Print

Mail

wiki links

Russian busted for breaking ebook code

A Russian attending a conference for hackers was arrested Monday on a charge that he broke the code for an Adobe Systems Inc product used to read electronic books.

US prosecutors allege Dmitry Sklyarov created a computer program that opens electronic books encrypted with Adobe's eBook Reader code. His program enables users to access electronic books from Amazon.com Inc and Barnes & Noble Inc's Web sites without paying, prosecutors said.

Sklyarov was scheduled to speak in Las Vegas at the "Defcon-9" conference -- which is hailed as "an annual computer underground party for hackers" -- when he was arrested, prosecutors said.

The Moscow resident was charged with one count of circumventing copyright laws under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and could face up to five years in prison and a fine of US$500,000. A federal judge ordered Sklyarov jailed without bail in Las Vegas.

Sklyarov is the latest Russian hacker pursued by US authorities. In April this year, the FBI arrested two youths allegedly linked to a Russian ring suspected of stealing thousands of credit-card numbers from Internet businesses. In October last year, Microsoft Corp reported that its computer systems were broken into by hackers using an e-mail account in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Susan Prescott, an Adobe vice president, said the company will fully cooperate with the US government's investigation. She said Adobe is constantly updating its software.

"Piracy by hackers is an ongoing action," she said. "No software on the market is 100 percent secure." Adobe purchased a copy of Sklyarov's program at http://www.regnow.com for US$99 to test if it could unlock its own code, according to an affidavit filed by US FBI agent Daniel O'Connell. The software was produced by Elcomsoft, a Moscow-based company linked to Sklyarov.

Engineers at Adobe found that using the software, a bibliophile only had to purchase the latest Stephen King thriller in order to read all the books that are available in electronic form.

The software "created a `naked file' that enables anyone to read the eBook on any computer without paying a fee to the bookseller," O'Connell wrote in the affidavit filed last week in San Jose federal court.

King's electronic version of Hearts in Atlantis sells for US$8.99 on Amazon.com.
This story has been viewed 6144 times.