Sir

Your News in Brief “US drops case against Russian programmer” (Nature 415, 6; 2002), reports that the US Department of Justice dropped its charges against the computer scientist Dmitry Sklyarov in return for his cooperation with its case against his employer, Elcomsoft. You did not report, however, that Sklyarov is also free to testify for Elcomsoft (see http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/weblog/view/wlg/983).

The Department of Justice issued misleading statements about the case (including the untruth that Sklyarov is no longer employed by Elcomsoft) to try to save face despite the controversy surrounding the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). In fact, charges against Sklyarov were not dismissed as part of a plea bargain. Sklyarov still maintains that he and Elcomsoft are not guilty of misconduct, and has offered to tell the truth whether called as a witness by the prosecution or the defence.

To many scientists, the freedom to publish one's findings is taken for granted. Under the DMCA, technologists have no such guarantee, as demonstrated by the threatened lawsuit against professor Edward Felten of Princeton University for publishing a discussion of security vulnerabilities in an incipient digital watermark technology (see Nature 412, 756; 2001). In cases such as this, the Department of Justice has used the DMCA to pursue the financial interests of large corporations at the expense of freedom of information.

Sklyarov's release was a tentative first step away from the draconian enforcement of the dangerously vague DMCA. Yet in releasing him, the Department of Justice incorrectly attempted to imply that Sklyarov was a hacker who saw the error of his ways and decided to incriminate his own employer to avoid jail. The Elcomsoft case may yet bring to light flaws in the DMCA, and cause the public to think twice about its worth. It is to be hoped that the Department of Justice will acknowledge problems as they arise, rather than undertaking a 'spin' campaign and accepting free speech only when it does not hinder big business.