On Sat, 21 Jul 2001, John Young wrote:
Why bust Dmitry and not the head of ElcomSoft if the primary crime is commercial gain? That he is claimed to be the copyright holder is thin stuff, for that does not support his being the main commercial beneficiary (unless the FBI has evidence that was not revealed about Elcomsoft's internal finances).
To me, it seems quite consistent with the way the DMCA is crafted and currently applied. If you look at who's likely to present the most trouble with circumvention, it's all the individual coders out there, mostly open source people and recreational hackers, putting together decryption programs for fun/compatibility/fame. If you want to "send a clear signal" to these people, you bust one of their kind, not the head of the corporation.
That Dmitry was busted has a stench of scapegoatism, and ElcomSoft may not be altogether innocent, not least for sending Dmitry into the lion's den.
This would be another reasonable guess, of course. Who knows? Sampo Syreeni, aka decoy, mailto:decoy@iki.fi, gsm: +358-50-5756111 student/math+cs/helsinki university, http://www.iki.fi/~decoy/front