One important fact not mentioned above: Sklyarov's employer,
Elcomsoft, was in the business of selling a program which
cracked
Adobe's
e-Book encryption. Of course, some of this encryption is really quite silly. One of the vendors that sells e-Books uses
ROT13, which is about the level of encryption they teach fifth-graders. See also
Netscape 3.
Giving a lecture about how to crack copy protection at DefCon is really not the smoothest move you can make. First, the place is crawling with feds. There's even a contest to see who can spot them! Second, all lectures, including who is giving them and what they are about, are announced at the DefCon website weeks in advance. Third, as if the first two reasons weren't deterrent enough, his corporation pissed off a much larger corporation and then ignored its attempts at communication... at a time when the judicial branch is just raring to run the DMCA through a few high-profile test cases! Hello?!? Bueller?!?
That said, here's some more information: Adobe has withdrawn their support of the criminal prosecution of Sklyarov. The feds may have a hard time putting him away for something his corporation did, especially without an actual plaintiff.