Petition protests arrest of Norwegian DeCSS author Jon Johansen

By Dwight Johnson

The Norwegian Linux Web site Linuxguiden has launched a
petition
protesting the treatment received by 16-year-old Norwegian hacker
Jon Johansen, who was arrested on Monday, January 24, and charged
with copyright and criminal violations.

Over 6,000 have already signed the petition, which
is prefaced by a letter of protest written by Linuxguiden Editor,
Gaute Lindkvist.

Johansen is a co-founder of MoRE (Masters of Reverse
Engineering) and participated in writing the controversial
open-source application DeCSS, which decrypts the DVD video format
and makes it possible to play DVD movies on the Linux platform. No
other DVD player for Linux exists. Johansen posted the code for
DeCSS on his father’s Web site. Johansen’s father was also charged
in the police bust, in which two PCs and related materials were
confiscated.

The arrest is related to the federal lawsuits filed by the
Motion Picture Association of America
which seek to prevent dissemination of the DeCSS code over the
Internet.

Johansen and his father face up to three years in prison if
convicted.