Slashdot Mirror
Breaking Google's DRM
An anonymous reader writes "Google's new Google Print service (that lets you see scanned pages from printed books) has a pile of advanced browser-disabling DRM in it ('Pages displaying your content have print, cut, copy, and save functionality disabled in order to protect your content.'). This works with JavaScript turned off, even in Free Software browsers. Seth Schoen has posted preliminary notes on some breaks to the DRM (beyond just automating a screenshotting process), including a proposal for a circumventing proxy that would fetch Google Print pages and strip out the DRM. A full exploration of the html obfuscation and DRM employed by Google would be very interesting; certainly the ability for a remote attacker to disable critical browser features like save, right-click, copy and cut against the user's wishes is a major security vulnerability in Moz/Firefox and should be fixed ASAP."
Knowing how to develop stuff like this is not a skill everyone has. This might explain why Google recently hired some browser-type software developers (as discussed on Slashdot).
Probably missed fp but... How in the world can something totatlly disable a browser's features like that?
certainly the ability for a remote attacker to disable critical browser features like save, right-click, copy and cut against the user's wishes is a major security vulnerability in Moz/Firefox and should be fixed ASAP
While I agree it would be nice to fix this from a convenience point of view, and a "it's my computer - it'll do what I want" point of view, how is this a security risk? How do I get a trojan, or lose files, because of an inability to copy & paste on a particular page?
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
They are. Just as evil as every other company out to make a buck. Seriously... the sooner the Blogerati's wake up to this and stop stroking off of the Googleplex the better.
Sorry to be so dumb but how do I get to
actually use print.google.com - ie search.
Anybody got a URL?
Facts :
i) To display the books, they've got to send that information to the browser, on your machine.
ii) Once its displayable on your machine, there is *absolutely* no way they can stop a determined person from printing it.
iii) If its going to work on Open-Souce browsers, the DRM must be fairly transparent.
iv) If it works on Open Source browsers, someone cleverer than me will modify that browser so that it works as the user intends, rather than the sender. Their only protection is the DMCA, which may stop a US coder from writing/distributing the hacked app, but the rest of us will be laughing.
Frankly, if Google were as smart as they're hyped to be, they'd know this.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
the ability for a remote attacker to disable critical browser features like save, right-click, copy and cut against the user's wishes is a major security vulnerability in Moz/Firefox and should be fixed ASAP."
IE (and windows for that matter) have been doing things that are against my wishes for years. I guess this is a cross-platform issue.
Well, that went down pretty quick. Did anyone get a chance to copy it or mirror it?
just like music, if it comes to your computer, you can save it. I'm sure a hack will come out very very soon.
and so begins a new age of literature piracy
Whilst I'm all for breaking DRM that hinders the rights you have to use your content in the way you want - this just looks like breaking DRM to get stuff for free.
If that really is the case, then I'm extremely concerned that someone is doing this. Mainly because it adds extra ammunition to those who (wrongly) try to push the line that the only people who want to break DRM are those who want to rip people off.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
whats the difference between this and going to my local library and making copies of the pages, *which are allowed*? I for one do not want to see google heading towards this direction. With the onset of their sensoring items in china, and now this in the media, it makes you wonder where their management is making google head towards...Google would make such a great web portal...and even move beyond the ranks of yahoo if it would just put the right things in the right place, they are so far ahead in the game already, why can't they realise that?
Information, by its very nature, is copyable. DRM schemes may stop a casual user from copying information, but it is theoretically impossible to make an invincible DRM system like this due to the very nature of information.
That having been said, Google is smart enough to know this. They have to put what they can in place in order to convince publishers to agree to their system.
Ha, ha! Nobody ever says Italy.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Searching google on book titles returns a Print match if they have the book in their records. Not too many yet, it seems.
Messing with our browsers and DRM
Does this mean that Google is now officially an Evil Company(TM)?
We're entering an age where all data is passed as objects. OS'es won't have common facilities to save data, merely to access the storage HW. Objects might or might not have facilities to save themselves, depending on their producer. PCs are probably a lost cause, but once phones submerge in the viruspam tide, their OS'es will prove the perfect platform for "trusted computing". Software distributors will control your gizmos, and you won't even be able to turn them off.
--
make install -not war
A little extreme journalism? Such functions (and lacks thereof) have been around across the various browsers for years now. People want to protect their work. Big deal. I'm sure that there will be black hats who will find a way around any copy protection process. Be it for DVD, MP3, Windows Media, AAC, PDF, etc. Legal to do so? Perhaps? Does that make it ethical? Probably not.
Google DRM
g url with cryptographic signature"); background-repeat:no-repeat; background-position:center left; background-color:white; }
.theimg background, to be saved to disk. For some reason, Save Page As.../Web Page (complete) still declined to download the background image at all, even in the absence of JavaScript, as if perhaps the CSS parser in the display logic in Firefox is smarter than the CSS parser in the Save Page As... code.
.mozilla/firefox/default.*/Cache/[0-9A-F]*). I'm still puzzled about why Page Info and the DOM Inspector won't actually reveal the image referenced in the .theimg style or allow it to be saved.
( [^ "]+\)")
.theimg, and then to load it directly. Perhaps that will change in the future.
To further protect your book content, printing and image copying functions are disabled on all Google Print content pages.
Similarly:
We've put a number of measures in place to prevent the downloading, copying, or printing of your content [...] Pages displaying your content have print, cut, copy, and save functionality disabled in order to protect your content.
I'm surprised at how much effort Google went to here. I would have expected my browser not to be vulnerable to having any of its "functionality disabled", yet, with a recent Firefox, I found that I couldn't
1. print the page to a PostScript file,
2. right-click on the page at all,
3. save the page to disk (the image would somehow not be downloaded at all),
4. view the precious image in Page Info/Media (although I could see which image it was),
5. save the precious image in Page Info/Media,
6. find the precious image in the DOM Inspector (which seemed like the really heavy artillery), although the DOM Inspector did let me see its URL as part of an uninterpreted style definition, and seem to reveal the trick: defining a style called ".theimg", with the definition
{ background-image:url("http://print.google.com/lon
and then invoking that style inside a tag:
So I tried turning off JavaScript, and I found that I was essentially no better off: right-clicking caused a copy of cleardot.gif, not the
The two ways I've found so far that work to capture images from Google Print are a screen capture (I used xwd, which of course worked perfectly) and looking in the on-disk cache (ls -lrt
If you wanted to write a proxy that would make Google Print pages capable of being saved to disk, you would presumably want to match
background-image:url("http://print.google.com/\
(although you'd need to be careful to match only the one in the definition of ".theimg", because it looks like there may at least one other background-image:url) and then replace
I haven't tried this because it felt like too much work relative to the previous two methods.
Contrary to what I expected, Google Print does not seem to check referer, so it seems to be possible merely to extract the URL from the definition of
Google must have hired some experts on html image protection or html obfuscation. To be sure, there are lots of other tricks in Google Print that I had never seen before. It is hard to think that the author of that HTML obfuscation was not the subject of Richard Stallman's accidental haiku. It is amusing to think that Mr. Bad's "other" DeCSS might at last be used for some kind of circumvention (although I doubt it, because presumably Google Print simply won't work at all with the CSS removed).
Is this really an issue with Mozilla, or rather a design flaw from Google? would it not have made more sense to use j2ee technology, and thus ensure that regardless of browser technology, the situation is under control... rather than adopting the bad standards of writing purely for an (unamed) browser??
Or have I simply mis-understood?
Google is scary enough to think about, what with their gargantuan server farm, their bizarre "don't delete your email (and even if you do, we're going to keep a copy)" policy, their odd way of censoring things in image and web results, but now we have a Google that has come right out and made it possible to really strip a web browser's secondary functionality?
I think it is time to stop treating Google as the mystic, all-holy and wonderful search engine and perhaps begin treating it as a hostile assault on the general idea and purposes of the web.
I hope that doesn't sound too extreme....
sig not found
yes, circumventing copyright protection is certainly going to improve the image of mozilla. We all know it is getting good press right now because of problems with IE. It will only take a few articles in major papers and magazines about its links to piracy and it will be banned like kazaa in a corporate environmant. Sometimes i really do wonder if many other free software types are really just software pirates.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
No really, why?
You can use firefox and simply do a DOM search and pull out the image that way.
You can probably tweak browser setting to allow for cross frame javascript dom, set the source automatically to an image in top frame, and create a bookmarklet that always wraps a google search.
I do like the idea of pulling apart thier obfuscated code, or maybe using similar code on other websites.
I have my own usable solution involving backgrounds, javascript etc, but then I realised since anyone can print screen, just let them...
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
... if their DRM can be broken or not.
The point is that it is "good enough" to stop the average person from lifting the material.
If you're determined enough, nothing is going to stop you from getting what you want.
A full exploration of the html obfuscation and DRM employed by Google would be very interesting
I've been looking at this - there's a blog post with some preliminary discussions, and a follow-up giving some ways of getting around it. The short answer is that if you just want to save the image to disk, it's not too hard in a decent browser.
Gerv
Where can we see a sample of this to test whether it actually does these disabling things?
I do agree that this is a security problem. We already have options in some browsers (I use Firefox, for example) to block sites from changing status bar text, changing images, etc. And there was no fuss about that. I think disabling such basic functions as copy, paste, print falls in the same "no-no" category as changing statusbar text, changing images, etc.
A site presents a page in a certain way, but I as the user get to select how I view it, with what functions I want to view it, which parts of the site I want active and which ones I don't. You can't force me to accept what I don't want to accept. If I set my software to ignore part of your site, that's my choice, not yours.
You don't go disabling functions in users' browsers. You let them do that themselves. Conversely, you don't enable stuff the user didn't enable themselves.
Isn't it now about to be illegal to go changing peoples' browser settings via the use of spyware? Doesn't this come awfully close to doing the same thing? If it changes how my software behaves, it's awfully close to being malware.
i am a soviet space shuttle
Why are the pages even protected by any kind of DRM in the first place? AFAIK, They don't let you view the whole book - just a few selected pages - isn't this just the same as the track clips you can listen too (and save if you wish) at most of the music stores?
and you won't even be able to turn them off.
If they have batteries, batteries need to be recharged (or can be ripped out). If it has a power cord, it can be unplugged.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
gerv, a mozilla developer, has a few blog entries that talk about how the print service tries to stop you from getting to the jpeg's, and how to bypass that.
Google Print, And Clue Barriers
Google Print Hacking Ideas
nostrils
Now they're both mysteriously restricted to general viewing.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
They're preventing people from walking off with free books. If Google doesn't do that, then they cannot offer this service. Sometimes it is better to accept a little inconvenience. There is nothing stopping you from retyping an entire small passage if you want to quote it.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
Ya just gotta love slashdot, always the first to promote someone breaking the rules.
Why is someone breaking DRM news worthy? How about posting an article about some guy who broke into a house last night and his notes about how he did it? Why isn't that interesting? What about posting an article about some guy who is selling stolen laptops off of the back of a truck? Why isn't that interesting?
Why is it that you think that stealing content is OK but you don't think that stealing physical goods is OK? And would it be OK to steal that content if you were the owner of that content and it was being stolen against your will?
... another can undo.
:-)
It seems rather futile to try and restrict what people can do with images on the net. Given that fundamentally it's an open easily-parsed format, and wget is your friend, it ought to be relatively easy to write a harvester, if anyone could be bothered.
And there's the rub. Unless Google publishers are suffciently stupid (I've not seen much evidence of online stupidity in book publishers to date...) to put significant excepts from the book online, who'd care if you could download the images ?
At the end of the day, the best protection is to make sure that the good information is kept in the book, and the online imagery gives an indication of what you get when you pay for the book. This all presupposes the book is worth buying, of course, and perhaps that's the market they're trying to protect...
I guess this will protect against casual copying by the clueless, and that's probably all they're trying to do, but Google is every tech's favourite lovechild (brought about by those clever marketing peeps, which, er, aren''t most tech's favourite people. Well, moving swiftly on...). So Google are popular, and they do something that those tech peeps will react to (DRM), and quick as a flash there are workarounds. Hell, I expect a firefox plugin by tomorrow! A waste of time, perhaps ? Or just another example where the clueful (Mozilla users) have the advantage over the clueless (IE users
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
Just put your monitor on a copy machine!
60 percent of the time, my comments are right everytime.
Change the line:
"Pages displaying your content have print, cut, copy, and save functionality disabled in order to protect your content."
to:
"Pages displaying your content have print, cut, copy, and save functionality disabled in order to protect your content from most users."
It's magic.
(Score:-1, Wrong)
C'mon, if you are delivering the info to me, then it has to come across a network device, and Ethereal can see it.
If someone is motivated to get a copy, then it's not that hard to write code to read the packet dumps and re-create the content.
--
How about cash?
Seth Schoen's notes are mirrored here.
Here's a simple solution; don't use it. Those mega-crops will stop dishing out crap if enough people boycott the copyprotected medias.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
Let me get this right. Website has javascript that requests browser disables "save", "cut", "paste" and a few others.
The browser disables the aforementioned buttons because the javascript requests it.
How exactly is that a "major security vulnerability"? It sounds more like a correct functional implementation which happens to do something which could be an annoyance to the end-user.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
I was under the impression that preventing the saving of an image from a web page is actually a feature that has been present for some time, no?
at least there being some way of disabling the right-click menu, anyway. which wouldn't stop you from finding the image in the cache file and saving it I suppose.
or saving the whole page in toto...
no?
-- it's ridiculous how many people misspell ridiculous... (damn, damn, damn...)
Is this the beginning of the end of "Don't be evil"?
Losing the ability to cut, copy, paste on a particluar Web site for copyrighted material is not a bad thing. This is a valid way of protecting copyright holders while making the content generally available to the public. I can live with this. It is completely different from the tactics employed by the RIAA and the MPAA. Google is not hampering my ability to browse the content from any computer using any OS with any browser. So, it's a good thing for everybody.
It's been explained ad nauseum that google does not archive deleted email indefinitely; deleting just isn't instantaneous, because of the nature of the system.
from the gmail privacy pageAnd anyway, everything that is displayed on the screen can be saved.
I'm sorry, the number you have dialed is an imaginary number. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and dial again.
I hate DRM as much as the next guy, but maybe this is something worth a little sacrifice and actually is useful to the author's IP. It's not like google is region locking their content and only allowing people to use this if they live inside the US and use only a certain browser running on a certain operating system powered by a certain processor.
Steal This Sig
It's not tough "DRM"... my university's local online student newspaper equivalent effectively does the same thing.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
in the long term. This is a hack that takes advantage of undocumented features and quirks in browsers. Quirks and features change.
I don't think they can even use the DMCA to pretect it either. If a browser changes the way it renders a page for printing in general, that isn't circumvention. Because they arn't using a actual DRM technology, but bugs and quirks in implementations of standards, at some point, it will become printable.
Now, if they were to create a plugin viewer, and licence the viewer, then it would be defendable. We all know how popular plugins are thought...
Spell check? Why bother. That is what grammer/spelling Nazi freaks who waiste band width posting "spell right" are for.
They have to show the suits at the publishing houses that they are being responsible, safeguarding the suits' ``intellectual property''. It doesn't really matter whether it actually works, just as it doesn't really matter if the features in the checklist on the box of software work. It's a tool for the salesman to use.
If this feature exists but really doesn't work, then the suits get the illusion that their ``intellectual property'' is protected, and they get free advertising of the try-before-you-buy variety. For this best of all possible worlds scenario, it has to work well enough to fool the suits, but not well enough to stop the rest of us.
Sounds to me as if Google has gotten it to work just about well enough to do a good job for all concerned: Google, us readers, and even the suits.
See what I've been reading.
"This works with JavaScript turned off, even in Free Software browsers."
Ok, how about lynx? Can't you just save image to disk? Ok, forget lynx, telnet 80 & GET should do the trick.
As usual, this DRM attempt will make it a pain for legit users to use but won't stop any determined abusers. On the other hand, I imagine that Google is under immense pressure from the industry to put sime kind of DRM so this could provide sufficient cover for them.
The only way this stuff is going to work is if they make text image all warped and wavy to defeat automatic OCR but that would greatly impact the usability of this service.
"You mortals are so obtuse." -Q
You are adding to the fire by allowing them to change the definition of copyright. Copyright gives holder no right to determine how one USES content, it merely gives them a monolopy right over copying the content for distributation. There are some copyright limitations on use, such as public displaying and the like, but fair use clearly says once you give ME a copy of your work, I can do anything I damn well chose to it.
It already gave me a copy of the work for free, if I chose to burn it, make a hat out of it, or print it out, it's my business.
Burn Hollywood Burn
First, turn off javascript. then turn on image dimensions. right click on the dimensions for the main image, and click view background image.
http://print.google.com/print?id=ULQSG0Zs7vcC&pg=3 &img=1&q=mastering+digital+photography&sig=gv2nFpt Ef0dj7Gzb8eZ4U8UdtUo
is the URL that is used, and surprisingly it is linkable from outside, it doesn't appear to check IP's, browsers, or anything else. (deep link away!)
Please write a little script so that you can put URLs in Coral Cache automatically.
/ nb.cgi/view/vitanuova/2004/10/07/2
Here's the URL: http://www.scs.cs.nyu.edu/coral/
For example we'd have
http://slashdot.org.nyud.net:8090/
or for the article in this story
http://vitanuova.loyalty.org.nyud.net:8090/weblog
That way people won't just get annoyed and copy the full text of articles into an anonymous comment.
Google should simply not be branching out from web searching.
Their stated corporate motto is: "Don't be evil."
If a guy, without any prompting, tells you, "I'm not evil! In fact, that's my motto: don't be evil." should you be more or less suspicious of them?
http://www.google.ca/search?q=allinurl%3Aprint.goo gle.com
none of the links work. ( google 1, slashdot 0)
Next time you 'break' DRM or talk about it... lets not put it on slashdot mmm kay?
It's about time books went digital, and google is in a great position to do it. But there is fear on behalf on content owners. For google to proceed forward (legally) they HAD to address that fear. Yes, yes, we will implement DRM and all of your content will be safe. The whole while, they knew it would be cracked. I don't think Google deceived themselves, they just placated content owners. Exactly like mac did with iTunes. As an aside, what do people think of taking images and fracturing them into single pixel lines for DRM purposes? The browser can nicely reconstruct the image, but you can't save it without doing a printscreen.
Google me!
Why is it that Google, of all companies, has this misplaced feeling of responsibility? It shouldn't be _their_ problem if the user decides to do illegal things. The Google search engine links to lots of content that is illegal somewhere somehow. It's users' own responsibility to deal with this, as Google cannot be expected to know what's legal and what's not in for every user they get.
I think that companies who take up the responsibility to protect users against themselves should also be held accountable for any glitch (legal stuff that doesn't work, illegal stuff that does work) in their system.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
I can copy text in both IE and Firefox...
Everyone that disagrees with me is a paid shill
What a joke.
In Opera, choose "Save with images as..." from the File menu. Takes 2 seconds.
Google is insane.
Ve vill not tolerate disobedience.
(signed)
the DMCA Squad
It's not a vulnerability at all... Just obfuscation. The image is set to be a background image, using CSS. Like a background on Table, or on a website, the page doesn't let you click on it, to directly alter it. But in the code itself, it's pretty obvious... An example, of the straight JPEG
I know everyone has probably repeated this or variations a hundred times already, but yet another workaround is to just press Ctrl-U in FireFox to view source, and search for "theimg" a few times. Take the URL, plug it in to the browser, do whatever.
Working around the DRM protection is stealing, plain and simple. And it has costs for all of us honest people.
I assume that you people you think that it is okay to steal software, music, videos, etc take pains to leave their houses unlocked, computers un-fire walled and the keys in their cars so that everyone can share in what you have? Clearly you dontappear to like ownership, or the concept that people should earn something from their hard work so I assume you all live in co-ops and log onto the web via the town library computers.
I can't wait for someone to write a program that requests page after page, and saves it off to a text file automatically. Forget about the browser, just write a program to do it. See what happens then.
Gerv, who works for mozilla/bugzilla, already went through this, and found several ways around google's hackery. He then went and summarized the multiple ways to do it in good browsers.
Get Firefox!
As we all know if we as the people of the world want something bad we will find a way to get it. In my mind they are going to make it harder not stop copyright issues I give then credit for trying
Chris Williams clw7500nc@gmail.com
When I disabled the "follow the web pages colors" so it used my default colors it didn't work. It did work when I had the "follow the web pages colors".
This is in Moz 1.7.3.
I seem to recall them using a simiar trick on the official site for Lord of the Rings when it came out.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
If Google did not exist, it would be necessary to create it.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
$ wget long url from http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=124900&cid=104 70948
Resolving print.google.com... done.
Connecting to print.google.com[64.233.161.118]:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 403 Forbidden
09:44:53 ERROR 403: Forbidden.
Read Epic the first RPG novel.
It's not a vulnerability at all... Just obfuscation.
The image is set to be a background image, using CSS. Like a background on Table, or on a website, the page doesn't let you click on it, to directly alter it.
But in the code itself, it's pretty obvious...
An example, of the straight JPEG
Colin Davis
It's only a matter of time until this mechanism gets circumvented by a convenient tool. It's not even that hard. Fundamentally, if the browser can display it, it must be a well-known format retrieved over a well-known protocol. The only trick, then, is to write a tool that does the same thing the browser does, but saves rather than displays the content. A little Perl script should do.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
In a word, Google's goal is to do important stuff that matters to a lot of people. In pursuit of that goal, we've developed a set of values that drive our work, including one of our most cherished core values: "Don't be evil."
1. Go to a google print page
2. Do a "View Source"
3. search for this: ".theimg { background-image:url"
4. copy the URL from that place, into a new browser.
5. ???
6. Profit!
scripting this should be ludicrously easy.
Tell that to your pacemaker.
--
make install -not war
To print the unprintable page
To burn the unburnable CD's
To run where the programs can't go...
This is my quest --
to copy that page
no matter how hopeless
Google might rage
To fight for the right
without question or pause,
to be willing to march into hell
Fair Use for us all!
and you won't even be able to turn them off
It's like a big game of Rock, Paper, Scissors.
Sledgehammer trumps cellphone anyday.
Firefox extension to get around this in 3... 2... 1...
The same people complaining about GPL violations are all too eager to violate other people's copyrights just for the hell of it.
Install the Firebird extension "allow right-click" and do what you want with the images...
This is the equivalent of the AAC/FairPlay stuff in iTunes. In short, it's DRM that geeks can bypass, but is mostly effective on normal users.
If this is the price people pay to get books online, well, it's no price at all.
Konqueror?
How about Opera?
Those are both totally different code than Mozilla or IE, or each other.
Plus theres all of the deric\vatives like Galeon, Safari, Kmeleon, Epiphany...
Juln
What if they put before hand "By viewing this page, your browser will be disabled from printing & saving what is viewed in that page". Then is it ok?
Remember you CHOOSE to view the page they aren't forcing you to. Aslong as they don't mislead/force someone to the page, imo they aren't doing anything wrong.
It used to be a set of hypertext documents. Today websites behave as a sort of a single conglomerated bastardized application that adds extra advertisement frames, fiddles with your web browser settings, pops up shit, and flings crap in the middle of documents using div layers. WTF?
Am I the only one who wants to see the web act more as a document not as an application? I'd like to see more content, not more crap.
Firefox PR1 - I was able to cut text from a couple of magazine articles and paste the content into a text editor. I do have the "Allow right click" extension loaded - maybe that is helping? Or does Google not DRM all of the items, and I happened to find ones that were not protected?
Question #5 states:
What can I do with books that I find?
Well, you can browse a few pages, learn more about the topics explored by the book, buy it, or commit a selection to memory. To further protect your book content, printing and image copying functions are disabled on all Google Print content pages.
I don't see the big deal. As long as they let me still use "back", "forward" and "exit" I'll be happy. Sure it sucks that you might have to buy a book or write down your favorite quote, but it's free as in gratis at this point.
Amazon only lets you get about 3 pages into a book and usually you can't leave the introduction.
Get your Unix fortune now!
Although command P produced a page with a big white hole where the text was supposed to be, I used the "Activity Viewer" to discover that one of the components of the page was substantially larger than the others. I was able double click that particular URl, which opened in a new window, shorn of any nasty DRM.
I am afraid, however, that Apple will face pressure to restrict this rather useful feature. At one time, it could be used to evade Quicktime silliness, but it seems the feature has since been disabled.
(The transparent.gif overlay technique has previously been used by (ahem) vendors of photography, and (of all people) ebay sellers. It's not quite novel.)
http://spiderzilla.mozdev.org/
:P
To reproduce:
- Install the Spiderzilla XPI. I installed with Moz v0.7.3 on WinXP.
- Visit google. I searched for "Mastering Digital Photography". The top result is a book.
- Fire up Spiderzilla (Tools -> Download this site)
- Use the defaults. I did.
- Go into whatever you named your project, then go into the "print.google.com" folder. The big images are what you're looking for.
- Use some OCR or something.
Note: I actually like Google. I don't think they're evil, nor do I think they're bad/wrong/stupid.
Well, maybe a little stupid - on this particular project. As many others have pointed out, google delivered content to your (my) screen. At that point, it's exceedingly difficult to prevent me from taking that content and running with it. Surely they expected this to happen and simply did the best they could to prevent it? I can't image they assumed their restrictive measures would defeat misuse attempts by anyone other than the most casual user of this service.
Exocet Industries - Taking over the world, one computer at a
Is anyone else getting 502 error. Has Google really been /.ed. If so shame on them - Google seem to be losing the thread, first DRM and now system outages - all in one day :(
----
The text of the book is a dymamically generated jpeg.
/print?id=TpUEyu2mTdoC&pg=3&img=1&q=economic+devel opment&sig=Aty75CJmTJeGBo3RuQNDK2rySFw HTTP/1.0
1 55:S=0M__0IuYQEWmHl8g; expires=
^ G^ G^G
# telnet print.google.com 80
GET
Trying 64.233.161.118...^M
Connected to print.google.com (64.233.161.118).^M
Escape character is '^]'.^M
HTTP/1.0 200 OK
Content-Type: image/jpeg
Set-Cookie: PREF=ID=3a4b3c405b55e316:TM=1097254155:LM=1097254
Sun, 17-Jan-2038 19:14:07 GMT; path=/; domain=.google.com
Server: OFE/0.1
Content-Length: 95942
Date: Fri, 08 Oct 2004 16:49:15 GMT
Connection: Keep-Alive
^@^PJFIF^@^A^A^@^@^A^@^A^@^@^@C^@^H^F^F^G^F^E^H
<snip>
The jpeg can be converted to postscript, which can be converted to text.
This gets one page. If someone could reverse-engineer the "sig" argument I'm sure you could specify a page number.
To be honest, it would probably be easier to just check the "Economic Development" out from the library.
I also notice the slashdot effect is starting to crush print.google.com.
Could it be that this wonderful headline has alerted google that they are probably breaking agreements with whoever they licensed the books from, and caused them to take down this feature??
BRIMSTONE BABY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Lamenss filter yayadyadya elinwet FART FART LwowWOwoOO Oh my god my brain
The difference between the DRM that we're all used to and the one Google is using for this is that with the one we're all used to, we generally paid for the content. It feels as though it should be ours to do with as we please. Google's DRM in this case is free content we don't hold on to ourselves. It is in fact not ours to do with as we please and is merely a free reference. Google is in the right, imo.
Apple iTunes introduced weak DRM at the behest of the content providers in order to coax them into offering their media up for digital distribution. It worked and Apple got rich. And because Google is following the lead of a market leader, they're idiots.
Right? It's either that, OR... there's an idiot in your comment, and it's not Google.
If guns kill people, then CmdrTaco's keyboard misspells words.
What's next, banning cell phone cameras in book stores, or libraries?
This sort of HTML onfuscation abuse is just the beginning. This is a general problem with any sufficiently rich presentation language. There are hundreds of different ways to obfuscate things.
Just wait until MS finally decides to properly support PNG alpha transparency! Combine this with CSS absolute positioning, and you'll start seeing images which are composited from many different layers of semi-translucent images; each of which is just noise of it's own. You also have already seen for a long time the cutting up of images into many small pieces.
This could be taken to an extreme as well. With absolute positioning you could also do this with text as well as images. Just position each letter on the page separately and randomize the order in which they appear in the HTML stream. Or even worse, use a custom downloaded font, where the glyphs are all randomized, so although it may look like an "A", it's really in the slot for a "Q"...try to cut and paste that.
Consider the PDF format as an extreme of where XHTML+CSS+DHTML+PNG can go wrt. obfuscation. Sure, the determined and savy can always get the text copied out; but that doesn't mean its not going to be very difficult.
Maybe we should all go back to ASCII and lynx.
The copy protection of the book content is quite innovative, but really superficial. After doing a View Page Source, I discovered their trick: the page uses CSS to make the book image the background image of a Table cell while stretching a single pixel transparent gif over the entire cell. This has the effect of causing any attempt to save the image by right clicking on it to save the transparent gif and not the book page. To get the book image, simply do a source search for "background-image". The second instance will be followed by the URL to the image.
Right clicking is blocked by attaching a function to the Document object's click handler that returns false whenever the second or third button is pressed. Not sure how they disabled the menu items yet. Safari didn't exhibit this behavior.
Greetings,
The DRM techniques discussed in this article sound like an great mental challenge, but nothing else. Every DRM scheme can be defeated if you just stop to think about what you're doing for a few minutes.
Last week we had a slashdot article about the copy protections in currency. I tried scanning a $20 bill with my Canon/Photoshop set up and indeed, Photoshop did not allow the scan to proceed. After tinkering for a bit, it took me the whole of 10 minutes to figure out how to trick my Mac/software/scanner combo to scan the bill. It took me another 5 minutes to feed *the copy* back to the scanner at a resolution that made Photoshop complain that I couldn't scan currency.
(If you're interested, all you need is a 3+ megapixel digital SLR camera, a tripod, and good lighting. Some color matching kung f00 might help. The rest is academic.)
DRM schemes, more than anything, manage to piss people off, and geeks like us just see them as intellectual challenges. DRM hijacking my browser is just the kind of thing that will piss me off and make me want to find a workaround. It would be really sad if this could be circumvented through judicious use of a web proxy, or curl, or wget, or a combination of these, and a Perl script.
Remember also that what is illegal in one country, might be legal elsewhere. I buy all my on-line music through a European broker because they have the same stuff as iTunes and others, plus a lot of European titles hard to get in the US, and offer better prices and no DRM. The same works that Google DRM is trying to block may be easily downloadable, legitimately and without encumbrances, in another jurisdiction. The easiest way to legally hack their DRM might be to simply go through one of their competitors offering the same information without DRM.
Sorry about the rant. I'm just disappointed in Google and everyone else who spend all this effort trying to do DRM and then wind up with egg on their faces when it gets broken by simple methods. Then the issue is handed to the blood sucking lawyers and everyone loses.
Cheers,
E
http://eugeneciurana.com | http://ciurana.eu
in the source of the preview page look for .theimg { background-image:url("http://print.google.com/prin t?id=ULQSG0Zs7vcC&pg=v&img=1&sig=ulvI5k0cRVwCQ3EvM mg6nlogKww");background-repeat:no-repeat;o und-position:center left;
backgr
background-color:white;
}
they are loading the image as a background-image
just get the image mentioned in the url(...)
If you do it this way using CSS, the images won't have a right click menu.
I fully agree with the fair-use rights advocates, but in this case, I think they may be going to far. Although yes, it is my browser on my computer, and I should be able to do whatever I want with it, I don't OWN that book, so I should not be able to download it for free. Although the more creative and devious people on the net may find a way to get past the Google DRM, I don't see why helping them get through it faster is a good idea. If the google DRM is cracked, and anyone can download books freely, that feature will simply be removed, and Amazon will likely do the same - resulting in the loss of a great resource to those online.
is slashdotted.
In college, an acquaintance of mine and I worked on this concept, and he implemented it. I think his final version took in .png files and outputted HTML for them. They looked perfect, and it even had a little bit of optimization for colspanning if adjacent pixels were the same color. Suffice it to say, yes, it's been tested. Yes, it works. Yes, you would need more memory. :)
This was always intended as a "feel good" feature of the Google print system so that pulishers would feel safer sending tons of books to Google.
/. But it's good enough for Google to run the business, most likely.
/. isn't going to spread enough FUD to publishers that would have otherwise sent in their material. Google print is still in its infancy, and could fail if Google doesn't assert some spin control on the situation, I suppose. Maybe I overestimate /.'s influence.
The "real" DRM here isn't DRM. As a previous post so astutely pointed out, DRM is schitzophrenic by nature: it involves trying to give someone something without *actually* giving it to them.
Google's "real" protection is that the service won't let you view more than a certain percentage of the book in any given month. That percentage is determined by the book's publisher at submssion time, anywhere from 20% to 100%.
Even if you can copy/paste/print, you're still only going to get a portion of the book - certainly not enough to replace a valid sale. Disabling that functionailty basically returns us to the age of photocopying a few pages of a book/article in a library. Except now we can search, so it's faster.
If one solution is as simple as "grab th data from your browser's cache" this is clearly meant to only stop the "average" user, something that is in very short supply here on
Here's to hoping this headline appearing on
"Copyright isn't a god given right either. People tend to foerget that..."
So you picked the second option then?
Red herring:
Even if copyright was a god given right, you and your ilk would show the same amount ot respect for both that you do now.
All I can find is an FAQ...
Join the Free Software Foundation
Ah, the massive /. barrel of monkeys strikes again.
Sometimes I wish computers were less friendly.
...to see what image was the "protected" page. Search the source, it's a CSS background-image. There are two background-images: a thumbnail of the cover and the book page you are viewing.
All you need is a script to retrieve CSS background-images and *poof* goes Google copy protection. It was doomed from the start, anyway.
Google could use that new JPEG code execution exploit to automatically install a program that prevents taking screenshots. ;-)
Sig Nature
With low power devices, there is the serious prospect of building sealed package electronics that would last longer than the application lifetime without ever introducing an additional power charge.
If you think I'm exaggerating, take a look at the http://www.ti.com/msp430/MSP430 low power microcontroller from TI. I'm developing products with it today (dev. kit is sitting on my desk). Heck, I'm going to a developer conference that TI is giving on it next month in Dallas. The world is changing in the direction mentioned.
Example applications are already listed such as a smoke detector/intrusion detection system and power meter that have completely sealed packages (read never change batteries) that will function for 10 years.
Hence the idea of having a product you can't turn off is a serious one.
Welcome to a world of things happening around you without your knowledge or consent. I'd estimate that products that have the potential to to terrible things will be around us all in about 2 years.
By terrible things I mean:
Imagine a wrist watch that sends an approximate position out via wireless signals every few minutes or hours, with a unique tracking number. Or that transmits voice clips (which it has already transcribed via embedded software). Or constantly taking biomedical measurements, and reporting them to centralized databases (you medical insurer keeps track of any heart arrythmia, or strenuous activity).
These things might be given away for free, and even if you choose to avoid them, your neighbour may not, exposing you to considerable side effects. Keep in mind, that the code on these things is pretty much always closed source, so you never know what will be running on them.
Then again the power of positive effects is very significant. Depending on the use, the world could change in significantly different ways.
Wget comes to mind.
Konquorer with save.
One of my all time favorite tools: NetCat (nc).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I don't even see the point to this.
Really who is going to print out all 600 pages of the newest Tom Clancey book, then goto the effort of binding them together. It'd cost more in paper, ink, time & energy than to just buy the book.
Sure if it were a cooking book or something someone might only want 1 page. But then again, if they want 1 page they can just write it down.
Seems like a big waste of time and money to me, but then again after the IPO they have money to blow.
This is fantastic! The authors and publishers agree to some DRM control over their content so that they can make the content available through Google, because otherwise they wouldn't make the content available at all, so lets just abuse the service, rip off the DRM, and work around it so that we can steal the content without paying for it, and before you know it, the content will be removed, and the publishers will never trust the users any more.
(slightly tongue in cheek)
I'm sick of wanting interesting and new content services, only to find that as soon as somone tries to do such a thing, using DRM as the "protection", that everyone gets in a huff at the mere mention of the work DRM (oohmigosh they are restricting _our_ rights
If they really wanted to be annoying, they could generate images in Quicktime, which has a "slide show" format. It's hard, although not impossible, to do anything with those files.
I propose to be implemented in the browser:
...
URL of each fetched page goes through REGEX matching. If a pattern defined by the user is found, then the contents is first passed via corresponding PERL script.
Another function: View Source should also enable the user to edit the source (preferably wrapping lines nicely and with some kind of autoindent). Then the user should be able to actually see his changes displayed in place of the original page! When satisfied with the change, one could press "generate a diff (patch)" button and store this patch to be applied later on the same (family of) page(s).
In this way all nonstandard behaviour could be first fixed. Once fixed, it would be stored locally to be applied later (diff or s/Bush/Kerry/g expressions or even the deep transformations). There could be some people collecting the best patches and filters and maintaining WWW "transformation patchsets". Power user hacks could be distributed to a wider audience.
Another transformation would by XSLT or other external plugins. Just give me a window with a table like:
URL matching: weird.ms-only.com/cgi-bin/page.*asp
pass through a filter: sanitize-ms-only.pl %s
"Frankly, if Google were as smart as they're hyped to be, they'd know this."
Fact: If illegal copyright violaters were as smart as they think they were, then they wouldn't engage in it in the first place.
Fact: Everyone else who doesn't engage in such behaviour loses because of it.
In addition, toss in some DOM event handlers and you disable mouse operation.
Still, you might find that with some judicial and creative hacking that you can around this issue. Pressing the context menu key on your keyboard (for people with Windows keyboards) might work. Alternatively Mozilla allows you to override page definitions with user-specific style sheets. Or you could even bookmark a javascript: URL that you click on to blasts the offending elements out of existence, e.g. "javascript: var foo = document.getElementById('blocker'); foo.style = 'display:none'". No doubt someone will produce encapsulate the functionality into a Google Print extension before long if need be.
However they do it, the fact is that it will be circumventable.
But in real life, many employees require you to have a cellphone at hand, operating, even in the evening.
"Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead." (John Maynard Keynes)
The google print service, allows publishers to get their texts indexed and searchable online. At no time, does the publisher state that you can then be considered an owner of something you searched for.
It's strictly a service to allow you to search for books, by text that is in them.
Since they are at no time giving you a copy of the work, for any price, you legally have NO rights to said copy.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
Macromedia has a technology called FlashPaper, which does the same thing. I guess that it is essentially a Flash plug-in that's been tailored to document output. Does google use a plug-in? Did they license it from Macromedia? If google is using a plug-in on the browser side, then the DRM will be harder to crack because you'll have to capture the data in-transit (along with any encryption) or in raw memory (without the benefit of a DOM or similar object). I am not a hardcore UI developer, but I bet PrintScreen won't work just like it doesn't work for Flash, since the object won't respond to GetBitMap (or similar) messages.
My inaliable right to rewrite free program so they work the way I wish.
Most people arn't aware of that workaround. But browsers are supposed to work for the user not the website designer. "Features" that irritate the user in order to placate designers are antithetical to that the concept.
Designers didn't pay for my machine, why should they have any right to control what I do with it.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Does anyone who got on the site before it was taken down (502 errors now) know if the "DRM" works on Safari or Konqueror? It would be pretty impressive if it works on those as well.
Users can access user memory
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Many of these books can also be found on eDonkey or Gnutella by doing this search:
Get your Unix fortune now!
Fuck! We broke google..
http://print.google.com
Server Error
The server encountered a temporary error and could not complete your request.
Please try again in 30 seconds.
= Grow a brain...
1. This is not *your* content.
Let's say that you buy a song/movie and it has DRM which restricts the way you use it - you would be justified in removing the DRM to use it in your own way (provided that you engage in 'fair' use). The content that Google displays in its book search results are *NOT* your media. You do not own it, you have not paid for it and Google is providing it to you as a courtesy. To provide it, they have to ensure that you do not make copies of it since even Google does not own the media to be able to give it away to you. Nothing wrong in restricting your options here.
2. OMG they have control over the browser!
Yes they do not ask you before disabling your browser options. But this does not install a trojan, or do anything permanent with your computer like other sites do. If you do not like the fact that your options have been reduced on that page, all you have to do is hit the back button and scram. (It's like complaining that a particular room in someone else's house is too hot - if you don't like it, get outta there!)
3. The DRM can be disabled.
Sure, it can. If one man can enable it, another man can disable it. The point, as has been noted in several places, on several occassions is that the average person cannot disable it. And no, you cannot automate the process to get complete books since the guys sitting at Google are not stupid and they will have measures built in to prevent automated downloading of entire books (through whatever strategies - searching repeatedly etc)
And yes, I have to mention this : Google has shown me how to push the limits of HTML and scripting - First with Gmail and now with Google Print - they are doing stuff that looks like pure art to the programmer within me. Hurray for ingenuity!
"When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail." - Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)
So yes, I see it as a security vulnerability... because it means that a site has control over software installed on the user's computer and doesn't ask for consent before it goes changing how that software behaves. Maybe for some people it's not a big deal to find that the cut button doesn't work, but who says it'll stop there? What else is the browser going to roll over and obey? Allowing such basic functions to be turned off is a mistake that no software should ever make. It is indeed a security problem.
You seem to misunderstand something. The content that you access through your browser is NOT YOURS. It belongs to someone else and they should be free to restrict your access in whatever way they see fit. I agree that certain functions of a browser shouldn't be able to be modified, but only ones that effect data on your computer. I think by visiting a cite you are implicitly agreeing to certain terms of service, one of which is that the content owner owns and can control access to that content. You can secure Acrobat files so that you can't copy or print them, is this a security flaw in Acrobat? No, and you'd never say that it was because you knew this was possible. Just because you didn't think or know that this could be done with a web browser doesn't make it a security issue.
Trying:
http://print.google.com/
get me for the last 20 minutes:
Server Error
The server encountered a temporary error and could not complete your request.
Please try again in 30 seconds.
Or is the service not availible outside US?
I think it may be you that needs your licence revoked, when the original poster is noting that existance is a *precondition* to cool tech!
Think of the tech tree in Civilization, just with "existance" at the root of the tree and being given to you to at the start.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
That the very people that support their license, the gpl are the ones trying to circumvent the protection of someone else's property. Just for that I'm going to tweek linux, sell it and not give you or anyone else the code.
"Google may try to prevent me, but nothing obligates me to follow their wishes."
And the flips side which is never heard here, is that Google doesn't have to deliver a free service to you. So who's the loser in the end? Google? They're doing well enough. You? Well I would think that would be obvious. You can talk about your "rights" all you want, but the world doesn't revolve around you, and common sense has to come into the picture at some time.
So tell me audiance members, how much does "crime" cost you in security? Locks, security systems, intangible ways like not walking into places you otherwise would like to go? Software and music locks? Higher insurance premiums?
Why should copyright violations be consequence free? While everything else in the world isn't? Maybe we should stop trying to punish the homeowner protecting the house, and punish those who can't live in a civilized society?
You can still steal whatever you want using the tried and true Print Screen. Open Photoshop (that you downloaded from KaZaa) and crop the unneeded pixels.
Joe
Might take a bit of time, but seems like you could use tech like via voice to retranscribe the blocked to copy text. Read it out loud, have the machine rewrite it in another program?
...the ability for a remote attacker to disable critical browser features like save, right-click, copy and cut...
These are critical features? What alternate universe are you living in? Since when is the ability to save a web page that someone else wrote a "critical feature"? Not to mention copying and pasting?
Good lord, people... get over yourselves! The things you're complaining you can't copy and print are COPYRIGHTED WORKS. I don't care whether you don't like the law. It's STILL THE LAW. I don't like the law that says I'm not allowed to carry a sword, or run over people who step out in front of my car without looking. The police don't care whether I like those laws; they're going to arrest me if I break them.
Publishers (and Google) don't care whether you like the current copyright laws. Their goal is to make it hard for you to steal from them. Yes, I said steal! If you take something without paying for it, you've stolen it. You want to scream "Fair Use!"? Fine. You've got a text editor. you've got a computer that can run it at the same time as a web-browser. Do it by hand. What? You DON'T have a computer that can run both at once. I feel for you. Somewhere, out in that place with the (sometimes) blue ceiling, there's a place where you can buy this outmoded things called "pens" and "paper." Go buy some, and do the copying by hand. It won't kill you, trust me.
Sorry to rant, but this "I have the right to anything I want, and I shouldn't have to pay for it because The Man is just trying to keep me down by stealing my hard-earned money" ethos pisses me off. People like you are the reason Loki went under. People like you are the reason several bands I liked broke up. People like you, only a little less tech-savvy, are the reason store owners have to put $5000 security systems in their stores so their merchandise doesn't get stolen. People like you are, in general, a bunch of fucking jackasses. Go out and get a job, then buy the freaking book. Or get it from a library if you don't want to pay, but give it back to them when you're done.
There are always libraries and bookstores and copy machines. I haven't seen anyone say why it's so crucial that we be able to have unrestricted digital copies of books just because Google (and Amazon) make it possible to search them thus.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
As this point, I cannot even reach http://print.google.com without an error!
Perhaps this article has made them decide to revamp the service?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Unfortunately that wouldn't work in Firefox; even with the context-menu enabled, Firefox won't show the background image options if there's a foreground image on top of it (for "usability" reasons, according to the Firefox guys.)
The Google page puts a transparent gif over top of the background (the BG is what you want to print/display/save/etc.)
Mozilla suite has no such problem, though.
Does google disable wget's abiliy to download pages?
Server Error The server encountered a temporary error and could not complete your request. Please try again in 30 seconds.
I'll do the stupid thing first and then you shy people follow...
"It was written about SACDs, but it applies just as equally to stopping people copying text. In the long run, DRM won't work. It's just a serious pain in the ass, especially for legitimate users (how can you get fair use if the damn copy/paste functionality is disabled?)"
Speaking of the obvious. I pointed out the irony of "/."'s depending on anonymous P2P and other technological means in order to hide behind. While laughing and lampooning technological efforts by others to protect their content.
In the long run DRM doesn't work, and neither does anonymous P2P. And everything for everyone gets more difficult and cumbersome. No "winners" here, but I guarentee plenty of losers.
In case there are any pimps out there having trouble with the standard English version of the talk, don't wory. It's been translated into Pimp for you!
I bought a house in a neighborhood where the police didn't come around very often because they always got abused and spit on whenever they showed their faces. The neighbors kinda ran a "free-for-all" - always looking into each other's windows, dropping in for visits during all hours of the day and night, all crowding into one house without asking first and leaving the place a mess.
Once a neighbor bought a new grill and chained it to their porch. It was stolen a few hours later. Worse, the thief went around bragging how easy it was to break the lock, so other people with the same locks suddenly noticed their stuff was gone, too.
I decided to landscape my front yard. You know, to dress the place up a little? I decided to put in a "please keep off the grass" sign to help keep it looking nice. The neighbors all took this as an insult and made it a point to trash my yard whenever they had the chance. I tried to offer the neighborhood something new, something original - something to be enjoyed within the context of my house. Now it's gone and everybody's houses look the same - if somebody sees something they like, they just take it. We've got a hodgepodge of different styles, different looks - but the same sense of mediocrity pervades everybody's property. Why try to be new and different? If somebody tries something new, they just get pounded down.
The neighborhood used to be nice. People knew the rules and abided by them. You used to be able to tell where people were from by just looking at their name. New folks moved in, though. Rules starting getting broken. We would try to show them what was right - but they would just change their name and keep doing wrong. Now even the "nice" people have given up and given in to what the neighborhood has become.
I can't let my kids walk alone - day or night. I admit that I sometimes like to go over to one of the "bad" houses, but most of the time I just wish they weren't there because I don't like what I turn into when I go.
I'm thinking of moving. Trouble is, every place I look is just like my neighborhood is now. I guess I'll stay and see how things go. I'm afraid the police are going to start getting mean, though. They'll have to make the laws apply to everybody - but it may take harsh action to stop some of my neighbors from doing wrong. That will be a drag, because I'll have to live with it, too.
....Where "I don't want it to be illegal, so it's not."
They may not have control over it, but they still own it.
"You can't...like.... own an image.... maaaaaan!"
I've got more mod points and GMail invi
I can't imagine a bigger security vulnerability than an inability to copy/paste someone else's graphic! Dear God, whatever will we do!
Jesus, people, do we have to break everything just for the sake of breaking it? And do we have to bring in the melodrama? As someone mentioned above, the only reason Google *can* offer this is because of the DRM. Why do we have to immediately set to destroying every new toy we get with a hammer?
At some point all information will be digital, and if we don't ever let people have a way to make money from creating content, they'll STOP CREATING THE CONTENT. And then I guess we'll have gotten our way, huh?
If you disable javascript you can get the rightclick menu.No biggie.
This is a discussion board, could you manage for one fucking minute to leave the DISCUSSIONS alone without modding them down?
I know you won't be able to, but at least think about it.
If I can see it, I own it, end of story.
And really, if you don't want people to see your 'copyrighted' content, don't put it on the internet!
and let the compete against free ideas. Content that can be used for fair use (or even pirated from time to time) will win out in the marketplace. And content providers will want to be there. Not stuck in some DRM ghetto.
In Firefox while veiwing one of those google print pages:
Tools-PageInfo-Media, select relevant image, click Save-As.
-haffi
Suppose you get an e-mail with a large encryption key that you have to copy & paste in order for your purchased software to work.
Suppose you need to collect evidence against some one doing harm to you (evil boss, colleagues or you're being subject to ID theft).
Suppose you want to copy & paste for legitimate uses, such as school or uni research. Who the hell are they to tell you what you can copy or not once it is already inside YOUR computer?
This is easy to circumvent, at least in X. You can copy text by simply selecting it.
http://print.google.com/print/doc?articleid=y4tfu9 YqpnG (sans formatting):
I remember when legal used to mean lawful, now it means some kind of loophole. - Leo Kessler
I got to this thread too late to search every comment to see if I'm duplicating, but...
How 'bout Google has a disclaimer on any of its matches that include GooglePrint?
Something to the effect of "By clicking here to view GooglePrint results, you acknowledge that your browser functionality will be limited to view-only in order to prevent copyright infringement."
Don't like it? Don't click.
users pay for content so far by seeing the ads, that's where google gets it's money. so far, the text based ads are a good idea, non obtrusive, and I doubt many people block them, as opposed to generic blinking banner ads, which are annoying and increasingly being blocked by people.
If google wants to restrict the service, the ball is in their court to decide if they want to be part of the open internet, or require pay per view content. half way measures don't cut it. If you put your web page up for people to see, let them see it! Why else do you want a web page up? And why would you want to restrict their use? If they want to offer their version of searchable book reviews,but still "protect" the entire book, there's an easy solution, just only put up a few pages total.
OR..... google could work out a deal with the book sellers, and offer a monthly or yearly pay per view scheme, so you could register, pay, log in, and read what you want, print it out, etc. Just like the music and movie people can do, and are in some situations, the smart ones anyway. Digital content is a lot cheaper than plastic or dead trees versions, just charge a *reasonable* non gouging fee and get back to business of producing content. Seems the most common sensicable method yet devised.
Half assed is always half assed, they need to just make up their minds what they want.
Who cares what functionality browsers have if I can just code an http client or do some command line http request for content? If the code runs on an untrusted platform and is not decoded in a tamperproof video module, then I have access to it.
This seems to go rather strongly against the principle of "Don't be evil.".
When together rule
MBA and DRM,
Apocalypse Now.
Sig Heil: Scumerica - Land of the Free* (* 18+, valid papers, health insurance, some restrictions apply)
DRM (Digital Rights Management) actually manages and enforces permissions based on a user's privledges, per user. Usually this is in lock and key form.
On the other hand, Copy-protection indiscriminantly curtails duplication.
* Set Adblock to "Hide Ads" * Block: http://print.google.com/images/cleardot.gif * Prevent websites from changing the context menu: Web features > Advanced * et voila
Page info -> Media, look for the second item that says "Background". Drag it back to the main browser window, and print or save or do whatever you like.
If you want to break DRM to use the digital music you downloaded from iTunes, go right ahead. You bought the music, break it so you can play it on you Linux box, your Neuros or burn it to listen in the car. That is fair use of the product you bought. However, you did not buy that book. And do not try that, well, I own the book and I just want to have easy access to the content crap. This is a huge improvement over the Amazon functionality of viewing the copyright page and the table of contents. You can actually explore the book and determine if you want to purchase it. Saving those pages, printing those pages, copying those pages have absolutley nothing to do with fair use. You know why? Because you never purchased the book, so you have no right to fair use! If you need to quote it, do what you do at the library, write it down and type it back in. Now got get a job and buy something for a change.
4) Shop around, and save up money to buy the book.
"Now before you start in with "Well, by extension, you are saying that it's not right that poor people should do without a Mercedes because they can't afford one; ergo, it is okay for them to steal one," consider that we are talking about information --- cheaply reproducible information --- information that is NOT reproduced because the demand is not sufficiently high to justify the expense of running off a batch of copies."
Apparently it's not "cheaply reproducible information" if they can't afford to run off copies for just you.
"The artist wants people to see his comic art."
The artists also wants to survive.
"The original artist didn't set the artificially inflated price for his work. If Slack wants $100 for his book, I'll pay it. But paying $100 to a used book seller for a book that costs $20 is fucking outrageous. Slack won't get the extra $80, a greedy opportunist will."
And if we ever get the utopia copyright violaters speak of were the artist and the customer deal directly. Copyright violaters will be doing the exact same thing calling him a "greedy opportunist" and "borrowing" because it's "cheaply reproducible information".
the REAL reason for GBrowser?
Tools -> Page Info -> Media. Look for the Background and save it. :)
Taral
WARN_(accel)("msg null; should hang here to be win compatible\n");
-- WINE source code
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=sarcasm&r =67
Working around the DRM protection is stealing, plain and simple.
... which I wrote on top of the legally purchased diskette. The most recent, well, that would be the music I bought from iTunes I had to burn to a CD and rip to MP3 to play it on my portable music player.
Working around DRM protection in order to withold fairly owed fees or other revenues to a creator is one thing, but that's not the only reason to do it.
So far, my experience with DRM protection on products I've bought and that I have no intention of distributing to others against the wishes of the creators has ranged from "this is really inconvenient" to "this was a complete waste of money, I can't use it without breaking this protection mechanism".
The first time I ran into this was in, oh, about 1983. I had a copy of Wizardry that had souch tough copy protection that I had to use a cracked copy
Breaking DRM is becoming an essential part of legally using the material one buys.
I assume that you people you think that it is okay to steal software, music, videos, etc...
No, and I haven't given anyone any of the many unencrypted eBooks I've purchased from Baen and Fictionwise, either.
Does anyone on Slashdot ever want to pay for anything, ever? I like my free music and movies as much as the next guy, but jeez.
In this case it's not my operating system that's forcing its choice of desktop image, it's a website that's not under the control of myself nor the person who owns the computer if that's not myself.
I generally use two browsers. Mozilla and Konquerer. Mozilla is my "unsafe" browser, with Cookies, Java and Javascript, Flash and Shockwave all turned on. Then Konquerer is my "safe" browser, with no Java or Javascript, no cookies of any sort, no redirects, no Flash or Shockwave support. Works really well, no matter what operating system you're using, to use a combination of a couple of independent browsers. And if absolutely need extra functionality on a site, then I can copy and paste the url into a new tab.
But there's been a few sites where I've noticed my right click functionality was disabled. And I seriously wondered what the hell was going on, since I'm not all that "educated" on html.
Wery intoresting, Kaptain.
How would you setup a DRM scheme on Google? One that worked and didn't embarass us, that is...
I brake you copy paste silliness!!! The page returned has a style: .theimg
which contains the background image that is the page being displayed!
That mastering digital photography book: .theimg { background-image: url(http://print.google.com/print?id=ULQSG0Zs7vcC& pg=3&img=1&q=mastering+digital+photography&sig=gv2 nFptEf0dj7Gzb8eZ4U8UdtUo); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-position: left center; background-color: white; }
Not very difficult, I can cut and past that guy all day long!
Screw realty just hook me up another monitor!
Why does Slashdot seem to think that every piece of DRM, no matter where implemented or why, is a bad thing?
It's perfectly appropriate in this case. You are not permitted by law to download copies of books...or photocopy books in the copy machine, beyond a certain number of pages.
So why do we want to break Google's DRM, used in exactly the way DRM should be used? You have free access to something you wouldn't otherwise access, but you still don't own it, and thus can't copy it.
Slashdot,and F/OSS in general, distaste for authority is never going to allow it to be taken seriously. Until people learn to get a clue that they don't need to break something just because it exists and they don't like it, F/OSS will never be taken seriously precisely for this reason.
If I don't like some new windows you installed, I can't break them. That's illegal.
Why is it any different to break the obfuscation of the material Google is letting you access as a courtesy?
If it is that big of a deal that you be able to STEAL someone's copyrighted text through Google, use Print Screen you idiots.
$fp = fsockopen("www.google.com",80,,,); /whatever");
fputs($fp, "GET
$res = fread($fp, 2000);
print $res;
?>
*yawn*
Why imagine that? Well, it's the logical conclusion. DRM is fundamentally unworkable, for the reasons Cory Doctorow explains so eloquently. So the only thing that will stop unlimited copying is legal restrictions, and if enough people decide to ignore the law, the law doesn't work. So imagine this future because the real future may look a lot like it.
Now, would such a future be bad? If we didn't have 100,000 new romance novels published each year, would that be bad? If we didn't have Stephen King making millions of dollars on his books, would that be bad?
If the only people writing were people who just had to write, because they had a burning desire to say something that they thought mattered, it would not be the end of civilization. In fact, it might improve civilization, because the books that actually said something wouldn't get lost in the overwhelming flood of "no message, just plot" books written by people who didn't really care about saying something, but just wanted to make a buck...
Using Konqueror, I get a .war file (which is just .tar.gz),
tar -xzvf blah.war 2print
Hey, look, a JPEG.
Takes all of 10 seconds at my typing speed. No dicking around with browser settings, DOM trees, right clicking, etc.
c.
Log in or piss off.
"Do you want Google to drop this technique and go for something more proprietary that won't work at all?"
This one mark FOR Flash, and against SVG.
I realize this crowd doesn't care, but people who make their living producing content do.
This war will continue (much like Israel and the Palesteins) as long as BOTH sides think their right, and the other side's wrong.
Unfortunately, that is the idea behind "trusted" computing. You no longer have full control over your own machine, you can only run applications "trusted" by those controlling the DRM.
This used to be called "Mandatory Access Control" (MAC, as opposed to the kind of multiuser protection most people deal with... "Discretionary Access Control") before Microsoft decided to change the definition of "trust".
As soon as you run an untrusted app, you cannot run a trusted application.
This is one way of doing it. Another way is to create a compartmentalised environment, where applications can not get information from compartments with a higher classification, nor transfer information to compartments of a lower classification.
Ironically, THIS kind of MAC environment under administrative control can be a major security enhancement. You could create a compartment with "untrusted classification"... which would effectively have fewer rights than even a normal application... and force users to run their web browsers and other untrusted applications inside it. Not only couldn't they bet attacked through the browser, they couldn't even be suborned or tricked by a social engineering attack into breaking the security (that's the main point of MAC, really). Unfortunately, Windows doesn't seem to have any kind of generic MAC mechanism that could be used this way.
No, sir, you are 100% wrong.
it's about someone telling you that you can't do something with a work they distributed to you.
What? They have not "distributed" the book or any portion to you. Yes, the information has been transfered to your cache and computer screen but the original copyright owner never said that another party has any rights.
They are letting you view a part of a book with the exact intention that you don't copy or print any part of that book. In their FAQ they even tell you the only right you have is to memorize the book. The original owner, the author or publisher still retains the copyright no matter what rights they grant to Google. No where have they forfeitted their rights, sir.
You no longer own something you distributed to someone else over the internet. You don't, they don't. Don't let them trick you into thinking that they still own that file.
What? That is just silly. Why is the Internet any different than anything else? You are saying that once something passes over copper and fiberoptics that the copyright is no longer valid?
That doesn't even pass the logic test. By your reasoning when I purchase music from iTunes the copyright on said work is no longer valid. When I visit my local newspaper's site and read some articles I've got the right to reproduce their work royalty free without any recourse?
When I download software that is deemed "shareware" the creator has no right to ask me to pay for the software?
Even at the bottom of the page you are reading there is this notice: Comments are owned by the Poster.
You never gave slashdot the exclusive right to your comment when you posted it... it's still your work.
Get your Unix fortune now!
So:
- Start at the beginning of the book
- Read 3 pages
- Pick a phrase on the third page
- Search for that phrase within the book
- Click the search result for the third page
- Read the next two pages
- Pick a phrase on the fifth page
- Search for that phrase within the book
- Click the search result for the fifth page
- Read the next two pages
- Repeat until end of book
It's irritating, but when you're trying to find a passage in the book and the three-page limit smacks you, you can use this method to get more of the book (or all of it, if you have the patience).A religion includes beliefs, rituals, and (perhaps most importantly) an authority for belief (usually the authority is a prophet or manuscript (or both)).
:)
So, neither belief in God, nor disbelief in God, constitute religion. The exact same can be said of "faith." Religions include faith, but having faith in something doesn't make you religious.
Now that we have the definitions straight....
When Christians talk about God, they not only postulate the existence of an entity, but they also postulate a whole host of properties of said entity. God is simply assumed to have the following properties (to name a few): Authorship of the material universe, control over the material universe, great concern over whether or not each individual believes in his existence, authorship of hell, the habit of sending non-believers to hell. And the list goes on.
So what we have here, far from asking us to simply believe in something the existence of which cannot be disproven, we are ALSO asked to accept a very lengthy list of specific properties associated with this entity. This is an "extreme" claim, and as such, justifies the production of "extreme" evidence. That is to say, evidence that is based on verifiable controlled testing, rather than assumption and vacuous truths.
Since this entity, and its long list of properties, cannot be shown to exist, it has no place in a rigorous scientific model.
It may yet have place in a personal belief system, but there is no compelling reason why it should have place in a scientific theory.
Take your pick:
Google offers book searching with DRM
Google does not offer book searching
I'll take door number three: Google implements DRM using an application intended to provide that kind of protection, rather than taking advantage of a security hole in a browser. If that option means Google doesn't offer the service, or if that means I can't run their application so I end up in the Google does not offer book searching box, that's still better than if I end up in the my browser can be subverted box.
I have only bought one DRM-protected ebook in my life, and that was a very very special case. I normally won't buy ebooks that only run in one application, or that encode my credit card number, or that I can't read if the seller goes out of business.
I have already chosen, and I'll make that choice again and again. No DRM, no copy-protected games, no encrypted eBooks. Why is that so hard to understand?
...you could always get a library card and a scanner...
Get your Unix fortune now!
http://print.google.com/print?id=TpUEyu2mTdoC&pg=3 &img=1&q=REPLACEME&sig=Aty75CJmTJeGBo3RuQNDK2rySFw
Sometimes I wish computers were less friendly.
Too easy.
print.google.com
There are plenty of sites that go to great lengths to turn off functionality like copy, back button, print, etc.
And if I can't stop them from doing so, that's a bug in the browser. And it's a vulnerability that can be abused: if they can do it, then so can a spammer who wants to make it harder for people to report his spam. If they choose to do a feature test and then say "you can't see this until you enable Javascript" then that's their choice, and I can decide *then* whether I want to see their material or retain the security policy I have chosen.
If Google can only offer that information because they have found a bug in my browser, then I will be happier if they simply didn't provide that information.
When a major corporation does it, suddenly it's a risk?
I'd never visited a site that might want to do that before, so I wasn't aware this vulnerability existed. It was already a risk, now it's a known risk.
It seems that Google's not the only one using this technology.
Doug
Sweet. Works like a charm!
Proxomitron.
see (though this is probably a very temporary link)- http://print.google.com/print?id=RdDQE9C2JE8C&pg=3 7&img=1&q=looking+backward&sig=utM5ccADx5TpXw6X_y4 9mP5ziVg
How to repeat?
1- open the page you want on Mozilla FireFox 1.0.
2- Go to Tools->Page Info, then select the "media" tab.
3- Find the image URL that looks similar to the one above (something like http://print.google.com/print?id=* ) - there will be two of these links, the first is the book's cover, and the second is a JPEG of the desired book page.
4- For some reason (possibly intentional on the part of Google) the "save as" button does not work- do not worry. Copy the URL, open a second window, and paste.
5- Rejoice in the fact that you have done something illegal. Please, use libraries instead (unless you live in international waters)!
Here is a simple script to do just that - it sets the referrer to the same page as the document - just remember to call it with the filename *first*, and any additional options after.
IE. Default settings. No proxy, no modifications. Nothing particularly special about it.
t ?blablahblah");bunch of other stuff;}
-Load up the book in the browser.
-Click the View menu, select Source.
-Search for "div class=browse"
-Immediately before that, you'll find something like this in a CSS style:
{ background-image:url(http://print.google.com/prin
-Take that URL, copy and paste it into a new browser window and voila, you have the full size image. Save As or Print on this image works fine. No problems at all.
Seriously, this is trivial to break.
What's not trivial is getting an entire book. How to figure out how to get every page is the tough part. Getting the image itself is a cakewalk. It's just Javascript tricks to break right-clicking and CSS tricks to break direct printing from that window. Saving gets broken because of the tricky CSS using the IMG as a background image. The browser doesn't think to save the image, is all.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
There is no fancy copy protection. There certainly isn't some flaw in Mozilla.
It's simple - the image is done as the background image for an HTML element. There's nothing to stop you linking directly to the content: sample image, for example.
You can't right click on it because it's a background graphic. But you sure as hell could write a robot script that went and downloaded pages.
If they're clever, they'll watermark each image as it is served, so they can tell who's copying what (well, down to the originating IP, anyway).
Why do they need DRM? They only allow 2 pages anyway!
Excerpt from print.google.com (emphasis mine):
3. Can I read an entire book online?
No, afraid not. Google Print is designed to help you discover books, not read them from start to finish. It's like going to a bookstore and browsing only with a Google twist. Google searches across entire books in order to find the pages that are most relevant to your search. Once you're on a book page, you can 'flip' two pages forward and back, view other information about the book and even conduct another search within the book.
http://extensionroom.mozdev.org/more-info/nukeanyt hing
Ph-nglui mglw'nafh Gates M'dna wgah'nagl fhtagn.
1. Go to a "protected" page, like the sample page.
2. Select the Activity window from Safari.
3. Double click on the largest image, i.e. this page.
4. Do what ever you want with it.
5. Profit!!!
Ok, disable javascript. (Set javascript.enabled to false (just double click)) Now you can already right click on the google book.
p hotography
Ok, so go to a bookpage, this will help finding one: http://www.google.com/search?q=mastering+digital+
Next, use the Web Developer extension (you have that one right?) to Display ID & Class details. You will see a class named theimg. Now right click that red little box and "View background image".
I thank you very much.
Hopla
Wet Willy LLC DRM is far superior to anything google or anyone else can come up with and should please all the /. anti-DRM folks.
The technology is only applicable to primates.
How it works.
As you can see the content of any media is and it's existance is denied by the brain. For example, look at this hi-res photo of Brittany Spears performing with Genitorturers.
Now show it to your cat or porpoise and observe his response.
I ask you, does it work or what!
The technology is expected to put the RIAA, patent office, and everyone else involved in the protection of content or IP out of business!
Just enable right click and then use ad-block with firefox to hide the clear gif. Simple. (We do all realize that now that it has been proven easy to break, google will fix it, or publishers won't provide content)
Whilst I'm all for breaking DRM that hinders the rights you have to use your content in the way you want - this just looks like breaking DRM to get stuff for free.
It looks like "breaking DRM for geek points" to me. I don't think anyone is going to be terribly excited about having a low quality image of at most 20% of a book when you can get the whole text at higher quality for more effecting OCRing by borrowing the book from the library and whacking it on a cheap scanner.
People do that all the time.
Meanwhile, Baen Books allows you to get the full text of many of their books, and multiple chapters of almost all their recent releases, in unencrypted HTML for free. You don't even need to OCR them.
The DRM here is a marketing gimmick, and like waving a blue screen in front of a geek.
Software distributors will control your gizmos, and you won't even be able to turn them off.
:-)
Given that gizmos tend to be small, I think a simple brick would be sufficient to turn them off
In case you don't like such drastic solutions I am yet to see an electronic gizmo that functions without any of its batteries...
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Ok, disable javascript. (Set javascript.enabled to false (just double click)) Now you can already right click on the google book.
p hotography [google.com]
Ok, so go to a bookpage, this will help finding one: http://www.google.com/search?q=mastering+digital+
Next, use the Web Developer extension (you have that one right?) to Display ID & Class details. You will see a class named theimg. Now right click that red little box and "View background image".
I thank you very much.
Hopla
Designers didn't pay for my machine, why should they have any right to control what I do with it
You didn't pay for the content, why should you have any right to control what you can do with it?
As a designer, I want the ability to present something one way, take it or leave it. Yes, I should make my page so it works on every browser under every resolution, etc., but if I don't want to, then basically "screw you". (Please note: this is not "screw you autopr0n")
Just as above, the ability to change the Print layout is a *feature*, so you can create brilliant pages with ads all over them, and when your user prints out the page, the ads magically disappear and it gets formatted properly for printing. Read up on CSS, it's incredibly complicated but you can do some pretty brilliant stuff.
The Save As... i'm not so sure about, I think that might just be a failure of the browser itself. I tried WGET with the "retrieve page requisites" and it didn't get the images either, I feel that's a failure of WGET to properly parse the CSS to display the image.
I actually came across the opposite problem: In creating a catalog system, I wanted the ability to create a popup as a tab, independent of how the user specified "open popus as tabs". I can't do it: there is no openNewTab function, even as an extension under Moz. It'd be fine if there were several options (open tabs as tabs, as popups, open popups as popups, tabs), but as of yet, there is no way to even request anything but a popup, and I won't know if it's a popup or a new tab without poking around at attributes and whatnot. It's kind of annoying!
obligatory link:d oC&prev=http://print.google.com/print%3Fq%3Deconom ic%2Bdevelopment&pg=3&sig=T5lkogjk4AGB3PhyUSEHijCi Bxk this will save it:e v=http://print.google.com/print%3Fq%3Deconomic%2Bd evelopment&pg=3&sig=T5lkogjk4AGB3PhyUSEHijCiBx k' -O googleprint.html
http://print.google.com/print?id=TpUEyu2mT
$ wget -U Netscape/sucks 'http://print.google.com/print?id=TpUEyu2mTdoC&pr
this will save the referenced images:
n=1 ; for x in $(grep 'css"\?>.\('$(grep -n cleardot.gif googleprint.html |sed '=/!&/g'|tr '!' '\n'|grep div|cut -d'>' -f1|cut -d= -f2|sort|uniq|tr '\n' '|'|sed 's/|$/!/;s/|/\\&/g'|tr '!' '\n')'\)' googleprint.html|sed 's/!//g;s/css[^{]*{[^}]*}/!&/g'|tr '!' '\n'|cut -d'{' -f2|cut -d'}' -f1|cut -d'"' -f2|grep http) ; do wget -U Netscape/sucks -O googleprint$n.jpg "$x" ; n=$[ $n + 1 ] ; done
Putting a transparent gif over the content is something you can work around, I don't think it would be a good measure to prevent copying it (what if you go to the site with lynx).
However, if you don't want to me to be able to look at your content and copypaste it, you have 2 options.
-Work some encryption scheme, in which a program can read the info, but only displaying it as an image, not as text (you still can take photographs, but I think most people would consider this illegal).
-DON'T PUT THE FRICKIN CONTENT ON THE WEB!!!
I pray those half assed copy protection schemes don't get to be validated by some stupid court...
http://print.google.com/print?id=ULQSG0Zs7vcC&pg=4 &img=1&q=&sig=jh_jadOPprpRgXJiLFlP0vf_ M0I
So, equating religious belief with belief in "2 inch high, pink flying elephants" isn't trolling, but providing links to the Bible is. Hmmm ...
If you think everyone is a mindless retard, save your time and just say it, instead of a large complex Venn diagram of cases that ends up resolving to the same thing.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Then don't go to a site with the JPEG image exploit. See? Easy.
Image Zoom plugin for Firefox
Now what's the big deal? Move along...nothing to see here.
So this works in alternative browsers huh? What about say wget? or lynx? I for one would like to see the DRM they've come up with that prevents me from copying out of a terminal window, or even better yet couldn't be automated wiht a little sed/awk/lynx -dump action
Might have earned him $92M ;-)
Although there are already ways around this, what's to stop a person from just re-typing whatever they see?
Let's work on a browser that gives all the control to the user and none to the publisher... that's how it should be... don't publish thing you dont want to be public!
Just capture an image of the browser window.
Voila, problem solved.
A More usefull hack is needed, one that enables the user to keep browsing and reading the pages.
Not to be limited by only two in either direction, since that is where they really get you. They peak your interest, then provide a purhcase link, when you only want to read a few more pages to satisfy your burning question. Hook line and sinker.
Any takers?
-- Robi
Yeah, I believe in the word made flesh.
But in a gnostic kinda way.
Everytime I m*nkey sp*nk, I think of Jesus, all naked and well hung.
At the that special moment, I can feel Godz love for me.
Feel Godz love, baby. Feel the flesh!
Before anyone who just joined this story bothers reading through all the other posts, heres a conclusion:
- The page is a gif (fair enough)
- Its covered with a transparent gif
- The actual page gif is a css background image
- Whatever other javascript (i didnt check) doesnt matter
- Its easy to bypass, nothing to see here, move along
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
1. Install Adblock. You should have it for other reasons anyway. :-)f
2. Add this URL to its block list:
http://print.google.com/images/cleardot.gi
3. Disable "collapse blocked elements" in Adblock while browsing Google Print.
4. Pick "View Background Image", then "Save Image As..."
I guess someone will come up with a Firefox extension in no time that will just add a context menu option called "Save Background Image as..."
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
It took me thirty seconds of looking at the HTML source code of the page before I saw the tag for the image I wanted: http://print.google.com/print?id=GUKL8f735roC&pg=1 &img=1&q=charles+dickens&sig=lViNNyLehJXsLHaUNXGe6 n5vl18
o C&lpg=1&prev=http://print.google.com/print%3Fq%3Dc harles%2Bdickens&pg=2&sig=ndW5I_dHrUMyHW2ztZqvV_mk zxY"><img align=middle alt="Next Page" border=0 width=19 height=19 src=/googleprint/rarr.gif></a> easily identified by the alt text of Next Page. Keep going until you have no more next page links. There's the whole book - as a series of freakin' jpgs with copyrighted material written vertically up the right side. Just make sure you don't search to find the book either, because then your search term is highlighted in yellow in the jpg.
I only looked at one sample page, but I think all of these links would be preceded by this HTML snippet:
<style type=text/css>.theimg
So, all you need is an app to request the html for the page, parse out the snippet identifying theimg and request that file. You also then need to parse the link for next page: <a href="http://print.google.com/print?id=GUKL8f735r
I'm sure someone could write a Perl app using libwww in a couple hours to automate this. But what's the point? These are jpgs, you can't select the text no matter what. You'd have to feed it into an OCR program to regenerate the text with all the mistakes that could introduce.
A full exploration of the html obfuscation and DRM employed by Google would be very interesting
/print?id=ULQSG0Zs7vcC&lpg=3&pg=3&sig=QD6xDOsosnwh 8uXQuXRJL5old88 HTTP/1.1
... ...
.browse { display:none; } .theimg {n t?id=ULQSG0Zs7vcC&pg=3&img=1&sig=gv2nFptEf0dj7Gzb8 eZ4U8UdtUo");
/print?id=ULQSG0Zs7vcC&pg=3&img=1&sig=gv2nFptEf0dj 7Gzb8eZ4U8UdtUo HTTP/1.1
... ...
Here it is, in full. They've also shut off right-click javascript, but that has absolutely nothing to do with what they've done here.
$ telnet print.google.com 80
> GET
> Host: print.google.com
>
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
Imagetoolbar: no
Content-Length:
Date:
<html>
<head>
<meta name="robots" content="noarchive">
<title>Google Print: Mastering Digital Photography</title>
<style type=text/css media=print>
</style>
</head>
<body>
<style type=text/css>
background-image:url("http://print.google.com/pri
background-repeat:no-repeat;
background-position:top left;
}
</style>
<div class=browse>
<div class=theimg>
<img src=http://print.google.com/images/cleardot.gif width=575 height=752>
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>
$ telnet print.google.com 80
> GET
> Host: print.google.com
>
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: image/jpeg
Content-Length:
Date:
binary data follows...
Your comment violated the "postercomment" compression filter. Try less whitespace and/or less repetition. Comment aborted.
Please try to keep posts on topic.
Try to reply to other people's comments instead of starting new threads.
Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said.
Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about.
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How are you going to copy/paste text from a jpeg? This has nothing to do with rights. Google serves up the text as jpegs, hence you (technologically) can't copy/paste. No DRM to see here. Simply the way all web browsers work. If you can find a web browser with integrated OCR functionality for highlighting the text in jpegs, please let me know.
The fact that they hide the 'good' jpeg behind the 'bad' jpeg makes no difference. The fact is all jpegs are terrible for text, and I for one do not accept that a company publishing text in jpeg form should be labelled as using DRM. They somewhat simulated DRM using established web technologies.
I want a Linux smartphone running in my Treo 650 package. Then I can inspect and delete spyware.
--
make install -not war
Firefox does have this option, and it works on the standard context-menu-alert website, but Google manages to get around it (not sure how).
When I turn off JavaScript, then I get the context menu, and I can click on the image and download it... but all I get is the transparent GIF that is overlaying the actual page image.
I can also view page info, list media on the page, and choose Save As... for the page image (the only large image on the page), but that fails. Not sure why; this failure seems like a bug they are exploiting (which probably Mozilla will fix at some point).
Then I gave up -- why bother when it takes two key presses on ANY windows machine to take a screenshot? Try it if you're on windows -- Alt-PrtScn, then paste into Word, MSPaint, whatever. I can't think of any way they'd disable that.
On a side note -- I wanted to pull up a google print page again today to test a few things... and couldn't. The test links that I found around don't work anymore. Did they pull it down temporarily? Or does anyone have a valid link?
Neither do we.
--
make install -not war
Knowing how to develop stuff like this is not a skill everyone has.
Yes, it is. This is very basic javascript sort of stuff and it is commonly seen used by 12-year olds on crappy geocities pages so that right-clicking to "save as" pops up an "OMG DONT STEAL MY PICTURES OF EMINEM!!!" error box.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
What if the spyware was built into the bios? You'd need to be able to inspect & reprogram the code running on the uC (or uP).
I guess it may seem a bit farfetched (likely not), but what if the spyware was vendor-installed in hardware drivers. Nobody I know has ever read through the code running their portable electronics, it'd be illegal and very costly to get the dev tools.
Google is smart. They know that circumvention of copy protection is something most 4th graders are well versed in and it is impossible to stop.
If it can be observed, it can be recorded. If it can be recorded, it can be stored and duplicated. DRM and copy protection are physically impossible and serve the short term to make content producers more comfortable that someone can't "steal" their content.
Long term, the market probably won't see the need. If you have information for the general public, then the general public will have it. If you have specific information for specific individuals, then they will probably buy it because you will withold it. But you can't have it both ways. Either some of the public gets it or no one does.
The law as an enforcement mechanism. Speeding is a crime that many people do every day. It is usually harmless but does _kill people_ from time to time. If the law was serious about the crime of speeding, automobiles capable of violating speed limits would be outlawed on public roads and gps-aware governors would be placed on the cars for when they are driving by schools. But they aren't that serious about speeding even though it can kill.
Has anyone ever _died_ from making an illegal copy of a book? How about an mp3? Are people starving in the streets with no hope of a job because someone copied a book? Keep some context on this. No real damage comes from copying some crap off the web that you will probably forget about in a day anyway. Information doesn't want to be free it already is.
Google probably spent way too much money developing this dumbass copy protection scheme that only limits the usefulness of all the OCR work they are doing when they could have used that money to help cure cancer or something else important...like making gmail faster and have more space for all of my mp3 collection. Instead, to get buy-in from the publishers who "control" the content, they had to waste their time doing this. I'm sure they didn't want to...at least the people in google who have a clue probably didn't. Just don't let the publishers see how crappy the copy protection is...or they may not feel like they are getting their money's worth...oh wait...the only thing they gave up to allow a wider audience for the work was --- let me get this right --- _one_ copy of the book for google to scan and index.
Both sides should quit whining. Send your content to the distributor and let people see what you write. If they copy it themselves and reproduce it BFD. Its much easier for me to click once and hit buy right now then be surprised when it shows up on my doorstep because the purchase was so easy I forgot it.
Welcome to 2004.7726.
It's standards compliant CSS and cross-platform ECMA-script. Your browser is doing what it's told to do. Are you going to strip out the ability for Mozilla and FireFox to handle onKeyPress events? Force a dialog box to pop up each time asking if you want to allow it? I have several times written pages that handled the return key press to only allow it to succeed if the form was valid. Same with other keys as well.
NOTHING is changed in your browser settings. It's like they have a green background and suddenly your screaming that they set all backgrounds to green - they didn't. I would be more upset about googles lack of a doctype tag than about their 'DRM' if I were you.
What I was wondering is the type of encoding is used here. To my understanding it's not base64 (since that would include the slash) but probably something similarly known which I overlooked so far?
That's why I want an opensource smartphone, and why the hardcore opensource community wants an opensource BIOS. The dev tools are called "vi" and "gcc", and the entire community shares the difficulty. When even a single pair of eyes finds spyware, everyone finds out, and another pair of hands can type the pruning code for the rest.
--
make install -not war
Actually, if you'll kindly RTFA, you'll find that the Google DRM works with JavaScript turned off, so there's a bit more skill required.
1) Search for "to kill a mockingbird".5 &img=1&q=to+kill+a+mockingbird&sig=KQFFYkYib3kQQGF e9h8nx1JlbIE
2) Click on the book link.
3) View source.
4) Search the source for something like: http://print.google.com/print?id=iGvy3fB-D-QC&pg=
5) Go to that URL in your web browser.
6) Save the image.
Google is teh suck!
Actually, its not edit -> preferences its
Tools -> Options -> Web features -> Advanced Button -> uncheck "Disable or replace context menus"
most of the time "edit" is used to copy, paste find and undo. never seen a preference selection in an edit menu before.
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
That's the trick in things like this -- sure, the browser might be behaving like it might be expected to by some, but then, the users might expect something different. Fortunately, Firefox is very extendable -- I've got extensions to do all sorts of things that aren't in the base browser. Some of the extensions disable 'standard' features, though, and that's fine with me -- nobody makes you install an extension. If you don't want your browser to do something, you should be able to decide that.
i am a soviet space shuttle
I wanted the ability to create a popup as a tab, independent of how the user specified "open popus as tabs". I can't do it: there is no openNewTab function, even as an extension under Moz
:-)
Good. We'll clearly have to agree to disagree, but it's my machine, running my software - your content displays as I please, or not at all. Let's face it, it's probably more important to you/your client that the content is displayed than it is to me. If it is important to me, then fine, I'll either live with not seeing it, or putting up with unrequested popups or tabs.
I hav eno God-given right to view the content, you have no God-given right to spawn popups or tabs on my machine. Deal?
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Just use the following javascript as a bookmark to move the obscuring image out of the way, then right click to get the context menu, and middle click "view background" to open the image in a new tab for saving.
;i++) { if(document.images[i].src.match('cleardot') == 'cleardot'){document.images[i].width=20 ;} ;};void('');
javascript:for(var i =0;i < document.images.length
(Using Firefox, disallowing pages to block right mouse clicks.)
.theimg have a fixed size so you can actually click it)
.theimg a width and height
...
1. Mouse gesture (diagonal: north-west) over clear gif
2. Right click, save background image
or
1. Adblock image
2. userContent.css plus uri-id extension (make
or
1. View source
2. Find: '.theimg'
3. Copy background:url(...)
or
1. Get the EditCSS extension
2. Block the clear gif
3. Edit CSS, give
4. Right-click, Save Background As...
or, or, or
why are they making this sound so hard?
follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/moeffju
Google offers a free and useful service, which will last only so long as everyone plays by the rules. God, how I hate the "Everything yours is mine," the "Fuck you," attitude that is so prevalent on Slashdot.
the spaces in the urls are not accidentally at all.
they are there so you don't have to scroll horizontally if your window is too narrow to hold the full url.
it "enables" a pagebreak...
sucks for copying though.
i always code my sites to split long words at a certain number of chars so they don't break the layout. - it's the same thing here...
I'm sorry, but as far as I can tell, that simply isn't true. Even the most draconian proposals for DRM that I've seen seriously advocated only limit your ability to access controlled content to "trusted" software. Nothing in them stopped you running whatever you want on your computer, as long as you accepted that if you weren't prepared to use verifiable softare, They(TM) weren't prepared to let you access their content at all. If anyone can cite a serious proposition from any source that goes beyond this to restrict you to running only "trusted" softare under all circumstances, I'd be interested to see it.
There's nothing inherently wrong with the idea of trusted computing I describe here, AFAICS. You don't get an automatic, blanket right to do whatever you want with content just because you can see it in any other field; computing is nothing special in this respect. What's wrong with keeping your side of the bargain, or if you don't like that side, not accepting the bargain in the first place?
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
So they aren't offering you the content for printing purposes. They're up front about it, the fact that they're offering you the content at all is just their side of a bargain, and you must live up to yours. This is not an attack in any meaningful sense of the word.
If you treat this sort of thing as illegal, the exact same principles apply to any web sites you download that do anything (including simply displaying on your screen) that you arbitrarily decide you don't like. If visiting a web site with your browser, sending an HTTP request for the content, is no longer an invitation to supply that content, you just killed the Internet (for a start).
Even if you accept that and just won't accept the undesired use of perfectly valid CSS to prevent the printing, you would imply that any innovative use of web technology should not be allowed. That would be a shame, given that the only reason the web has reached the state it's in today is a chain of such unforeseen innovations.
Now for goodness' sake, please stop spouting this crap and thus reducing the emphasis on real attacks that can cause real harm. The Internet suffers with enough security problems, without blatant idiocy like this confusing the issue further.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Ah yes, the "give us what we want and we'll go away". Terrorists in Iraq are trying the same argument. The thing all you guys are forgetting is that piracy came before DRM (several decades worth actually). You all had your chance to have the content on your terms, and you blew it. Now there's a war going on, one that ultimately no one will win.
"You say publishers will never trust the users any more but you're wrong. There will be some who get it and reap the rewards, and they will be the ones who thrive on this."
Baen books is no prentice-hall and I don't see all you "give us what we want" exactly making them "thrive".
Assume I was drunk when I posted this.
I didn't have a problem downloading an example page. I use firefox and have the extension called "Allow Right Click" version .1.
Uhm... Why not just disable javascript in your browser?
It would be nice if someone made a extention for firefox that disabled javascript for some sites selectively.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
You didn't pay for the content, why should you have any right to control what you can do with it?
You have it backwards. Once you've given me the content I am free to do with it as I please, so long as I do not commit copyright infringment. No one is forcing you to send it to me.
As a designer, I want the ability to present something one way, take it or leave it.
You're perfectly free to present (transmit) it however you like (or not transmiot it at all), but once I receive it I can tell my computer to manipulate it or display it however I like.
If I don't like something about how my browser and my computer handles what you're sending then it's entirely my business if I want to hack my browser myself to behave differently or to ask the Firefox team to insert the kind of control I want.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
...is an oxymoron
the value of a book is in it's paper form; no one will read a book on a computer.
furthermore, so what if i can print a book on my color laser. it will never have the quality of a book from the print shop.
don't know what they're worried about.
i don't want to pay for a recipe in a cookbook just because it's in a cookbook.
--- widget evolution: enhanced, plus, super, ultra, extreme, exxxtreme, ultra-extreme,
http://print.google.com/print?id=hKkecu-g_dcC&p
Can you print it or NOT.
I see no problem.
I'm betting if you walk out of a bookstore and tell them that they "gave" you the books that you browsed, they would be more than happy to call the cops on you, posthaste.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
...and soon OpenOffice Writer as well, and you can easily delete stuff like transparent overlays or blackouts.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
I have no God-given right to view the content, you have no God-given right to spawn popups or tabs on my machine. Deal? :-)
Deal. I infer (rightly or wrongly) that you believe i'm propagating some kind of popup advertising. Plainly and simply, I can't fucking stand popup ads. Google Toolbar is my friend, and any site that pops up despite its use is null-routed in my HOSTS file. Pain in the ass, but if that's what it takes, then so be it. I've sent some angry letters to advertisees before (one newspaper in New England comes to mind), but i've either gotten back a boilerplate "thank you for your inquiry" or, in the above case, a note that says "curious..."
Independent of that, my off-topic point in this is that I don't have an option: I have no choice as to what gets opened, new window or new tab. This lack of choice is unrelated to UA (user-agent) preference. *You* can select how you want to open popups (if you allow them at all), but on the design-side, I have no choice. This particular problem is annoying in another way too, in that AFAIK UA preferences (specifically in Moz) only allow new windows XOR new tabs for new windows/popups, and ne'er the twain shall meet. Haven't checked back recently, I probably need to upgrade to 1.0 too.