news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-7079519.html -> news.com.com/2100-1001-272716.html?legacy=cnet
Along with the 27 threatened lawsuit of Princeton computer-science professor Edward Felten, and the 28 arrest of Russian encryption expert Dmitry Sklyarov, the incidents are the latest to point at what is quickly becoming a touchy environment for security experts. Dug Song, a security expert at network-protection company Arbor Networks, pulled his own site down in protest as well. And last month, fearing retribution, Dutch encryption expert Niels Ferguson refused to publish his discovery that Intel's encryption scheme for Firewire connections, known as the high-bandwidth digital content protection (HDCP) system, had a major flaw. Software makers, Hollywood and the music industry make up the core proponents of the law. The BSA says such laws are necessary to head off software piracy, which the group estimates cost software companies $11 billion in lost revenue last year. Yet, for many security researchers the question is whether stress-testing the security of software products and publicizing vulnerabilities and how they were taken advantage of violates the DMCA. That pretty much turns the question of publishing into a business decision, said consultant Cohen. He said Cohen's forensics tool is a program that is not primarily designed to circumvent the protections of copyrighted work, so his actions are unnecessary. Yet the willingness of software makers and media companies to sue over any potential threat makes security researchers nervous. In 1999, the movie industry 32 filed multiple lawsuits against the creators of a program to decrypt DVD disks. Originally, the program had been created to add DVD playback ability to the Linux operating system. This April, Princeton's Felten found himself on the sticky side of a threatened lawsuit when he planned to release research questioning the effectiveness of a purported Secure Digital Music Initiative. Following the filing of his own suit, the professor presented his paper at the USENIX Security Conference in August. But it was the 33 arrest and criminal indictment of Russian encryption expert Dmitry Sklyarov at the Def Con hacking conference that really drove the point home. The incident also unnerved Russian programmers thinking of visiting the United States. Already, some security researchers are going underground. Last week, when an encryption expert reportedly found a hole in Microsoft's 34 e-Book format, he anonymously went to the news media rather than face arrest.
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