Really? Dmitri gets to go home? Tell that to the USAtty's office, which indicated to me yesterday they weren't inclined to drop charges. While you're at it, learn a little about criminal law. -Declan On Tue, Jul 24, 2001 at 12:59:01AM -0700, Petro wrote:

Not really. It's a victory for Dimitri, because he gets to go home, but the DMCA is still in effect, and until there are rulings from the courts, there will still be people harassed and arrested.

In follow-up to Adobe's claim in the press release that AEBPR is no longer available in the US we would appreciate pointers to sources for the program in the US or elsewhere (other than Elcomsoft's offerings of the trial versions). Full capability versions preferred but pointers to sources of the trial versions okay. PGP-ed answers preferred. JY PK below. Dave Touretzky at CMU has a call out for contributions to the technical study of of eBook protections: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Adobe/Gallery/ --- ID: 0xC3207009 Fingerprint: 3791 CC39 66E8 EF1D CCA4 CA48 0C56 D974 C320 7009 -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: PGPfreeware 6.5.8 for non-commercial use http://www.pgp.com mQGiBDmpjpURBAD6LkFyCYrXyetmgvdjf2DXynnYsy1j8keHW7qbiVQ2y3SgrEp1 bz5OTnqZ/qmLDUQ45s1q3PxgP473bEqK8PeXllJ5kRzOwfdexv2VBlQLLEQGlcza Ke2vGXjWm5XGCIeVtYe2ToBh//6xkGn2tSp6U8Sj+NPYc0t8DvXyyIT7pQCg/0z1 y06zARLlS3fJn9W8gd6fJIED/1QUPbQS71kaS8zExgqzR716mMSD82yp3/qC6yOD nTbCPV/vFGeM8zUvEz+HzAEHtQ9JAYfSukamWPM0N2hrNzDb9wRaWoQ9dWZdBwep NlLW7vkwmhJsrTv+tabhCKYBM8b9XcWlM8aiwDtT8X/d5DoGTxSGTSk5tE3tMRng g/ZTA/9h/iSEXTcRug1qPsnIqcquLVFt9VVR3xTPnN1CqosLIv9oL3K4LkEvWzn/ j5TLQBxPPfPiNnYtk0JuXj/fRVbSVTvFZMawwp43+PCSVB0mtsulzmrTosqI568q Qp5/fM903AGdh2GGDV9IA22CX2BtMEAUXsc4ShwhH0dFh6fWZ7QdSm9obiBZb3Vu ZyA8anlhQHBpcGVsaW5lLmNvbT6JAE4EEBECAA4FAjmpjpUECwMCAQIZAQAKCRAM Vtl0wyBwCYBDAJ9H5kmH+Lzk/uF5C1o983nDh8Ll4gCfdtVIfGZ2nVIKPb+LzN9b A4Yh5K+5Ag0EOamOlRAIAPZCV7cIfwgXcqK61qlC8wXo+VMROU+28W65Szgg2gGn VqMU6Y9AVfPQB8bLQ6mUrfdMZIZJ+AyDvWXpF9Sh01D49Vlf3HZSTz09jdvOmeFX klnN/biudE/F/Ha8g8VHMGHOfMlm/xX5u/2RXscBqtNbno2gpXI61Brwv0YAWCvl 9Ij9WE5J280gtJ3kkQc2azNsOA1FHQ98iLMcfFstjvbzySPAQ/ClWxiNjrtVjLhd ONM0/XwXV0OjHRhs3jMhLLUq/zzhsSlAGBGNfISnCnLWhsQDGcgHKXrKlQzZlp+r 0ApQmwJG0wg9ZqRdQZ+cfL2JSyIZJrqrol7DVekyCzsAAgIH/i3wAsfX3gaaq21t eXKBv6YO85gUFa6CFzRZemwFW9n1RzAnYUCNoLSZ4pmGnWKs7t50zS9sie1fLHCA aZ6CuJNQOF8MAaxgX3DqQRnInKJyK+WSSH5YOG4N5Bq7CMvbLiMDVKOtJFxEX4Kq Dd+0nCkGce7uwoBzU+rbINEeEVZdo6Pr+J5dfm+4Ac8WQ/HeHlwUmkg0YXZPkkDD MdjrxoTvUEKECjk3Orwrymj/531hIKZDDme4LqjDbPCOon1WaKIBJEudXMESUiIW tdQNGCHEZKChfwuX7tq9SFfHlc5fzOqBfXxHvvMMgRk4IfZWI3ZPWdbSoGQ+9mFK 59AToVuJAEYEGBECAAYFAjmpjpUACgkQDFbZdMMgcAlX4QCgwjrFBkAq+Q6CvsLW I/Z8BY/ETR0AoOcddpzxnmLBjf97J4WUII7tNcZ4 =0rDn -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

At 10:20 AM -0400 7/24/01, Declan McCullagh wrote:

Really? Dmitri gets to go home? Tell that to the USAtty's office, which indicated to me yesterday they weren't inclined to drop charges. While you're at it, learn a little about criminal law.

The comment I made was based on a mis-reading. I *thought* that the short bit I read indicated that when adobe pull the complaint, the charges were dropped.

-Declan

On Tue, Jul 24, 2001 at 12:59:01AM -0700, Petro wrote:

...

Not really. It's a victory for Dimitri, because he gets to go home, but the DMCA is still in effect, and until there are rulings from the courts, there will still be people harassed and arrested.

Another effect will be companies that wish to take advantage of the criminal sections of the DMCA will be more likely to cover their tracks when dealing with the Feds. The next Adobe won't be so quick to admit they contacted the FBI, for instance. Or, pace Blacknet, the next company that wants to use DMCA against a hacker will target the organizers of the protests and blackmail them anonymously. :) -Declan On Mon, Jul 23, 2001 at 08:41:11PM -0500, Jon Beets wrote:

Sounds to me like Adobe doesn't really like the bad press. When will these companies understand that all this is going to do is cause the programmers to write even more adobe cracking programs and make them available all over the net. They cannot stop it....

Jon Beets Pacer Communications

----- Original Message ----- From: "John Young" To: Sent: Monday, July 23, 2001 9:44 PM Subject: Adobe, EFF Call for Dmitry Release

...

...

From a press release today:

---

Adobe Systems Incorporated and the Electronic Frontier Foundation today jointly recommend the release of Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov from federal custody.

Adobe is also withdrawing its support for the criminal complaint against Dmitry Sklyarov.

"We strongly support the DMCA and the enforcement of copyright protection of digital content," said Colleen Pouliot, Senior Vice President and General Counsel for Adobe. "However, the prosecution of this individual in this particular case is not conducive to the best interests of any of the parties involved or the industry. ElcomSoft's Advanced eBook Processor software is no longer available in the United States, and from that perspective the DMCA worked. Adobe will continue to protect its copyright interests and those of its customers."

--

Right. The organizing tools available to activists nowadays are substantial. Free software including email-to-web gateways like mhonarc, front ends based on Slash, mailing lists running majordomo or mailman, back ends based on MySQL, launch-and-forget websites running Linux and Slash -- all these allow programmer-activists to launch online campaigns in minutes. But the Feds won't back down as readily as Adobe, I wager. They don't have to worry about what programmers think, they don't have to worry about what Wall Street thinks (at least DOJ doesn't), they don't have to worry about slipping revenue in a soft economy and users turning to non-Adobe tools. In short, they have a different incentive structure and it's one where programmer-types are much less influential. Sklyarov is still in jail, and not one legislator has called for a repeal of the DMCA (one, perhaps, has criticized it mildly). In my Wired article that will appear tomorrow, I write: That leaves the Free-Dmitry contingent wary of celebrating -- and free to target the U.S. government, which may not back down to pressure from irate programmers as quickly as a firm that's based in the heart of Silicon Valley. At least there's one consolation for Adobe: They're no alone, and can take a proud if somewhat humbled seat next to Intel and Microsoft. :) -Declan On Mon, Jul 23, 2001 at 09:26:31PM -0700, Tim May wrote:

Something's that interesting is the _speed_ and _strength_ of the reactions against companies when they cross some line.

Adobe's use of police state measures to have a minor critic (by their own later admission) yanked out of a conference is not likely to be forgotten quickly. I expect this will have consequences when they eventually resume college recruiting. Adobe will likely face sneers and derisive laughter when it shows up on college campuses next spring to recruit.

My old employer, Intel, has also caught the wrath of the community a couple of times. Notably when they briefly tried to add a "processor I.D." They retreated, though Microsoft was not deterred a few years later from planning their own "registration" features.

("This system has a different printer attached to it than when it was Officially Registered with the Borg Mothership. We have concluded that you are a possible software pirate. Windows XP, Microsoft Office, Outlook Express, and Internet Explorer have been disabled. Contact our office during normal business hours and attempt to explain why we should reauthorize you. Have a Microsoft day!")

Like Niven's "flash crowd" effect, the slash dot, mailing list, and online news services are making the anger of the users a terrible swift sword. Adobe became a pariah in a matter of days.

Adobe will be suffering for a long time to come.

(Note to our FBI monitors: This is NOT a threat against Adobe. Note to Cypherpunks: With feebs like the Feebs out there, one can never assume that ordinary figures of speech will be understood.)

--Tim May

-- Timothy C. May tcmay@got.net Corralitos, California Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go Personal: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns

Here's a prediction: This case will never come close to generating the same amount of publicity, by at least two orders of magnitude. Folks on the Net have a bad habit of overemphasizing how important these cases are. This is not important to the people in DC who count. It has never been mentioned in the WSJ, the Washington Post, the Washington Times. Even the SJMN -- the hometown paper! -- has been running largely wire copy in its news coverage. I did a quick L/N search and the only network/cable TV coverage seems to have been a brief mention on CNN. Compare that to the kind of publicity the other two cases received, and there's no contest. Face it: The DMCA was designed to punish precisely what Elcomsoft was doing. There's no comparison between that and WHL or RJ. -Declan On Mon, Jul 23, 2001 at 10:00:30PM -0700, Sandy Sandfort wrote:

Declan McCullagh wrote:

...

But the Feds won't back down as readily as Adobe, I wager. They don't have to worry about what programmers think, they don't have to worry about what Wall Street thinks (at least DOJ doesn't), they don't have to worry about slipping revenue in a soft economy and users turning to non-Adobe tools. In short, they have a different incentive structure...

True, it may be different, but it is an incentive structure (or, more accurately, a disincentive structure). For example, I don't thing the Federal Baby Incinerators really want to create another Wen Ho Lee or Richard Jewel fiasco. They already have enough egg on their face.

S a n d y

On Mon, 23 Jul 2001, Sandy Sandfort wrote:

I couldn't agree with you more, nevertheless my point still stands that disincentives do exist and the Federal Baby Incinerators don't need yet another incrementally damaging error on their rap sheet.

Do you *honestly* think they give a shit? Are you really *that* naive?

S a n d y

-- Yours, J.A. Terranson sysadmin@mfn.org If Governments really want us to behave like civilized human beings, they should give serious consideration towards setting a better example: Ruling by force, rather than consensus; the unrestrained application of unjust laws (which the victim-populations were never allowed input on in the first place); the State policy of justice only for the rich and elected; the intentional abuse and occassionally destruction of entire populations merely to distract an already apathetic and numb electorate... This type of demogoguery must surely wipe out the fascist United States as surely as it wiped out the fascist Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The views expressed here are mine, and NOT those of my employers, associates, or others. Besides, if it *were* the opinion of all of those people, I doubt there would be a problem to bitch about in the first place... --------------------------------------------------------------------

On Mon, 23 Jul 2001, Reese wrote:

At 07:34 PM 7/23/01, measl@mfn.org (aka J.A. Terranson wrote:

...

To: cypherpunks@einstein.ssz.com cc: cypherpunks@lne.com

Why do you send to two lists?

Why do you care? Fuck off Reese. -- Yours, J.A. Terranson sysadmin@mfn.org If Governments really want us to behave like civilized human beings, they should give serious consideration towards setting a better example: Ruling by force, rather than consensus; the unrestrained application of unjust laws (which the victim-populations were never allowed input on in the first place); the State policy of justice only for the rich and elected; the intentional abuse and occassionally destruction of entire populations merely to distract an already apathetic and numb electorate... This type of demogoguery must surely wipe out the fascist United States as surely as it wiped out the fascist Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The views expressed here are mine, and NOT those of my employers, associates, or others. Besides, if it *were* the opinion of all of those people, I doubt there would be a problem to bitch about in the first place... --------------------------------------------------------------------

J.A. Terranson wrote:

Do you *honestly* think they [Federal Baby Incinerators] give a shit? Are you really *that* naive?

Yeah, guess so. I think the Feebs really don't like to get called on the carpet. Their power and privilege are at stake. Of course they don't want that threatened. Do you *honestly* think they want to see their prerogatives reduced? I don't. S a n d y

True. And I'll agree with you, this time -- I think the Feds will, in the end, drop this case, if the protests continue. -Declan On Mon, Jul 23, 2001 at 10:23:10PM -0700, Sandy Sandfort wrote:

Declan McCullagh wrote:

...

Here's a prediction: This case will never come close to generating the same amount of publicity, by at least two orders of magnitude.

Folks on the Net have a bad habit of overemphasizing how important these cases are. This is not important to the people in DC who count.

I couldn't agree with you more, nevertheless my point still stands that disincentives do exist and the Federal Baby Incinerators don't need yet another incrementally damaging error on their rap sheet.

S a n d y

Tim writes:

Adobe's use of police state measures to have a minor critic (by their own later admission) yanked out of a conference is not likely to be forgotten quickly. I expect this will have consequences when they eventually resume college recruiting. Adobe will likely face sneers and derisive laughter when it shows up on college campuses next spring to recruit.

Adobe's pulling back on Dmitry doesn't change the fact that the company lied in saying what was being distributed was "copyrighted Adobe software." Despite the EFF's effusive praise of Adobe, I don't plan to use any Adobe software in the future. In other DMCA news, does Fox really think they can stop "Planet of the Apes" from being posted to Usenet? This should be an amusing test of Usenet routing around "damage," as Fox Intellectual Property attempts to spam every newsadmin in the world with takedown notices faster than the machines can talk to each other. Bailing with a teaspoon if you ask me. -- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"

In article , Petro wrote:

At 9:56 PM -0700 7/23/01, Eric Cordian wrote:

...

Tim writes:

...

Adobe's use of police state measures to have a minor critic (by their own later admission) yanked out of a conference is not likely to be forgotten quickly. I expect this will have consequences when they eventually resume college recruiting. Adobe will likely face sneers and derisive laughter when it shows up on college campuses next spring to recruit.

Adobe's pulling back on Dmitry doesn't change the fact that the company lied in saying what was being distributed was "copyrighted Adobe software."

Despite the EFF's effusive praise of Adobe, I don't plan to use any Adobe software in the future.

Is there a workable freeware alternative to Distiller?

I've never used Distiller; is it more than a Postscript-to-PDF converter? The free ps2pdf is part of ghostscript. - Ian

Riad S. Wahby :

Ian Goldberg wrote:

...

I've never used Distiller; is it more than a Postscript-to-PDF converter? The free ps2pdf is part of ghostscript.

It is just a ps to pdf converter, but it generates better PDFs than ps2pdf (that is, smaller, better font handling, etc).

In recent ghostscript version, ps2pdf has become much better than it used to be. And for LaTeX stuff you can totally avoid PostScript by using pdflatex, which should be part of every good TeX distribution these days.

On Mon, 23 Jul 2001, Tim May wrote:

Adobe will be suffering for a long time to come.

While it is a consummation devoutly to be wished, I predict that the "backlash" will be gone in a mere matter of weeks, if not days. Let's face it: the people most likely to be Adobe *customers* are anything but hungry. A fat customer is an apathetic customer... -- Yours, J.A. Terranson sysadmin@mfn.org If Governments really want us to behave like civilized human beings, they should give serious consideration towards setting a better example: Ruling by force, rather than consensus; the unrestrained application of unjust laws (which the victim-populations were never allowed input on in the first place); the State policy of justice only for the rich and elected; the intentional abuse and occassionally destruction of entire populations merely to distract an already apathetic and numb electorate... This type of demogoguery must surely wipe out the fascist United States as surely as it wiped out the fascist Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The views expressed here are mine, and NOT those of my employers, associates, or others. Besides, if it *were* the opinion of all of those people, I doubt there would be a problem to bitch about in the first place... --------------------------------------------------------------------

At 1:58 AM -0700 7/24/01, Petro wrote:

At 11:47 PM -0500 7/23/01, measl@mfn.org wrote:

...

On Mon, 23 Jul 2001, Tim May wrote:

...

Adobe will be suffering for a long time to come.

While it is a consummation devoutly to be wished, I predict that the "backlash" will be gone in a mere matter of weeks, if not days. Let's face it: the people most likely to be Adobe *customers* are anything but hungry. A fat customer is an apathetic customer...

Let us also be honest and admit that the very people Adobe products target are also the least likely to understand this whole thing, and often even less likely to care--or if they do, they might even agree with Adobe.

Let me be clear about something: I wasn't predicting a significant "boycott" against Adobe products. Most corporate purchasers pick their tools based on what they need, not based on ideology. If they need InDesign or Photoshop, that's what they'll buy. My comments were about Adobe's _recruiting_ efforts. I expect lingering effects of this episode to affect their ability to recruit. I stand by that prediction. --Tim May -- Timothy C. May tcmay@got.net Corralitos, California Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go Personal: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns

Whatever it was, it certainly is likely to have been mucked up now.

-----Original Message----- From: owner-cypherpunks@Algebra.COM [mailto:owner-cypherpunks@Algebra.COM] On Behalf Of Aimee Farr Sent: Tuesday, July 24, 2001 12:46 PM To: cypherpunks@lne.com Subject: RE: Vengeance Against Adobe

Anybody know how much grease Adobe has in Russia?

~Aimee

At 11:03 AM -0700 7/24/01, Ray Dillinger wrote:

On Mon, 23 Jul 2001 measl@mfn.org wrote:

...

While it is a consummation devoutly to be wished, I predict that the "backlash" will be gone in a mere matter of weeks, if not days. Let's face it: the people most likely to be Adobe *customers* are anything but hungry. A fat customer is an apathetic customer...

It would take a *lot* to alienate Adobe's customers on a substantial enough basis to affect Adobe. Most of them probably haven't even heard about this debacle and if they did, wouldn't care.

But Adobe has one other check on its behavior -- it lives in the valley and *HAS TO* attract really bright geeks to work there.

Really bright geeks have probably heard about this and are angry about it. This will hurt them in recruiting, and (unconfirmed rumor) maybe it has already cost them somebody they can't replace.

This, by the way, was exactly what I said in my articles: that Adobe's ability to _recruit_ will be affected by this P.R. black eye. Someone mutated the point into a claim that Adobe's product sales would be affected, which is doubtful. --Tim May -- Timothy C. May tcmay@got.net Corralitos, California Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go Personal: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns

At 9:26 PM -0700 7/23/01, Tim May wrote:

At 11:44 PM -0400 7/23/01, Declan McCullagh wrote:

...

Another effect will be companies that wish to take advantage of the criminal sections of the DMCA will be more likely to cover their tracks when dealing with the Feds. The next Adobe won't be so quick to admit they contacted the FBI, for instance.

Something's that interesting is the _speed_ and _strength_ of the reactions against companies when they cross some line.

Adobe's use of police state measures to have a minor critic (by their own later admission) yanked out of a conference is not likely to be forgotten quickly. I expect this will have consequences when they eventually resume college recruiting. Adobe will likely face sneers and derisive laughter when it shows up on college campuses next spring to recruit.

One would hope, but I suspect that between now and next spring three or four things will come up that will distract the students attention from Adobe--it helps them that the got things sorted out rather quickly, before it got really big--so there wasn't a *lot* of mainstream coverage over many days to burn it into the publics mind.

Adobe will be suffering for a long time to come.

As much as I agree with the sentiment, I doubt it.