Russian Company Sends Adobe Its Regards

One of the Kittys favorite summer pastimes is hitting the beach and diving into a good trashy novel. But in Russia, some prefer hacking into their summer reading.

Vladimir Katalov, head of Russian software developer ElcomSoft, recently posted the vulnerabilities his company found in the Adobe eBook Library on Insecure.org. ElcomSoft said the bugs, which Katalov details in a July 12 posting on the sites Bugtraq section, could allow someone to borrow any of Adobes books for an unlimited time. By combining all the bugs, one could possibly even implement a DNS-like attack on the library and make the books unavailable at once.

Now, youre probably asking, "Does His Hirsuteness really think e-book hacking is worthy Katt fodder?" Well, it is when you consider that the company posting the information is the employer of Dmitry Sklyarov, the Russian programmer who was arrested last summer at the Def Con convention in Las Vegas. Sklyarov was arrested under the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act for possession of his Advanced eBook Proccessor software. Possession of the software, which was capable of penetrating safeguards in Adobes technology, got the 27-year-old programmer indicted under a DMCA provision against trafficking programs that circumvent technology protection. After online protesters rallied to the Russians defense, Adobe eventually dropped its charges, and Sklyarov was allowed to go home.

Now, exactly one year from the month of Sklyarovs arrest, the e-book publishing industry wants to change the public perception of the industry as an e-biz punch line. A report released last week by the Open eBook Forum, the e-book industry standards organization, said it can provide concrete numbers showing solid market growth that will contradict the rash of e-book-bashing articles that have appeared recently. And with the ElcomSoft folks safely home and out of U.S. jurisdiction, El Gato can only assume the Bugtraq posting is just a happy anniversary flip-off to Adobe from Russia ... with love.

Finally, the Furball was amused to hear that before CA reached a $10 million agreement with Sam Wyly to desist from proxy battles for five years, the company had been sending out red, white and blue proxy-voting cards to investors. Evidently, the company was hoping folks would think voting for CA was the American way.

"Well, they did find an American solution to the problem," laughed the Lynx. "They threw money at it."

Check out Spencers latest Kattoon: Did WorldCom Also Cook Up Nonexistent Executives?

Also, if you enjoy weird and wacky Web sites, check out Litterbox Lynx, where Spencer shares his blazing bookmarks.