Felten, who earlier this year was threatened with legal action by theRecording Industry Association of America if he gave a speech on crackingdigital watermarks, proceededwith his presentation at the USENIX 2001 Security Symposium afterentertainment industry officials assured him they wouldn't sue.
Cases such as Felten's may have a chilling effect on other programmers, whofear they too may come under legal fire for presenting their research.
Though he has already given his speech, Felten still is proceeding with a lawsuithe filed shortly after backing away from his earlier presentation. Thatsuit asked permission for the Princeton University professor to present hisresearch and seeks to have controversial parts of the Digital MillenniumCopyright Act (DMCA) overturned.
That law, passed in 1998, prohibits people from possessing or traffickingin devices that can be used to circumvent copyright--even if they don'tplan illegal action once they've broken the code.
In the past year, entertainment industry and publishing executives haveaggressively wielded the DMCA to crack down on people they fear are helpingto violate their copyrights. Free-speech experts say the hard line could hamper innovation and thwartresearch efforts.
Fear of prosecution
The most high-profile DMCA case so far is that of Dmitry Sklyarov, aRussian programmer arrested last month on criminal charges that he created aprogram that can be used to crack Adobe Systems' e-books. Although Adobeasked that charges be dropped, federal officials are proceeding with the case.
Cases such as Felten's and Sklyarov's are causing some programmers to thinktwice about publishing their research.
For example, Dutch cryptographer Niels Ferguson recently refused to publishnews of an alleged flaw in Intel technology designed to protect digitalvideo, saying he feared prosecution under the DMCA. In a posting on his Website, Ferguson called Intel's HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection) specification "fatally flawed" but said he would notpost details because he travels to the United States regularly and does notwant to run afoul of U.S. laws.
"I have decided to censor myself and not publish this paper for fear ofprosecution and/or liability under the U.S. DMCA law," he wrote.
"I simply cannot afford to be sued or prosecuted in the U.S.," hecontinued. "I would go bankrupt just paying for my lawyers."
Intel spokesman Daven Oswalt said several people claim to have broken HDCP,but as far as he knows, none of the claims have been real. Oswalt saidIntel still backs HDCP, which he said can be altered to be more secure inthe event of a breach.
"We've performed an analysis of these claims, and we're very confident thatwe understand the robustness of the technology," he said.
Oswalt wouldn't comment specifically on whether his company would takelegal action against people who break the technology. In many cases, hesaid, the decision to pursue charges is not Intel's, just as plans tocontinue the case against Sklyarov are up to federal prosecutors, not Adobe.
"Even if Intel entered into an agreement with a hacker, it could notpreclude any other party--the government, the recording industry--frombringing charges," he said. "It's not up to us."
In another example of a potential chill on research brought on by the DMCA,the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) said it fears recent copyright crackdowns will dampen turnout for its digital rights management conferencein the fall.
"Any restriction that the DMCA may impose on the publication of scientificresearch will keep foreign researchers from attending our conferences inthe United States, with the potential loss to ACM of members and of revenuefrom memberships, conference participation and publications," ACM DirectorJohn White wrote in a brief in the Felten case.
White said that if such fears continue, the United States could lose itsedge in encryption research.