ElcomSoft is a
Russian
computer software company specializing in computer security and
data recovery applications. Popular products include their
eBook processing and password recovery software supporting many of
Microsoft's products. ElcomSoft is also a co-founder of the Independent Software Developers Forum (ISDEF).
ElcomSoft has filed several patents in the USA. One of them is for the company's proprietary technology Thunder Tables.
The DMCA case
On
July 16,
2001,
Dmitry Sklyarov, a Russian citizen employed by ElcomSoft who was at the time visiting the United States for
DEF CON, was arrested and jailed for allegedly violating the
United States DMCA law by writing ElcomSoft's Advanced eBook Processor software. A landmark court case ensued, setting precedents and attracting much public attention and protest. On
December 17,
2002, ElcomSoft was found not guilty of all four charges under the DMCA.
Bruce Chizen, CEO of
Adobe Systems, had this to say to
CNET:
Looking back with 20/20, I wish that we could have had better communication with ElcomSoft, Dmitry Sklyarov and the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) before the whole thing went public. I'm sorry that we weren't able to do that, because I think we could have resolved a lot of the issues.