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Remote Kill Flags Surface In Kindle
PL/SQL Guy writes "The Kindle has a number of 'remote kill' flags built in to the hardware that, among other things, allow the text-to-speech function to be disabled at any time on a book-by-book basis. 'Beginning yesterday, Random House Publishers began to disable text-to-speech remotely. The TTS function has apparently been remotely disabled in over 40 works so far.' But what no one at Amazon will discuss is what other flags are lurking in the Kindle format: is there a 'read only once' flag? A 'no turning the pages backwards' flag?"
There, I said it. Kindle remotely made me do it!
Well, that's what you get for buying content instead of just copying it from pirate bay or whatever. Maybe it's time for us to finally learn our lesson?
for when we vote stories down. "Stupid" kinda works, but IMO it's not specific enough.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Unless they upload a replacement, the book would have to have all the possible tags attached. I'm assuming the books are on the device itself. Obviously, I don't know enough about the Kindle2.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
Sometimes I wish Slashdot had a "baseless speculation" flag.
But what no one at Amazon will discuss is what other flags are lurking in the Kindle format: is there a "read only once" flag?
No. But there inside your home on your desk inside your kindle is a flag so vile, so full of hatred, so very <insert your opposing political party here> that when activated it will only let you read books from Oprah's Book Club.
My work here is dung.
Kindle: The iPhone of readers. Proprietary schemes rock.
The article doesn't talk about the Kindle's other technological back doors at all, so colour me disappointed.
Still, as a parent of an autistic child, I know how valuable the TTS function can be in our computer programs. As an author, I'm saddened that Amazon's rolled over on this for the publishers' and Author's Guild panic. TTS is not the same as an audiobook performance, nor does it have that possibility any time soon.
ancarett, historian and zombie gamer
I think the first is more likely - although the second could be useful in other ways (the Kindle could automatically correct errors in books as they are found).
I pre-ordered a Kindle DX. Thanks to the information in this article I have changed my mind and I'm now canceling my order. I would be stupid to pay $500 for a device that can be remotely crippled, when cheaper ebook readers give me full control. What was I thinking?
...and they are internet capable? I'm going to laugh my ass off when some hacker reduces every ebook on every Kindle in the world to a useless pile of bits.
There is a war going on for your mind.
I was going to get my wife a Kindle for her birthday. She asked, "What's the point? The books are almost as expensive, and I can't send them to my mom or sister when I'm done. And what happens when the hardware breaks, and I need to get a new one? I don't want to be forced to get a Kindle just because those are the books I bought before. Fuck 'em."
My wife, the non-geek. She gets it.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
I was a customer for over ten years. Spent well over ten thousand dollars there in books and other items. But for the last several years their customer support has declined, their partner businesses engage in numerous disreputable practices that mirror the abuses at ebay, their manipulation of book rankings on so-called adult material (gay), and they seem intent on monopolizing the epublishing trade. I closed my account and won't look back.
Yes, the Kindle-DX looks like a nice machine. But what one gives up in basic rights as a reader is more than enough to keep me buying used books printed on dead trees for some time. And I can always scan the books I buy to load on an ereader with less virulent DRM limitations and corporate controls. I own an iRex iLiad, that while not the best manufacturer, at least they offer a free Linux development environment to download and install. Users are hacking new software on that platform. Does anyone here expect Amazon to allow that? Not me.
BTW: closing my account with Amazon took several phone calls and numerous transfers from one department to the next. They don't like it when customers attempt to leave them and make the process as difficult as possible. Yet another reason to never give them my money again.
The problem with socialism is that they always run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher
Buy a real book and then have it read to you by your girlfr... oh, wait, this is Slashdot. Ignore me :)
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Can't one of those Blind Advocacy groups sue them for discrimination?
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Reminds me of Fahrenheit 451.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Don't forget to direct your ire at Random House for doing this as well as Amazon for rolling over.
Call them and bitch.
http://www.randomhouse.com/about/contact.html
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
And that's why my Kindle's flag will be a Jolly Roger.
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
This is my post. I wrote it. Is is a creative and inventive work which benefits society at large. Moreover, it is a concrete example of intellectual property. This post, that you are reading right now, belongs to me. It is mine.
This post is mine in the same way that my house, or car or clothes are mine. These words that I have written are given as much protection as freedom of speech or to vote. They need it. If just anyone is allowed to come along and copy them, or alter them, or include them in another work without my permission, then it will be as though my right to speak freely has been taken away, or I have been disenfranchised.
If someone else reads these words without paying me, or worse sells them to others to read, I will have been robbed. It will be as if my home was burned down, or my family sold into slavery. An injustice of the highest order.
These words need protections. Strong protections. This post needs to be defended, even as it is copied endless and effortlessly across millions of computers, each recopying it hundreds of times, at negligible expense. The worth of these words is worth more than all the bits it occupies in cyberspace. Indeed, their worth is worth more than the worth of cyberspace, and even society itself.
For if these words, if this post cannot be afforded the most stringent, uncompromising and sacred protection that our society has to offer, then our society will not be worth the bits it is represented on. The reality of digital worldwide transmission must not be allowed to compromise the most fundamental rights we have. The protection of this post is a challenge which our civilization must meet, or else our civilization must fall.
This post and all related materials, Copyright © ObsessiveMathsFreak 2009.
All rights reserved, worldwide.
None of the materials provided in this post site may be used, reproduced or transmitted, in whole or in part, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or the use of any information storage and retrieval system, without express permission in writing from the author, along with suitable monetary compensation.
Unauthorized use of the materials in this post are subject to prosecution to the fullest exent allowable by law.
May the Maths Be with you!
the memento flag:
you can only read the chapters once and in reverse order only.
the pulp fiction flag:
chapter order is randomized
the Bedazzled flag:
last page is missing in mystery novels
the pat robertson flag:
all naughty words like "gay" and "damn" are changed to "homo" and "golly"
they also introduced several modes:
leet speak mode:
so your p4r3nts can't read over your shoulder.
The beevis and bottomhead flag:
all accidental double entedres are bolded (heh heh).
Ascii art mode
speed reading mode: the words disappear from the page at defined rate.
Controverial undocumented ebonics and hot coffee modes.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Can we get a White Flag? One that just allows us to surrender? How about a bloody pirate flag? One that shoots cannons at the other flags. I would like at least one device not try to screw me over. (Full Disclosure, I own a Kindle 2.)
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
I'm interested in the DX because of its native PDF reader, and nothing else. I probably would never buy a book from Amazon to read on it, because everything I want I can get as a PDF, whether it be something technical or literature.
Because of this, theoretically, I'd be immune to these issues, right? They're my own, drm-free PDFs which can't be remotely deleted or somehow blocked.
I like the *idea* of the Kindle in that I can carry millions of pages of whatever on a very light device with a good screen. I was trying out my mom's Kindle and I was shocked at how much I *really* liked it; the screen was really great and, while I didn't care for the slow page redraws, it wouldn't be a deal-breaker. Thus I like the DX idea even more; bigger screen, and drm-free content.
The following was from the first paragraph of the email:
I've requested a refund for "NAME OF BOOK OMITTED". Issuing a refund also removes access to the file. If the item is still on your Kindle, please delete that copy. After the refund is issued, you will no longer be able to access it.
Well, I watched for it, and not only was access to the file removed, The file is no longer present.
Amazon has the Kill-switch ability to delete content. I am going to assume they have the ability to delete my personal content I add to through the USB.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
-- The Doctor, "Doctor
Or use most other e-readers. The local library is free and paper backs are cheap - I don't have to worry about someone messing with what I am reading...and if they do I can use the book to beat sense into them (please note hard covers are better for this option than paper backs).
This is old news. The whole brouhaha over this happened months ago. The Kindle 2 came out, with text-to-speech. The Author's Guild whined like little babies claiming it would reduce audiobook sales (presumably they also want to charge you for reading to your kids.) They wanted the functionality removed completely. Amazon reached a compromise, that publishers could opt-out by requesting that it be disallowed on their books.
There's no point getting your panties in a bunch *now*. The horse is out of the barn. Nor is Amazon the one to complain to. The publishers and the Author's Guild are the ones to complain to.
If anything, Amazon deserves credit for putting the feature in in the first place without restrictions. Given their business model, you might have expected them to proactively design the feature to the publishers' requirements long before it was released. They might have been like Microsoft who preemptively crippled the Zune's sharing feature.
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
So I think I'll stick to paper, thank you very much.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
To me, this flagging ability should be viewed as a good thing.
All books should be available from the library FOR FREE. You go to the library, you borrow the book, and you return it in two weeks. You can re-check it out again for another 2 weeks if you want.
This flagging ability COULD allow this to be done without driving to the library. You COULD use this to NEVER buy a book. You simply "check it out" for 2 weeks and then it vanishes.
Now I'm skeptical that it will ever be allowed to work this way, but this is the way such devices SHOULD work. If I can go check out a physical copy for 2 weeks, why not a digital copy? If it's free, I don't mind if it vanishes in 2 weeks, just like a library loan would.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
No. The customer is right unless them being right interferes with another, bigger customer being right. Or it interferes with a number of other customers being right. That's the way it really works.
The way it should work is, the customer is only right if they are not wrong. In most of Europe, if you go into an establishment looking to have your butt smooched and every single one of your sniffy little needs met, you will be shown the door rather than letting you waste the employee's and other customer's time.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
In the article (someone has to read it, but what the hell, this is /.), the subject of piracy is not an issue.
The point you're all missing is that any legally downloaded copy of a book can be prevented from being accessed via TTS by a customer with some form of reading disability.
I have no axe to grind regarding the merits (or otherwise) of the technology, but the point is that if you have paid for the content, you should be allowed to access it however you want. Deliberately locking out legitimate users with disabilities is seriously bad medicine, and anyone who does so deserves all the bad karma he'll get.
The entire reason we bought Kindles was the text to speech function. Our school teaches dyslexic kids and any technology that allows these kids to read ANY book, whether or not an audio book version is available, is extremely useful.
Without unlimited text to speech kindles are reduced, from a useful teaching tool, to simply a nifty gadget. Without TTS, there is very little to justify the cost of these over other e-book readers.
Good job Amazon! You've just allowed your book publishers to kill a potentially HUGE market for these things - schools.
-ted
I have a Kindle (2), purchased just under a month ago.
While it is annoying that these flags exist, it is part of the TOS that you have to agree to.
Personally, the TTS feature is not of great value to me. If I'd been concerned with audio books, I would not have purchased a device to read them. Besides, it is clearly stated on the product page that the TTS is experimental and available where allowed by the publisher.
However, I fairly certain that the flag exists in the book itself and not in the Kindle. If a publisher decides to withdraw TTS rights, Amazon only needs to update the book in you server side library and upon next sync, you receive the updated book that blocks TTS. Otherwise, the Kindle's minimal storage would need to be used to maintain a database of disallowed content for the TTS tools. From a developer standpoint, that is poor implementation.
Any large scale functionality changes require a firmware upgrade. Currently my Kindle is unable to receive these as I have a hack to use custom idle screens. I have to remove the hack in order to update.
From the Kindle Content Return Policy:
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