AOL Moves To Block Version 6.0 Distribution

America Online attorneys are moving to block
the online distribution of prototype images from America Online's
unreleased subscriber software, Version 6.0.

Company officials have not been available for comment, but the
15-year-old who obtained the prototype and posted it to his Website,
Kenton.org, maintains that he has done nothing wrong. Contrary to the
letter he received from AOL attorneys, the 15-year-old from central
Arkansas who identifies himself only as "Kenton" said, he did not
obtain the material illegally.

The letter to Kenton from AOL attorneys demands that he take the
material off his site within 24 hours or face legal action. The letter
charges that the boy could only have obtained the files
from someone breaching an employment agreement with AOL, or from
someone illegally hacking into AOL's system.

But Kenton, in an interview with Newsbytes, said that neither scenario
was the case. "The files on my Website were obtained through a public
file library on AOL's service," he said, "meaning that anybody with a
credit card and an AOL account could have downloaded it. That just goes
to show that AOL has really sloppy security."

The youth said he obtained access to the file library through a link in
an e-mail post that came to him from a source he would not name.

The boy said he e-mailed AOL last night saying that he had taken
the material off his site. He said he had not yet received a reply.

However, another Website, the anti-AOL Observers.net
(http://www.observers.net ), has agreed to host the material instead, and
it is still available to the public. "That gets me out of legal trouble,"
the boy said. "And it lets people know about 6.0 still."

The pages on the Observer.net contain a series of .jpg screen images
indicating the direction that AOL wants to take its browsing, chat and
e-mail software, among other features.

Joe Laszlo, a Jupiter Communications analyst, said it is understandable
why AOL would want to keep the material under wraps.

"As the single most differentiated of the online services," he said,
"AOL is certainly going to be the most proprietary about keeping new
versions secret until it's good and ready to launch them. If its
competitors had a leg up or advanced warning about what new features
or enhancements it was planning to roll into Version 6, I think it's
very natural to see that as a competitive threat, and do everything it
can to prevent it."

Laszlo also says that if it proves true the material was disseminated
by an illegal third-party assistance or by a site hack, there will be
little
legal ground for the boy or anyone else involved to stand on in their
defense.

"Depending on how he did get a copy of it," the analyst said, "I think
they're likely to be successful in preventing him from distributing it,
or even talking about it, before they're ready to officially launch it."

John Roberts, a new media attorney from Minneapolis, Minn., agrees. He
said that, depending on the circumstances under which the material was
obtained, the boy could be guilty of civil or criminal violations of laws
guiding misuse of trade secrets. Or he could be guilty of criminal
theft, the lawyer said.

"The laws still apply in cyberspace," Roberts said. "True, we're not
exactly sure how they apply, but certainly certain principals can be
carried forward."

However, Roberts also noted, the cat is out of the bag. Regardless of
whether AOL prevails should the matter go to court, there will be no
way to stop the distribution of the new software.

AOL had not planned to release a beta test version of the software until
May, according to published reports.

The America Online address is http://www.aol.com.

The Kenton.org Web address is http://www.kenton.org.

The AOL beta version images are online at http://www.observers.net.

Reported by Newsbytes.com, http://www.newsbytes.com.