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Amazon Kindle Proprietary Format Broken
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.
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.
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?
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
I'd suggest converting every book you own really fucking quick. No telling how long it will take Amazon to make a similar format that will take another year or so to break. You can bet that once they do, they'll remotely switch everyone's ebooks over to that new format and then push a firmware upgrade to ensure compliance.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
I've been walking around with DRM-free files for over a year. Anyway, after stripping of them of DRM, I changed the filenames, and added prefixes to the titles (my real goal) to "categorize" them, which is why I wanted to unDRM them in the first place--adding text prefixes to the titles to indicate category makes it easier to use a Kindle without folder capability.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Better to have waited a couple of years more, till much more books had been published in the DRM'd format. Publishers were starting to warm to the Kindle, and now they will retrench like timid snails.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
.. from the forum that was linked into from Slashdot (well done for that btw kd)...
"Wow, you're a little scary! Well done." - I will use this the very next time one of my developer colleagues finally does a decent job.
"If Guy says you gun, you cannon. No arguments about!" - I will use this the next time one of my project manager "colleagues" puts his/her foot down about something technical that they don't know anything about.
"Already finished rope hook" - I will use this the next time I am telling a colleague that their code or document was so bad that instead of a review I had to re-write the whole thing.
The best quote of course is the new term "Open DRM" that one of the posters has coined. Genius! We should use that as a tag for all similar posts.
No more getting Jeff Bezos'ed 1984 style.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/18/amazon_removes_1984_from_kindle/
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Just like with music, the publishers have to be convinced that DRM is worthless (as it actually is for the vast majority of text) so that we will eventually be able to buy non-DRMed ebooks.
This is just one tiny step on that path. The publishers haven't even gotten to the "if we sue them piracy will be controlled" stage yet. One wonders if they will understand its futility and skip it.
More like; "Amazon-dot-com and shareholders rejoice, as more people can now read your files, therefore you make more money from increased e-book sales."
You really think so? You figure the hackers were disgruntled Amazon shareholders working to increase their quarterly dividends? My perception is that this will result in increased piracy, i.e., distribution through non-authorized channels from whom the authors of the books are not compensated.
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.
For the most part, they loose money on each ebook sale.
Huh? Amazon often sells e-books for as much (or even more) than the price of a printed book. Seeing as there are no costs for storage and shipping, the profits should be larger than on printed books. From where do you get this idea that Amazon loses money on e-book sales?
... and then they built the supercollider.
You are, of course, aware that with the exception of the first quote, the quotes are simply mangled automatic-translations (from Hebrew) by Google-Translate? For example, you may be disappointed to find out that the (excellent) new term "Open DRM" was not even used in the original text. In fact, it was something along the lines of: " I come back and see that you already managed to crack open the DRM".
You and the parent don't understand the difference between 'lose' and 'loose'.
Jonathanjk.com
If DRM is not locked inside of a closed black metal box, with anti-tamper seals, then it can always be reverse engineered. Once Kindle readers became available on the PC I knew it would be a matter of time before the DRM format was broken and utilities made available. What did surprise me here was that much headway had already been made by the ones hacking the Kindle hardware/OS already. The DRM had long been defeated. The sad part is that the people that pay for all that DRM 'technology' (the people who buy the DRM'ed books) are never going to be able to easily use the great software such as Calibre, which could make managing all these devices so much easier, sans the DRM. The legal aspects with circumventing DRM will always prevent the ability to have a ubiquitous software platform capable of reading any format that happens to be available from any publisher. I for one would buy much more from any publisher who would publish 'real books' (i.e. not best sellers list only) in a format I can really use. One day they will realize that all the money was wasted on DRM technology, and was merely passing for modern day 'snake oil'. DRM is a loosing battle that need not be fought because it only takes one disgruntled geek to undo all the millions spent on that failed technology. DRM will never increase sales, as the market forces are still just a matter of supply and demand. There is no upside to DRM except for those selling the technology itself. Everyone else, including the content providers themselves, loose in the long run.
Nonono.
Read that quote from GP again:
For the most part, they loose money on each ebook sale.
OK the grammar is a bit whacky but what he meant is of course that the profit margin is so huge that they end up with some money lying around loose because nobody knows what to do with all that spare change.
Somehow we have to invent a one-sentence explanation, that explains “loose” by linking to a Goatse pic, and “lose” as what happens to you, if you actually click that link. ^^
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Call me a ludite but I just don't see the point in paying $300AU for a device (DRM'd or otherwise) to read e-books that cost virtually the same as a real book. With real books I save $300 in up front costs and will never experience the frustration of batteries running out on the last chapter. And when I'm finished I can go to the seconhand bookshop and swap it over for another book for pennies. What's the attraction?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
If you believe Wikipedia, support for the DRM features is not everywhere:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Digital#DRM_features
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Exclusive Kindle releases are only available on the Kindle, and there are certainly a few.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
More like; "Amazon-dot-com and shareholders rejoice, as more people can now read your files, therefore you make more money from increased e-book sales."
You really think so? You figure the hackers were disgruntled Amazon shareholders working to increase their quarterly dividends? My perception is that this will result in increased piracy, i.e., distribution through non-authorized channels from whom the authors of the books are not compensated.
Not necessarily. I prefer to read my books on my iPhone, using BookShelf. I've been burned a couple of times by DRM, so I won't buy an eBook unless I can strip the DRM. That way, once I've paid for the book, I won't have to worry about it being either taken away or rendered useless by a company going under.
I *want* to purchase my ebooks. I *don't* want to pirate them or give away books I've purchased. But I also *require* that I have the ability to read my purchases on whatever medium is convenient to me.
With e-books you aren't "lending", you're merely making a copy...
Sadly, lately the pendulum is swinging back. With the advent of "team" based hero groups in mainstream TV shows, the geeks have become the comic foil again. Think Daniel Jackson in Stargate. You can see it pretty well in CSI and its spinoffs, too. While in the original CSI, Grissom could be seen as something like a geek with his insect collection and his pretty big trivia knowledge, when you look at the spinoff main characters, namely Caine or Taylor, you notice that they're more the traditional, hands-on kind of hero. More action, less thinking.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The grand-parent is correct.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091206/2048537223.shtml
Apparently the publishers are selling ebooks to Amazon for $12, and Amazon sells them to you for $10, a $2 LOSS.
So to those that said that DRM gives the power to the DRM holding company, please explain how the publishers are dictating such ridiculous terms.
>The labels required it.
Yeah, and they fucked themselves by doing it. I tend to side with the OP that the reason why DRM is falling out of favor is because the content providers are realizing that the protection DRM offers (which is negligible) is not worth putting all your market share at the control of the DRM provider.
No doubt the music labels originally required it. That's because they 1) thought it would work and 2) didn't realize the control they were giving up.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
If you want something that lasts through the ages, you need an uncompressed format. BMP and ASCII are both good - if you can read the bits, a human with 5 minutes of training can draw/write the original.
His abilities were discussed, but a description of the actual violence was relatively rare.
Perhaps because descriptions of fights in books are almost invariably boring, inadequate and contribute little to nothing towards advancing the plot of the story. It's rather like reading a description of a dance. I don't care how good you are with prose, you're never going to capture the beauty and grace of the movement satisfactorily, so what is the point of trying? Good authors know this and so they don't waste a lot of time trying to describe fight scenes in minute detail
This NY Times article says the same thing: "American publishers chafe over Amazon's pricing policy for the Kindle, under which it generally sells digital versions of best sellers at $9.99 - less than the wholesale price that Amazon pays for many of these books."
So does this article on Slate: "For a typical hardback that retails for $26--say, E.L. Doctorow's Homer & Langley--Amazon pays $13 and then sells it for $9.99 on the Kindle, taking a $3 loss on each sale." The same article also ran in Newsweek.
Here is an article at Publisher's Weekly: "That Amazon is currently treating the bulk of Kindle editions as loss leaders--items it either breaks even on or loses on to build market share in e-book sales and to fuel the growth of the Kindle--is one of the worrisome aspects of the current system."
Seems like a remarkable journalistic conspiracy by The New York Times, Slate, Newsweek, and Publisher's Weekly to cover up the truth. Or do you imagine that all these publications ran stories by all these reporters without making sure that the statements in them had sources?
When someone has pointed out that you've made a factual error, usually the best response isn't to get angry.
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