Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Amazon Kindle Proprietary Format Broken

Posted by kdawson on from the let-a-thousand-e-books-bloom dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The Register reports that the proprietary document format used by the Amazon online store and Amazon's Kindle has been successfully reverse engineered, allowing these DRM-protected documents to be converted into the open MOBI format. Users of alternative e-book readers rejoice." Here are the hacker's notes on the program he is calling "Unswindle," and here is the (translated) forum where the Kindle challenge was posed and answered.

5 of 203 comments (clear)

  1. Old old story. by CountBrass · · Score: 5, Informative

    There have been a set of python scripts around for more than a year and a half that allow you decrypt Kindle files to mobi. The challenge has always been in dealing with Topaz files and, unless I am missing something, they still haven't been cracked.

    --
    Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
    1. Re:Old old story. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      This removes the drm from the books downloaded using the Kindle for PC app.

      As you mentioned, the scripts you linked to have been around for a while but only remove the drm from the actual kindle and kindle for iphone books.
      So, if you have an iphone or a kindle this doesn't really change much as you could already do it. This would be useful for anyone that is only able to get their books through the Kindle for PC app.

  2. Re:Yeah. Right. by Winckle · · Score: 4, Informative

    If you want a pirated book it's easy enough to get a hold of, there are ebooks all over torrent sites and usenet. Even private ebook only trackers. And they are more likely to be in plain-text formats or epub making them better than the amazon equivalents.

  3. Re:Nothing new? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Wait, I've been using MobiDeDRM for a while with my Kindle's Mobi serial number to strip the DRM and leave me with Mobi files. How is this different, exactly?

    This gets the Mobi serial number from the Kindle For PC application. Now you don't need to own a Kindle or iPhone to buy Kindle books.

  4. Re:Nothing new? by pla · · Score: 4, Informative

    The question is, why would anyone want to do that?

    Because Amazon has a good storefront for buying eBooks of a known quality in a consistent format. You don't need to deal with 6 different formats, 27 different storefronts, and quality going as low as scans of the actual pages.


    I don't like reading books in the PC

    Some people don't mind it. More importantly, plenty of devices other than the Kindle or iPhone exist on which you might read eBooks... Netbooks, for instance (basically just PCs, but they finally hit a sweet spot between utility, weight, and battery life), or non-Amazon/Apple-approved smartphones.


    I would rather buy a physical copy (to pay the author) and then download a digital copy from torrents or whatever than support DRM infested products.

    I suspect most of us agree with you on that - However, the legality between the two differs radically. Stripping DRM for purposes of interoperability might count as a protected use (IANAL); downloading a torrent definitely does not. Also, keep in mind that publishers have increasingly tried to play the "X different products" game, claiming that the dead-tree edition requires a separate purchase from the eBook which requires a separate purchase from the audiobook (even if digitally produced) - Geeks tend to scoff at that sort of thinking, but the courts sadly haven't caught on to it as nothing more than a shell-game yet.