Another DMCA cudgel
Declan McCullagh writes in News.com about Hewlett-Packard's audacious invocation of the DMCA in threatening legal action against a group of researchers who have found and publicized a serious security flaw in HP's Tru64 flavor of Unix. Says McCullagh:
"HP's dramatic warning appears to be the first time the DMCA has been invoked to stifle research related to computer security. Until now, it's been used by copyright holders to pursue people who distribute computer programs that unlock copyrighted content such as DVDs or encrypted e-books."
The most well-known example of the last is the case of Russian researcher Dmitri Sklyarov, whose prosecution at the instigation of (but later against the wishes of) Adobe was the subject of last year's New York Times op-ed by Lawrence Lessig, "Jail Time in the Digital Age". Lessig provides a good concise synopsis of the issues involved in Sklyarov's prosecution.
Update -- McCullagh reported, a few days later, that HP has now backed off its position.
8:38:08 AM 
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