[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
[FYI] (Fwd) FC: Dmitry Sklyarov can go home -- but must testify against Elcomsoft
- To: debate@lists.fitug.de
- Subject: [FYI] (Fwd) FC: Dmitry Sklyarov can go home -- but must testify against Elcomsoft
- From: "Axel H Horns" <horns@ipjur.com>
- Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2001 08:30:55 +0100
- CC: krypto@thur.de
- Delivered-To: mailing list debate@lists.fitug.de
- List-Help: <mailto:debate-help@lists.fitug.de>
- List-Id: <debate.lists.fitug.de>
- List-Post: <mailto:debate@lists.fitug.de>
- List-Subscribe: <mailto:debate-subscribe@lists.fitug.de>
- List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:debate-unsubscribe@lists.fitug.de>
- Mailing-List: contact debate-help@lists.fitug.de; run by ezmlm
- Organization: NONE
- Priority: normal
------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent: Thu, 13 Dec 2001 19:28:30 -0500
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
To: politech@politechbot.com
Subject: FC: Dmitry Sklyarov can go home -- but must testify against Elcomsoft
Send reply to: declan@well.com
U.S. v. Sklyarov lawsuit archive:
http://www.politechbot.com/cgi-bin/politech.cgi?name=sklyarov
---
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/can/press/html/2001_12_13_sklyarov.html
U.S. Department of Justice
United States Attorney
Northern District of California
11th Floor, Federal Building
450 Golden Gate Avenue, Box 36055
San Francisco, California 94102
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tel: (415) 436-7200
Fax: (415) 436-7234
December 13, 2001
The United States Attorney's Office for the Northern District of
California announced that Dmitry Sklyarov entered into an
agreement this morning with the United States and admitted his
conduct in a hearing before U.S. District Judge Whyte in San Jose
Federal Court. Under the agreement, Mr. Sklyarov agreed to
cooperate with the United States in its ongoing prosecution of Mr.
Sklyarov's former employer, Elcomsoft Co., Ltd. Mr. Skylarov will
be required to appear at trial and testify truthfully, and he will
be deposed in the matter. For its part, the United States agreed
to defer prosecution of Mr. Sklyarov until the conclusion of the
case against Elcomsoft or for one year, whichever is longer. Mr.
Sklyarov will be permitted to return to Russia in the meantime, but
will be subject to the Court's supervision, including regularly
reporting by telephone to the Pretrial Services Department. Mr.
Sklyarov will be prohibited from violating any laws during the
year, including copyright laws. The United States agreed that, if
Mr. Sklyarov successfully completes the obligations in the
agreement, it will dismiss the charges pending against him at the
end of the year or when the case against Elcomsoft is complete. Mr.
Sklyarov, 27, of Moscow, Russia, was indicted by a federal Grand
Jury on August 28, 2001. He was charged with one count of
conspiracy in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section
371, and two counts of trafficking for gain in technology primarily
designed to circumvent technology that protects a right of a
copyright owner in violation of Title 17, United States Code,
Section 1201(b)(1)(A), and two counts of trafficking for gain in
technology marketed for use in circumventing technology that
protects a right of a copyright owner in violation of Title 17,
United States Code, Section 1201(b)(1)(A). In entering into the
agreement with the government, Mr. Sklyarov was required to
acknowledge his conduct in the offense. In the agreement, Mr.
Sklyarov made the following admissions, which he also confirmed in
federal court today: "Beginning on a date prior to June 20, 2001,
and continuing through July 15, 2001, I was employed by the Russian
software company, Elcomsoft Co. Ltd. (also known as Elcom Ltd.)
(hereinafter "Elcomsoft") as a computer programmer and
cryptanalyst. "Prior to June 20, 2001, I was aware Adobe Systems,
Inc. ("Adobe") was a software company in the United States. I was
also aware Adobe was the creator of the Adobe Portable Document
Format ("PDF"), a computer file format for the publication and
distribution of electronic documents. Prior to June 20, 2001, I
knew Adobe distributed a program titled the Adobe Acrobat eBook
Reader that provided technology for the reading of documents in an
electronic format on personal computers. Prior to June 20, 2001, I
was aware that documents distributed in the Adobe Acrobat eBook
Reader format are PDF files and that specifications of PDF allow
for limiting of certain operations, such as opening, editing,
printing, or annotating. "Prior to June 20, 2001, as a part of my
dissertation work and as part of my employment with Elcomsoft, I
wrote a part of computer program titled the Advanced eBook
Processor ("AEBPR"). I developed AEBPR as a practical application
of my research for my dissertation and in order to demonstrate
weaknesses in protection methods of PDF files. The only use of
the AEBPR is to create an unprotected copy of an electronic
document. Once a PDF file is decrypted with the AEBPR, a copy is
no longer protected by encryption. This is all the AEBPR program
does. "Prior to June 20, 2001, I believed that ElcomSoft planned to
post the AEBPR program on the Internet on the company's website
www.elcomsoft.com. I believed that the company would charge a fee
for a license for the full version of the AEBPR that would allow
access to all capabilities of the program. "After Adobe released a
new version of the Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader that prevented the
initial version of the AEBPR program from removing the limitations
or restrictions on an e-book, I wrote software revisions for a new
version of the AEBPR program. The new version again decrypted the
e-document to which it was applied. The version of this new AEBPR
program offered on the Elcomsoft website only decrypted a portion
of an e-document to which it was applied, unless the user had
already purchased a fully functional version of the earlier version
and had both versions installed on the same machine. The new
version was developed after June 29, 2001. At that time, Elcomsoft
had already stopped selling the program. The version of this new
program offered on the Elcomsoft website did not provide a user
with an opportunity to purchase it or convert it to a fully
functional one, and was developed as a matter of competition. "On
July 15, 2001, as part of my employment with Elcomsoft, I attended
the DEF CON Nine conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. At the
conference I made a presentation originally intended for the
BlackHat conference that immediately preceded the DefCon Nine in
July 2001 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The same group of people organizes
both BlackHat and DefCon Nine. Since there was no available slot
for a presentation at BlackHat at the time when the paper was sent
for the committee consideration, the organizers of both conferences
suggested that the paper be presented at the DefCon rather than at
BlackHat. The paper that I read at DefCon is attached as Exhibit
A. A principal part of my presentation is comprised of my research
for the dissertation. In my presentation when I said "we", I meant
Elcomsoft." Mr. Sklyarov's employer, Elcomsoft, remains charged in
the case, and the Court in that matter has set hearings for various
motions on March 4, 2002, and April 1, 2002. The prosecution of
Elcomsoft is the result of an investigation by the Federal Bureau
of Investigation. Scott Frewing and Joseph Sullivan of the Computer
Hacking and Intellectual Property ("CHIP") Unit are the Assistant
U.S. Attorneys who are prosecuting the case with the assistance of
legal technician Lauri Gomez. A copy of this press release and key
court documents filed in the case may also be found on the U.S.
Attorney's Office's website at www.usdoj.gov/usao/can. All press
inquiries to the U.S. Attorney's Office should be directed to
Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew J. Jacobs at (415)436-7181 or
Assistant U.S. Attorney Ross Nadel, Chief of the CHIP Unit, in San
Jose at (408)535-5032.
Matt Jacobs' signature
----------------------------------------------------------------------
--- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing
list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this
notice. Declan McCullagh's photographs are at
http://www.mccullagh.org/ To subscribe to Politech:
http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is
archived at http://www.politechbot.com/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
---
------- End of forwarded message -------
--
To unsubscribe, e-mail: debate-unsubscribe@lists.fitug.de
For additional commands, e-mail: debate-help@lists.fitug.de