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Altering Text In eBooks To Track Pirates
wwphx writes "According to Wired, 'German researchers have created a new DRM feature that changes the text and punctuation of an e-book ever so slightly. Called SiDiM, which Google translates to 'secure documents by individual marking,' the changes are unique to each e-book sold. These alterations serve as a digital watermark that can be used to track books that have had any other DRM layers stripped out of them before being shared online. The researchers are hoping the new DRM feature will curb digital piracy by simply making consumers paranoid that they'll be caught if they share an e-book illicitly.' I seem to recall reading about this in Tom Clancy's Patriot Games, when Jack Ryan used this technique to identify someone who was leaking secret documents. It would be so very difficult for someone to write a little program that, when stripping the DRM, randomized a couple of pieces of punctuation to break the hash that the vendor is storing along with the sales record of the individual book."
1. Sign up to service with alias
2. Use untraceable account (prepaid credit card, bitcoin, points card)
3. Share files with "watermarks"
4. Don't give a shit that it gets traced back to a throw away account
They could have saved a significant amount of effort if they had asked me first...
I catch all the typos in my books.
They irritate me.
I'd probably crack 'em, fix them all, and goddammit, that'd be "circumvention".
- Scan/OCR book
- Google translate into German
- Google translate back into English
- Print book
Voila! No more watermark. You can share with confidence.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Yes, which is why they have successfully stamped out piracy, it is part of the sordid past of the Internet. Thank god we'll never see pirated e-books again.
who prays for Satan? Who in 18 centuries has had the humanity to pray for the 1 sinner that needed it most? ~Mark Twain
That's not how dyeing industries work.
You negative attitude is colouring your response.
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
Uh... yes. When you find misspelled words in my messages here, it's just my new DRM. It's just that. It's not that I'm too dumb to use a spellchecker.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
why just strip out all the punctuation who needs commas full stops and capital letters anyway everything is still perfectly readable
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
And then "on a mobile device but with slightly rounded corners".