Feds Free Russian Programmer
in Return for Testimony
Federal prosecutors have agreed to drop all charges against a Russian programmer accused of violating the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Dmitri Sklyarov, who in August pleaded not guilty to conspiring to decrypt Adobe’s eBook software, is free to return to Russia but will be under legal supervision by the U.S. government for one year, Wired News reported December 13. As part of the agreement, Sklyarov could be asked to testify at the trial of his Moscow-based employer ElcomSoft.
“I am extremely disappointed with any implication that I am, in any way, cooperating with the government,” Sklyarov said at a December 19 news conference. “I am a man of integrity and as such am doing nothing more than telling the truth, not for or against anyone.”
Skylarov, who has been at the center of the movement for free-speech rights in cyberspace since his arrest in July, plans to return to Moscow December 31 and continue work on his dissertation, which served as the foundation for the decryption technology at the center of the case, Reuters reported December 20. DMCA opponents claim the law infringes on the constitutional rights of computer users to read digital material.
Posted December 24, 2001.
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