FC: Will this column land me in federal prison under the DMCA?

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

http://news.com.com/2010-1028-978636.html

   Perspective: Will this land me in jail?
   By Declan McCullagh
   December 23, 2002, 4:00 AM PT

   WASHINGTON--It's not every day that I fret about committing a string
   of federal felonies that could land me in prison until sometime in
   2008.

   But right now I'm wondering about whether the Digital Millennium
   Copyright Act (DMCA) means that I might get an all-expenses-paid
   vacation to Club Fed.

   It turns out that software company executives like the ones at
   ElcomSoft, whom a federal jury acquitted on Dec. 17 on charges of
   violating the DMCA, aren't the only people who might want to have a
   defense lawyer on retainer. Journalists might be affected too.

   Our story starts with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA)
   Web site, which has an area called "Security and Law Enforcement"
   featuring four password-protected Microsoft Word documents. No
   password is necessary to download those encrypted documents, but a
   password is required to open and read them.

   According to the brief descriptions on the TSA Web site, the four
   files cover airport security procedures, the relationship between
   federal and local police, and a "liability information sheet." A note
   on the site says this "information is restricted to airport management
   and local law enforcement." (Who knows? Maybe the
   sure-to-be-convincing reasoning behind banning those deadly nail
   clippers will be revealed.)

   Anyway, a confidential source recently gave me what I believe is the
   correct secret password to the documents.

   But here's the catch, and it's a pretty silly one: If I type the
   password into Microsoft Word or even tell you what it is, I could be
   liable for civil and criminal penalties under the DMCA. Section 1201
   of the law contains two prohibitions: First, "no person shall
   circumvent a technological measure" that controls access to
   copyrighted information, and second, no one may publish information
   such as a password that's designed to circumvent "a technological
   measure that effectively controls access" to a copyrighted document.

   [...]




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