A Harvard University researcher who published research online debunking effectiveness claims for an antivirus application is on trial and facing four months behind bars, plus a fine.
The trial began last week after a three-month deferment, with Guillaume Tena fighting a copyright lawsuit from Tegam, which publishes Viguard antivirus. A final ruling is expected from Paris on March 8. Tegam is also pursuing a civil case seeking over $1.17 million in damages.
Tena's Website claims his research showed how Viguard works, showed a few security flaws, and did some tests involving actual viruses, all of which showed, he said, that Viguard didn't stop 100 percent of viruses as the software allegedly claimed. The findings also included Viguard flaws which caused the program to treat some legitimate programs as bugs. He also said Tegam's answer was to call him a terrorist and then file a criminal complaint.
A judge ruled Tena violated French copyright law by including some of the re-engineered Viguard source code in his published findings. French security site K-Otik also said Tena broke copyright law technically because he didn't run his tests and prove his exploits solely for his own use but published them for third parties.
But K-Otik also said ruling against Tena could mean a precedent that amounts to giving software publishers near-censorship power, if independent researchers can't publish findings proving vulnerabilities without prior permission from the publisher. "[That is] unimaginable and unacceptable in any other field of scientific research," K-Otik said.
"Unfortunately, it seems that we are heading this way in France and maybe in Europe," Tena said on his Website. "To use an analogy, it's a little bit as if Ford was selling cars with defective brakes. If I realized that there was a problem, opened the hood and took a few pictures to prove it, and published everything on my Web site. Then Ford could file a complaint against me."
