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List: cryptography
Subject: Re: injunction issued against cphack
From: Declan McCullagh <declan () well ! com>
Date: 2000-03-19 5:58:31
[Download RAW message or body]
At 11:07 3/18/2000 -0500, Steven M. Bellovin wrote (on whether the TRO
applies to non-defendants):
>Well, the AP story had a different quote from the attorney, so it may be
>reporter perception.
It applies to the four (2 ISP, 2 individual) defendants and those acting in
concert with them. It seems a stretch to me to say it covers non-defendants
who have never been to Massachusetts and have never even exchanged email
with the authors of the cphack utility, which is why I didn't buy the spin
in my article I wrote yesterday.
But here it is, if you wanna see what they're saying...
I'll have more stuff up at http://www.politechbot.com/cyberpatrol/ soon.
-Declan
>From: "Sydney Rubin" <srubin@ignitioncom.com>
>To: <declan@wired.com>
>Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2000 19:32:27 -0500
>X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2314.1300
>
>Here's the release we issued at 2:30 today that quotes from the injunction
>and shows that the restraining order applies to the mirrored sites, as
>well as the original four defendants -- Skala, Jansson, Scandanvia Online
>and Islandnet. Use of the words "agents" and "those persons in active
>concert or participation with them" in the ruling applies to the mirrored
>sites.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Sydney Rubin
Ignition Strategic
Communications
202/244-1200
FEDERAL JUDGE GRANTS COMPANY IMMEDIATE INJUNCTION AGAINST HACKERS WHO
VIOLATED U.S. COPYRIGHT LAW
Judge Agrees Hackers' Actions Likely Violate Intellectual Property Rights
of Microsystems Software and Undermine Parents' Ability to Protect Children
FRAMINGHAM, MASS. (March 17, 2000) A Federal Judge in Boston today issued
a temporary restraining order against two hackers prohibiting them from
distributing code that undermines the ability of parents using Cyber Patrol
to protect children from inappropriate content online.
U.S. District Judge Edward F. Harrington ordered that the "defendants,
their officers, agents, servants, employees, attorneys and those persons in
active concert or participation with them, shall discontinue publishing
defendant's Cyber Patrol bypass code and binaries (known as "CP4break.zip"
or "cphack.exe" or any derivative thereof)."
The ruling prohibits further distribution over the Internet into the United
States of the bypass code and binaries published by the hackers and
"mirrored," or copied, on other sites throughout the World Wide Web.
"The ruling means that the defendants and those redistributing the
defendants' illegal work product will be in violation of a U.S. Federal
Court order if they distribute the material into the United States," said
Irwin B. Schwartz, a partner in the Boston law firm of Schwartz and
Nystrom, LLC, which represents Microsystems.
The ruling also granted the company expedited discovery into who had
downloaded the illegal material derived from the copyright violations.
Microsystems Software, maker of the Internet filtering software Cyber
Patrol, filed for the temporary restraining order on Wednesday
Massachusetts Federal District Court.
The complaint was against two hackers in Canada and Sweden, Matthew Skala
and Eddy L.O Jansson, as well as the two Internet Service Providers hosting
the hackers' Web sites, Islandnet.Com in Canada and Scandinavia Online AB
in Sweden.
The complaint alleged the hackers violated copyright law by reverse
engineering Cyber Patrol software and then using the illegally-obtained
source code to develop an executable program that allows users to bypass
the software. The hackers then posted pieces of the Cyber Patrol source
code and their executable program on the Internet and publicized their work
via e-mailed press releases.
The pair also published portions of the proprietary Cyber Patrol list of
filtered sites, but this was not part of the complaint filed by the company.
Judge Harrington gave the company permission to serve notice of the
immediate injunction via email to the defendants and "their agents." The
company was serving the electronic notices immediately. Violating a
Federal Court Order is punishable by a fine or prison. The willful and
knowing violation of U.S. Copyright Law can carry sanctions of up to
$100,000 per violation.
Defendants receiving the notices are ordered by the court to "preserve
inviolate the software and information that makes up all such Web sites,
source or object code and documents relating to Cyber Patrol, as well as
all records which reflect the identity or number of persons who downloaded
CP4break.zip or cphack.exe from the Web sites."
Cyber Patrol is the world's most widely-used Internet filtering
software. Microsystems' technology is used by America Online for its
parental controls and hundreds of thousands of families have purchased
Cyber Patrol software to help protect children from Web sites such as those
that advocate violence or hate, or post sexually explicit content meant for
adults.
# # # #
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