict access to circumvention tools in theory) but does come with significant potential for abuse of the freedom of speech. Basic principles tell us that technically constitutional or not, this law doesn't belong on the books as is.

So far, the DMCA hasn't been used to prevent any actual piracy, has it? Napster got legitimately screwed with plain old-fashioned copyright infringement. Academics, Journalists, Researchers are the ones getting screwed by the DMCA. Industry seems mainly focused on reacting with crazy vegeful fury to the continuous revelation that it has guarded its precious intellectual property with gimcrack, laughably weak protection.

I would have no problem with a provision that would make it illegal to circumvent encryption in the service of piracy. This could be a valid law that made it easier to catch and prosecute copyright pirates. But DMCA strives for a world where a few corporations dish up intellectual property and we sit quietly and eat it: with the approved spoon, in the approved order, at their say so. Constitution is just a document, it is the spirit of it that should concern any lover of freedom. I refuse to accept the pay-per-view world the major copyright owners are trying to stuff down my throat. You should too. And I'd like to get it sorted out because I cannot in good conscience make the switch to DVD as long as it is illegal for me to build my own player. That's right, I'm stuck with VHS until this DMCA crap gets reversed. For god's sake, send a letter to your representative RIGHT AWAY.

Free Skylarov

I've already emailed my congressman about this. The link to find your congressman is on the BoycottAdobe website listed in the above posting. I urge everyone to do the same. Let's get out of our cube's and get proactive about something for once. Change won't occur if no one goes ballistic on this one.

Re:Protests?

I suggest you go sign up on the mailing list on www.boycottadobe.org. A lot of the traffic is concerned with getting the word to journalists, politicians and other people that may affect this directly - the demonstrations are only one of a long range of methods used.

These aren't amateurs - a lot of people from organizations with lots of experience in activism like this are involved.

For my part I've written a few e-mail messages do Adobe officials. Every little bit done to turn this into a PR nightmare for Adobe is a good thing.

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Remove Trash+ to reach my actual inbox

Have to break some serious stereotypes:

Bloody 'ell. I'd be boycotting Adobe left right and centre if Photoshop wasn't the best image-editing program available on a WinXX platform. . . .Oh, wait. . . . Never mind. It seems I'm pirating it anyway.

But this is the thing. Whilst talking with my Dad about this, he made a few very valid points about the arrest. In his opinion, he should have been arrested since he did commit an illegal act. I personally don't agree, but I do see his point and can see how people can agree. It's only the /.-inclined person, really, who sees this as an unfair arrest. To the vast majority of the population this is either not news or just another person being arrested for something that he did that was illegal. It's going to take a lot of protesting and explanation before the non-/. audience truly believes that this is an unjust arrest.

The scary thing is, Dad is not one of the average people who's of the opinion that the 'net is "scary" and that people who break even the smallest online law are "dangers to society and will be causing anarchy in a week". He does understand the web and I imagine he'd be more inclined to look at it differently than the common denominator.

Way to go, Alan

Of course, this raises the issue of where Usenix should be holding its conferences. I don't think Sealand is big enough. Besides, you pretty much have to go through the UK ("please hand your crypto keys to the immigration officer") to get there.
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Contact Adobe

I think Adobe should be aware of the number of concerned individuals. Some contacts at Adobe (listed on http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/prcontac ts.html) include:

Adobe Community Relations Ginny Babbit [e-mail] [mailto]
Adobe Public Policy Autumn Blatchford [e-mail] [mailto]
Adobe Investor Relations [e-mail] [mailto]
Adobe User Forums (located on adobe.com) may be found here: http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?.ee6b30e [adobeforums.com]

Any other contacts at Adobe I missed?

It's always the Media's fault

I remember when DeCSS first came out I never heard about it. I learned of it, in an MSNBC article several years back. They were talking about how "evil" it was, how it would be used for piracy etc etc. I can't remember exactly, but I could've sworn they even posted a link in their article?!! They said it was a "mirror" that was disconnected by the authorities. Much to my chagrin, it was actually a working link, so I hurried and got it :)

Then a year later they had an article on DiVX ;) Same shpeal about it being used for piracy etc etc. Again, I never heard of it at the time, and this time they didn't have a link, but it took all but 2 seconds to find it on the net.

So if it wasn't for the media hooplah, I never would've found these great technologies :) I would say the same about MP3, but I guess I was so removed from society, I actually knew about it before the media did. But then again, thats what being a college student strapped for $$$ will do to you ;)

Anyways, getting back to my point, you would think that the media would figure out that whenever the media talks about something that we shouldn't have, the masses are going to try to get it before the media can finish their sentences. Then again, some media corps are so far out of the loop, they are just now talking about DiVX and such, as if it came out yesterday or something. It also cracks me up when yet other media corps are so into getting a news story, they don't bother to do any research, and they report half truths and sometimes don't even get the facts straight, and just plain spread lies/rumors.