Norway Cracks Down on DVD Hacker

R. A. Hettinga rahettinga at earthlink.net
Thu Jan 10 18:10:33 EST 2002


http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,49638,00.html



Norway Cracks Down on DVD Hacker
By Declan McCullagh

11:20 a.m. Jan. 10, 2002 PST

WASHINGTON -- Jon Johansen, a Norwegian teen hacker, has been indicted for
allegedly bypassing DVD anti-copying technology.

On Thursday, newspapers in Norway reported that prosecutors in Oslo have
charged Johansen, 18, for violating the country's computer hacking laws in
1999.

Aftenposten Nettutgaven reported that the "white collar crime unit" has
indicted Johansen on charges of "violating a computer security system."

See also:
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Copyright Law Foes Lose Big
Everybody's got issues in Politics




A spokesman for the Norwegian embassy said the decision to indict Johansen
"was done as a precautionary measure." The spokesman said it could lead to
six months in jail if Johansen gained illegitimate access to data, and "up
to two years in prison for having caused damage by gaining such access or
for having done so with a financial motivation."

Johansen became an Internet icon two years ago, after he and two other
programmers wrote the DeCSS (download) utility that unwraps the copy
protection found on DVDs. They wanted a way to watch movies on their Linux
computers -- the DVD consortium had not released software to do it -- but
DeCSS can also be used in the piracy of DVDs.

That enraged the movie studios who belong to the Motion Picture Association
of America. They sued a U.S. website that distributed DeCSS, and won a
stunning victory last November when a federal appeals court ruled that the
utility violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Johansen testified at the trial in New York City. He said in July 2000 that
he and two other programmers had created the DeCSS utility, and that he was
a member of the Masters of Reverse Engineering hacking group.

The lawsuit cemented Johansen's status as a cause célebre. In January 2000
officials from Norway's Department of Economic Crime hauled Johansen to a
local police station for questioning.

The lad was never imprisoned, but the idea of a programmer being
interrogated -- and having his home searched and computers seized for what
amounts to a clever hack -- seemed to symbolize, to many in the community,
corporate arrogance and police power gone too far. At LinuxWorld 2000,
Johansen fans passed out bumper stickers that read "Free Jon Johansen."

Johansen reportedly has been charged with violating section 145(2) of the
Norwegian Criminal Code. It's a typical anti-hacker law, punishing "any
person who by breaking a protective device or in a similar manner,
unlawfully obtains access to data or programs which are stored or
transferred by electronic or other technical means."

It's not clear how section 145(2) applies to writing a DVD-decryption utility.

In an essay, Norwegian law professor Jon Bing says it's uncertain whether
the law applies "to a situation where someone breaks a code or other
security measure in order to access material on a device of which that
person is the owner."

Bing said: "The question is, in academic legal terms, 'interesting,' and
one may argue that the uncertainty itself may be something which one would
like to settle through a test case."

The U.S. DVD Copy Control Association and the Norwegian Motion Picture
Association lobbied for the prosecution of Johansen and his father, Per
Johansen.

In a letter to the chief prosecutor of the economic crime unit, the groups
said "we hereby report the above-named persons for possible violation of
the criminal law section 145 and the intellectual property law."


Related Wired Links:

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Nov. 29, 2001

Hollywood Loves Hollings' Bill
Sep. 11, 2001

Sklyarov, Boss Plead Not Guilty
Aug. 30, 2001

Law Prof Cajoles Dmitry Allies
Aug. 29, 2001

Pentagon Hides Behind Onion Wraps
Aug. 17, 2001

SDMI Code-Breaker Speaks Freely
Aug. 16, 2001

Dutch Cryptographer Cries Foul
Aug. 15, 2001

Sklyarov: A Huge Sigh of Release
Aug. 7, 2001

Code-Breakers Go to Court
June 6, 2001





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