Adobe Spies On Users' eBook Libraries

New submitter stasike writes: Nate at the-digital-reader.com reports that Adobe is spying on any computer that runs Digital Editions 4, the newest version of Adobe's Epub app. They are collecting data about what users are reading, and they're also searching users' computers for e-book files and sending that information too. That includes books not indexed in DE4. All of the data is sent in clear text. This is just another example of DRM going south.

Comments

Moo

[Chacham]

In Soviet Russia, you watch Adobe!

Wait, wait, something's wrong here....

Re:Moo

[Anonymous Coward]

It's yet another example of how pirates provide better service to their customers than the legitimate retailers.

Re:Moo

[Russ1642]

I played a DVD the other day, something I haven't done in a few years. It took damn near forever to get the actual movie playing. It was ad after ad for movies from ten years ago. Pirated movies are great. You hit play and the movie starts. That's it.

Re:Moo

[meerling]

This pic is pretty much accurate...
http://cdn-www.i-am-bored.com/media/7125_piratemoviechart.jpg

Re:Moo

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone knows pirate movies pre-roll with ARRRRRRRRRRR!

Re:Moo

[jones_supa]

It's yet another example of how pirates provide better service to their customers than the legitimate retailers.

Buying legitimate dead-tree books is still possible and does not come with the problem.

Re:Moo

[Jason Levine]

The same graphic is true if you buy the DVD and rip it to MKV or MP4 or something. Hit enter and just play without a ton of ads/warnings. Of course, ripping a DVD - even one you've purchased yourself and thus own a valid copy of - violates the DMCA so I would never, ever do this. *whistles innocently*

Re:Moo

[MMC Monster]

I rent from Redbox and transfer to computer with makemkv. I then transcode with Handbrake.

I haven't found a single instance where this didn't work.

Re:Moo

[steelfood]

It was ad after ad for movies from ten years ago.

The worst are the ads telling you not to pirate movies. Since you're seeing the ad, I think it'd be safe to assume you didn't pirate it. Because if you did pirate the movie, you certainly wouldn't be seeing that useless crap.

The stupidity just boggles the mind sometimes.

Re:Moo

[UnknownSoldier]

LOL! That is so funny but sad because it is all too true. Could the publishers shit on the customers any more ...

I propose a new movement for people selling digital goods:

Respect My Time

Guilty parties:
- "freemium" pay-to-win "Social Games"
- Any game you grind for gear ... Warframe, Defiance, Diablo 3
- DVDs
- BluRays

Who else do we add to the Name & Shame list ?

Re: Moo

[Anonymous Coward]

at least the games give you something in return for your time

Re:Moo

[Anonymous Coward]

What I've started doing recently, is if I've bought a DVD/Blu-ray and there are previews/commercials/etc that can't be skipped easily...

I mark down the names of the movies/etc that are being advertised. And I never, ever, buy the fucking things.

Saves me a ton of cash.

Re:Moo

[un1nsp1red]

As well it should. DVD encryption was broken 15 years ago....

Re:Moo

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing about ripping a DVD to MKV/MP4 violating the DMCA though, it might be illegal in some respects but I doubt if many people would get into trouble over it so long as they're acting in good faith.

If I buy a DVD (and keep the receipt if challenged for ownership) and then rip it to my favorite format so it can be used on my media center, as far as I'm concerned from a legal and moral perspective I have acted in good faith and can use this as a defense against any litigation. The justice system can be an ass sometimes but a judge is not going to come down on a guy who's clearly buying the DVDs and ripping them solely for his own use and convenience.

People pirating off public torrent sites are the main source of attention from the feds, mostly because it's easy enough to track. A dude buying DVDs and using software to make their own rips from is hardly going to ping on the radar.

Re:Moo

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll stick to the download. Let people who are experts at the ripping do that.
They have a good product. That you can't buy for any money.

Re:Moo

[Anonymous Coward]

Downloading a movie you legally "licensed" results in you not breaking the DRM yourself, ergo no DMCA violation.
 
Have at it.

Re: Moo

[therealkevinkretz]

Isn't converting legitimately owned content from one medium to another covered under fair use?

Re: Moo

[Jason Levine]

It is, but you aren't allowed to break the copy protection they put on it. They've put the content in a locked box and have said "You're free to do whatever you want with this content yourself (short of sharing it with others) just as long as you don't open the lock on this box."

Practically speaking, you'll never see someone charged with ripping DVDs for their own personal use - not unless they were also sharing out said DVD rips. What the law really does is makes distributing DVD ripping tools illegal. Again, you could write your own tool, keep it to yourself, and you wouldn't be charged, but how many people have the talent (not to mention the time) to do this? All this means is that it is harder for Joe User to get easy DVD ripping tools which means he won't be likely to rip his DVD collection for personal use.

All this is a shame because ripping DVDs to a hard drive makes them MORE useful and means it's MORE likely that one would buy DVDs. (*cough* *cough* So I've heard. *cough* *cough*)

Re: Moo

[therealkevinkretz]

It is not illegal (in the US) to circumvent copy protection (DRM) if it's not for the primary purpose of violating copyright.

Re: Moo

[Jason Levine]

The second point still stands though. It's illegal to distribute tools to circumvent copy protection. Suppose I wrote a program that easily let users rip their DVDs/Blu-Rays to MKV/MP4 files. If I used it on my own files and never gave the program to someone else, I'd be fine. If I set up a website and started giving it away (or selling it), I'd find myself dragged into court as soon as my program got on the MPAA's radar.

On the flip side, if I'm a user that wants to rip my legitimately purchased DVDs/Blu-Rays but can't program a ripper, I might have a hard time finding ripping programs that haven't been taken down by the MPAA.

The exception here is that said ripping programs could be developed by people in countries that don't care about US copyright laws (which the US seems to try to impose on the rest of the world at every turn) and hosted in similar locations. This only shows how stupid the "no distributing ripper" rule is, though.

Re: Moo

[therealkevinkretz]

First, to be clear: It's illegal to distribute a tool primarily intended to circumvent DRM only if it "has limited commercially significant other uses or is marketed for the anti-circumvention purpose".

And yeah, I agree that it's stupid.

Re:Moo

[Helldesk Hound]

DMCA only applies to slaves owned by the USA government (in turn owned by large multi-national corporations).
Citizens of other countries, and businesses not seeking to trade in the USA, don't have that problem.

Re:Moo

[Jason Levine]

The DMCA doesn't apply to other countries, but the US (really the media corporations who want draconian copyright laws and who have plenty of money to wave at politicians) is always trying to get other countries to adopt similar laws. So don't count on "I'm outside the US" to be the same as "I'm safe from the draconian US copyright laws."

Re:Moo

[Helldesk Hound]

Agreed. Politicians have this tendency to be easily bribed. :(

Re:Moo

[MisterToad]

Adobe? That the snotty Canadian company. Right? Maybe we should consider them terrorists!

Re:Moo

[bhiestand]

It was ad after ad for movies from ten years ago.

The worst are the ads telling you not to pirate movies. Since you're seeing the ad, I think it'd be safe to assume you didn't pirate it. Because if you did pirate the movie, you certainly wouldn't be seeing that useless crap.

The stupidity just boggles the mind sometimes.

It's actually kind of brilliant. They want their remaining paying customers to be afraid to pirate. To think it's difficult, immoral, and dangerous. To believe they made the right choice. Bonus points: make them feel superior to those who do pirate.

They should probably include a short video of a an unattractive geek working really hard to hack something, followed by an image of a SWAT team kicking down a door and killing his puppy before arresting him.

Re:Moo

[Blaskowicz]

How come these ads actually are unskippable? Shouldn't the DVD player be able to ignore it? Just like they ignore DVD regions. Living outside the US I've never seen unskippable ads on DVD, hell you expect to go to the menu and play.
Use a PC with VLC and you're probably free to do whatever. How's it on a console? (PS2, PS3 etc.)

The only logical response

[gelfling]

Is to send Adobe death threats and bomb threats through their own software.

The Issue is Not Plain-Text

[Anonymous Coward]

The outrage needs to be swift and directly entirely at the fact that they are collecting this information in the first place not whether it is transmitted in plain text or encrypted.

Re:The Issue is Not Plain-Text

[Anonymous Coward]

The outrage needs to be swift and directly entirely at the fact that they are collecting this information in the first place not whether it is transmitted in plain text or encrypted.

Indeed. It is absolutely asinine to even bring up "plain text" bullshit. Are people really this stupid where "plain text" is something to be feared, but outright spying on the user is OK because it was "encrypted"?

Mods, you know the difference between insightful and interesting? Then why is parent interesting??

Re:The Issue is Not Plain-Text

[Em Adespoton]

Because "plain text" is a MAJOR issue.

If it's encrypted, then Bad Actor #1 (in this case, Adobe) steals all your personal info. All fine and dandy; you can sue them and get them to drop all that personal info, and life goes back to normal.

If it's plain-text, then opening, say, an OverDrive eBook while at Starbucks suddenly makes your entire eBook collection, including titles that have nothing to do with Adobe, available to anyone else listening in on the public WiFi.

so: outrage over the action in the first place, merited. Furor over not even taking pains to protect the data from other eyes, way more than merited.

Think about it like this: which is worse: the guy next door taking pictures through your windows night and day, or the guy next door taking pictures through your windows night and day and posting them all online? They're both bad, but the second is much worse.

Re:The Issue is Not Plain-Text

[nabsltd]

The outrage needs to be swift and directly entirely at the fact that they are collecting this information in the first place

Kindle reading apps and standalone readers also send exactly this same kind of information about books you download from Amazon. They do this to pay authors royalties for books that were loaned by other users or though KindleUnlimited or Prime.

The difference here is that ADE sends info about any ePub you open with it, even if that file was downloaded by some other app, and even if it is not protected with Adobe DRM. I read everything through Calibre's reader, so I'm not really worried about this, even though I do download books from my library that use Adobe DRM.

Re:The Issue is Not Plain-Text

[LessThanObvious]

It's still less intrusive than Amazon Kindle reporting every passage you highlight. It's all part of a larger conspiracy to sell more tin foil. Seriously though, oh Adobe, shame shame shame. Can I copyright the contents of my hard drive so they will be the pirates?

Re:The Issue is Not Plain-Text

[gl4ss]

you already have copyright to your contents you created.

but I think they would try arguing that the fine print makes them able to do what they do. maybe they're doing it to later argue to own some random authors published ebooks, because their software uploaded information about them.

ha.

Outrage burnout

[ilsaloving]

I can't even bring myself to be outraged by this sort of thing anymore, because it's become so expected.

What's especially annoying though, is that so many *other* companies have hitched themselves to the DE bandwagon, that you cannot use their (what should be) completely legitimate services without getting bent over by Adobe. Library ebook rentals, for example, because most of them rely on Overdrive.

Re:Outrage burnout

[BarbaraHudson]

If a book can be converted to pdf without using adobe software, (use libre office's File | Export as PDF ...), why not. Google Books accepts pdf in addition to epub.

Re:Outrage burnout

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

'Digital Editions' is Adobe's DRM-thing. I think that it can be applied to PDFs (along with ePub and maybe others); but nobody uses it just to render PDFs. Unfortunately, this also means that you now need DMCA-banned circumvention tools just to read a damn library book without Adobe looking over your shoulder...

Re:Outrage burnout

[taustin]

You've clearly never tried to read a PDF on a book reader with a small screen.

Re:Outrage burnout

[Obfuscant]

Unfortunately, this also means that you now need DMCA-banned circumvention tools just to read a damn library book without Adobe looking over your shoulder...

Except, as has already been noted, that library book probably came through Overdrive which uses Adobe Digital Editions. Your criminal conspiracy to thwart publisher rights management needs the file that you don't get until ADE downloads it for you.

Now, if you can tell me some other software that will handle the .acsm link and work with Overdrive that isn't ADE, I'm all ears.

Re:Outrage burnout

[Anonymous Coward]

> You've clearly never tried to read a PDF on a book reader with a small screen.

I have. I made a note to self: buy reader with bigger screen.

Re:Outrage burnout

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

To the best of my knowledge, you don't have any alternative when it comes to getting the file; but stripping the DRM and reading it on something else does spare you the reporting that Adobe does of every move you make from one page to another, and keeping your copy of Digital Editions on a separate system(VM or isolated physical machine), will presumably keep it from scanning its merry way through your entire library...

Even if there were a 'clean' client, they'd still know who sent a request to their servers, and for what; but the ADE behavior goes well beyond that, and most of it will only work if the client is a traitor to the reader.

Re:Outrage burnout

[BarbaraHudson]

The idea is to use the PDF as a submission format for eBooks you want to publish, such as google's Google Books platform.

Re:Outrage burnout

[nabsltd]

Library ebook rentals, for example, because most of them rely on Overdrive.

Overdrive also offers books in Kindle format that you download from Amazon. If you don't have a Kindle, get the Kindle app for PC/Mac/Android/iOS/whatever.

Re:Outrage burnout

[taustin]

There's no point in submitting them for publication in a format that nobody is going to bother to read. PDFs are nice for stuff that's going to be printed. They're marginal on a desktop sized screen. They're utterly useless on a bookreader sized screen.

And PDFs can't be converted to other formats worth a damn, DRM or not.

Re:Outrage burnout

[BarbaraHudson]

Please try and understand what I wrote - PDF is a submission format for eBooks.

It's NOT the final output format, which works fine on eReaders including my Android smartphone, or iPhones,, or whatever.

Re: Outrage burnout

[Anonymous Coward]

All the time with koreader reflowing to my kobo. It's aces.

Re:Outrage burnout

[Anonymous Coward]

PDF is one of the least flexible formats. Plain text is the best submission format for eBooks. The PDF converted eBooks I have have the page numbers, headers, and footers embedded within the text. It's really annoying when I'm reading along and a 294 and the author's name pops up in the middle of a sentence.

I have an original Kindle.

Re:Outrage burnout

[dbIII]

Use a ten inch Boox and turn the thing sideways for half a page of the PDF at a time.

Re:Outrage burnout

[blackest_k]

Pdf is a terrible format for anything really, let alone ebooks its an end format not easily converted into something else. each line of text on the page is a line it doesn't have a concept of a paragraph. It only seems to know the order that text was added to it. e.g if you had 4 bullet points added as 1,2,3,4 and later edited to read 1,4, 2, 3.
translating to another format becomes 1,2,3,4 again.

Having more than 1 column of text converting becomes a block of text where the first line of column 1 is followed by the first line of column 2 followed by the second column of column 1. in other words an unreadable mess. Sloping text is even worse as it will be read at 90 degrees and so the highest word on the page becomes the first word and again a jumbled mess.

epub on the otherhand uses xml which is pretty close if not identical to html and so can be reflowed to fit the screen fairly naturally, it also supports css, it knows the difference between bolded text and a chapter heading the main difference between reading in a web browser is that an epub will be laid out as a screen full of information at a time instead of scrolling down. Because of the h tags a page can be broken easily into sections and a heading can be placed at the top of the next page. you don't get a heading at the bottom of a screen and the body of the section on the next page.

One nice feature is that converting a html web page to an epub becomes incredibly easy. You can save a web page complete and then load it into sigil and most of the work is done for you or you can bring it in to libre office save as an odt and then save as html and then bring it into sigil. The reason for doing this is to localise the hrefs for images. Otherwise the images would be linked to the website they came from rather than local to the page. Now instead of having a pdf designed for A4 paper you have a document which is easy to read be it on a phone or tablet or computer monitor, good luck trying to read a pdf on a phone on a bus or train or on your lunch break.

Another great thing is the ability to display svg graphics. Students will be able to relate to this you are in a lecture and you write like crazy making notes but they are paper notes, which you have to collate into ring binders you could type but then you need to sketch a diagram or a graph. and then annotate it.

There is a cool little program called write (cross platform windows linux osx) it lets you write on a graphics tablet and creates webpages of your notes. with svg files or top files you can convert handwriting to text with some success or just leave them as svg. The thing is they are ripe for bringing into an epub and instead of carrying a ton of notes around you can have a small collection of epubs for each class that you carry around instead.

The thing is you generally can write faster than you can type, it takes a little practice to get used to writing with a tablet stylus instead of a pen but once you have it you don't need paper any more.

There are some pdf's you can copy and paste from and recover a working document but it is more complicated than you would like. XML is much nicer to work with. Once you have figured out a workflow you will find its a lot better to use epub rather than print to pdf.

Sigil 0.8.0 was released last week, it's major change is it now supports python plugins which have great potential for extending the functionality of the program. The main development is done on osx with ports to other operating systems. There is a slight snag as apple doesn't let source be compiled for older versions of osx which means official builds are targeted for osx 10.8.x upwards, I made a 10.7.x build which is available through the sigil forum on mobileread.com as are versions for xp debian ubuntu and other platforms.

Re:Outrage burnout

[BarbaraHudson]

Yes, PDF sucks as a format - however, you can convert PDF to ePUB with various tools if you don't want Adobe tracking everything you do, and free ePUB editors. And libreoffice has an extension for "export to ePUB".

But for distributing previews to the people you want to get feedback from (corrections, etc), a PDF is fine.

Re:Outrage burnout

[BarbaraHudson]

Thanks for the feedback. As I pointed out to another comment, pdf has its uses, and sigil and caliber let you do epub directly. My point was that it IS possible to use pdf as a submission format, and if all you have is text (no tables, no fancy formatting) why not use it?

Of course, the real use is to let others preview your stuff so they can give feedback on the content - not the layout - before you save it in ePUB format. Content, not formatting, is king :-)

And for those like me, who can type faster (and way more legibly) than they can ever write, a keyboard is a must. But I read PDFs on my Android phone, no problem (then again, I have serious retina problems, so I've got really big fonts set as the default, and I triple-tap to enable zooming in, and that applies to ANY format, even web sites that insist on using stupidly small fonts :-)

Re:Outrage burnout

[blackest_k]

Go on do it pick a pdf that has anything more complicated than a single column of text and try to convert it to epub. Try and make sentences flow correctly try a few lists for fun and any table you like. after wasting half a day or more trying to wrestle it into submission. find an interesting web page and convert it into epub don't spend more than 15 minutes with it. Compare and contrast with the still some what messed up pdf version.

Once you have done this you will hate pdf because its really not that portable it really is designed as an end format Epub is just so much nicer.

Re:Outrage burnout

[BarbaraHudson]

My writing generally doesn't include lists, tables, etc. for formatting. That being said, I've also got sigil, caliber, and the directions from IBM developerWorks on how to create an ePUB completely by hand - which is always handy to know :-)

Adobe has an ereader app?

[Mysticalfruit]

I guess I was surprised that Adobe has an ereader app. Yet another reason to not use Adobe's products.

Re:Adobe has an ereader app?

[RabidReindeer]

I guess I was surprised that Adobe has an ereader app. Yet another reason to not use Adobe's products.

Overdrive.

Adobe's e-reader REQUIRED if you want to check out e-books from most libraries.

Re:Adobe has an ereader app?

[MightyMartian]

The only reason I even have Digital Editions on my computer is so I can download DRM-locked ePubs from the Kobo and Google Books stores and decrypt them with ePUBee. My solution now will be to install Digital Editions in a virtual machine, run it just long enough to do the decrypt and move all the files off the virtual machine.

A big fuck you to Adobe, as well.

Re:Adobe has an ereader app?

[Anonymous Coward]

They probably added that functionality to try to identify copies made of files borrowed from those libraries. When all you borrowed is data, there's no way to prove you didn't copy the data. This has been technically true since the invention of photocopiers, but the incidental cost to photocopy a novel is much greater than the incidental cost to copy a pdf to another folder.

So, yeah, probably DRM nonsense, but I'm prone to think that libraries trying to get some form of late fees for pdfs are as at fault with this feature as Adobe for implementing it.

Re:Adobe has an ereader app?

[Anrego]

I doubt they'd notice, but still might be a nice touch to have a few thousand files named along the lines of screw_you_adobe_00123.epub

Re:Adobe has an ereader app?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never had to load or run any Adobe software to use Overdrive. I'm always transferred from the Overdrive site to Amazon, where I can send the book to whichever Kindle option (reader or app), I choose.

Re:Adobe has an ereader app?

[oji-sama]

They probably added that functionality to try to identify copies made of files borrowed from those libraries. When all you borrowed is data, there's no way to prove you didn't copy the data.

Yeah, except the DRM prevents you opening the file after it has expired. (At least for most people, I don't know if it has been cracked.)

Re:Adobe has an ereader app?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Yeah, except the DRM prevents you opening the file after it has expired. (At least for most people, I don't know if it has been cracked.)

It has. :)

Re:Adobe has an ereader app?

[nabsltd]

Overdrive.

Adobe's e-reader REQUIRED if you want to check out e-books from most libraries.

As I said in another post, Overdrive also offers Kindle format books that you download from Amazon.

Re:Adobe has an ereader app?

[Anonymous Coward]

a' ); DROP TABLE USERS;

Re:Adobe has an ereader app?

[gmhowell]

And knowing is half the battle. (Not sure if this is what the AC was referring to.

Re:Adobe has an ereader app?

[Anonymous Coward]

Soon you will need it for firefox...

Yet another reason ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet another reason why I don't like Adobe or their products.

They suck at security, and they don't give a rat's ass about your privacy.

Fuck you Adobe. Fuck you.

At first I thought this was Amzon

[Streetlight]

I guess when I saw the first letter in the word Adobe I thought this was Amazon. My first reaction was that you now can't buy the books you might want to read from Amazon and even if you can get them somehow, Amazon will know.

Adobe's tactic may give Amazon an idea. Too bad.

Just EPub?

[MagickalMyst]

I wonder how many other adobe applications are reporting back? Photoshop? Flash?

Re:Just EPub?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can always use Wireshark to check for yourself.

Lawsuit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lawsuit?

See what really happened first

[gnasher719]

I'd really want to see what really happened first. Everyone is getting outraged, but different Macs and iPads in my home figure out what page of a book I have been reading and display that page if I read the same book on a different device, so I'm quite sure the information goes through some server at Apple first.

I'd hope the information is sent encrypted (https would be a good way to do this) and is stored encrypted, but on the other hand I would trust Apple to not look at that information.

So is there any good reason why Adobe would do this that benefits the customer?

Re:See what really happened first

[Obfuscant]

So is there any good reason why Adobe would do this that benefits the customer?

Yes.

"I see you are reading 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion'. Adobe recommends the following books: 'Mein Kampf' by A. Hitler, 'Banking and Currency and the Money Trust' by C.A. Lindbergh, and 'God is Not Great' by C. Hitchens."

Re:See what really happened first

[stasike]

This outrage is not about syncing books.
This is about Adobe Digital Editions 4 searching the disk for books that have *not* been added to ADE library and sending reports home about those books. Without any permision and without any indication they are sending info about files on your computer to an outside server.
This is about sending the info in cleartext, so every computer along the way from your PC to Adobe server can read about your reading habits and about the files you keep in unrelated directories.

who the f.uck uses adobe for ebooks

[Anonymous Coward]

seriously...thats so 90's

Re:who the f.uck uses adobe for ebooks

[just_another_sean]

Apparently public libraries. So 90's, public libraries, sounds about right!

Re: who the f.uck uses adobe for ebooks

[xenoc_1]

Every bookseller of not-Kindle-format eBooks. Adobe Digital Editions is not Adobe OFF. For a tech site it's facepalmworthy how much of this discussion is by people unaware of that.

It's also not just library books. It's the DRM tech and server license infrastructure behind Google Books, Kobo Books, back in the day Sony, anybody who let you download your so-called "purchased" eBook for reading in other than their specific app or hardware.

Nook uses an odd variant without the ADE server and .acsm license file, but e-ink Nook and the original Nook Color are authorizable devices to read standard ADE-downloaded DRM EPUB books. My ancient Nook Color and Kobo e-ink readers are loaded with ADE-downloaded DRM books from Google Books and other "not device-native store" books. The Nook has all my Kobo book purchase's on it by that ADE method, though due to Nook's nonstandard non-acsm version of Adobe DRM, I can't put the nook purchase's on the Kobo.

It's also how you get mixed-stores books into on combined better reader app like Bluefire or Aldiko on Android. Download your .acsm license file From Google Play, Kobo, whomever. Open it in ADE, signed in with your adobe ID and your EPUB download's, authorized to that ID. Copy that EPUB to your mobile and if Aldiko or Bluefire is registered with your adobe ID you can read it.

Nothing to do with PDF format, though PDF files can be DRM'd with the same tech. Normally on modern reflowable EPUB.

So Adobe tracking non-DRM EPUB files is a big deal, because ADE is crucial for every non-circumventer in the anything-not-Kindle eBook world.

You probably agreed to it

[wcrowe]

At first I thought, "How do they get away with this?" Then I realized, it's probably in the EULA somewhere that everyone clicks on and nobody actually reads.

I just hope that they ...

[geantvert]

... found my favorite e-book: "'Alice In Wonderlands) ; DROP TABLE Books ; --.epub"

Re:I just hope that they ...

[Anonymous Coward]

funny?

Hell that title is going into my library.

Re:I just hope that they ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like Lewis Carroll's estate might be suing Bobby Tables.

Typical Adobe product

[dysmal]

If history repeats its self, this "feature" will be buggy and need constant patching. They'll then spin it off as a cloud service where it'll cost you more to spy on yourself and yet spy less.

Not to worry, I store my eBooks in the cloud...

[QuietLagoon]

... so I know they are private and secure from prying eyes.

Re:"Inquiring minds want to know"

[Anonymous Coward]

APK, why the hell are you here? I filed a bug report against the hosts engine because it's incorrectly resolving google.com to goat.se. Can you please fix that first?

DRM vs. Pirating

[briancox2]

Supporting DRM is morally worse than supporting pirating. At least with supporting pirating, no one gets hurt.

Re:DRM vs. Pirating

[cbhacking]

Aside from all the people who invested their money and effort into authoring, editing, typesetting/formatting, publishing, distributing, and promoting that content which you oh-so-morally just take for free? Just because the incremental cost to run off another copy is close to zero doesn't mean there isn't a very real unit cost. Do the terms "up-front costs", "return on investment", "opportunity cost", "overhead", or "profit margin" mean anything to you?

By your argument, it's just fine and harmless and moral to sneak into a car dealership and take your pick, as long as you leave a wad of cash in the value of the car's bill of materials. After all, the manufacturer already had the assembly lines set up to build it, and the blueprints, and they've performed all the testing and certification already, and you didn't even take the time of any of the salespeople. What possible justification do they have to charge you more than the cost of the steel and rubber and glass and so on?

What the hell is wrong with people that makes them feel entitled to take the fruits of another's labor without compensating them for that labor?

Re:DRM vs. Pirating

[Anonymous Coward]

"What the hell is wrong with people that makes them feel entitled to take the fruits of another's labor without compensating them for that labor?"

The fact that the "starving" artists and "creatives" stole public domain you twat. Artists are the original theives here, most people are naively moral and aren't aware of the massive monopoly/corruption/fraud that is copyright/patents. Corporations and profiteers have been a corrupt monopolistic criminal dynasty in the law.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act#mediaviewer/File:Copyright_term.svg

Re:DRM vs. Pirating

[Anonymous Coward]

"What the hell is wrong with people that makes them feel entitled to take the fruits of another's labor without compensating them for that labor?"

If they spent more time creating fruit (Content) worth consuming than the time putting the poison into it (DRM), I'd agree with you.

Myself, I just avoid poisonous fruit entirely, so don't feel ripped off on my account.

Re:DRM vs. Pirating

[Anonymous Coward]

Aside from all the people who invested their money and effort into authoring, editing, typesetting/formatting, publishing, distributing, and promoting that content which you oh-so-morally just take for free?

Yeah, can't really sympathize. I check out library e-books for free because my tax dollars go to pay for the library. I also download e-book versions of books I physically own and I don't think that's unethical (it just saves me the trouble of toting the book with me, or scanning it into the reader).

Just because the incremental cost to run off another copy is close to zero doesn't mean there isn't a very real unit cost. Do the terms "up-front costs", "return on investment", "opportunity cost", "overhead", or "profit margin" mean anything to you?

I'm sure the publishers have those words in mind when they charge $15 for an e-book that costs $0.15 to distribute online and long ago made up for its costs in its paper printing...

Re:DRM vs. Pirating

[brit74]

Yup, just like counterfeiting money. Show me one person harmed by my creation of counterfeit money. You CAN'T! Therefore I'm right! [/sarcasm]

Re:DRM vs. Pirating

[Anonymous Coward]

Third option - obtain content from DRM-free sources without resorting to piracy. Easy for eBooks (there's quite a few sites selling quality DRM-free eBooks), easy for music (ditto), rather difficult for movies and TV shows.

Re:DRM vs. Pirating

[Anonymous Coward]

Morally worse is not the inverse of morally right. You sir are arguing against a strawman.

What the hell is wrong with people that makes them feel entitled to take the fruits of another's labor without compensating them for that labor?

The fact that they want to get paid for every copy, rather than for the effort invested in creation. What makes Hollywood so entitled to getting profit margin several times the cost? Fuck them and their artificial scarcity. I'm fine with creators getting paid, but don't try to equate that to their inadequate business model. Either adapt, or someone else will.

Re: DRM vs. Pirating

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry for not shedding a single fucking tear but...

The day that I don't have to pay 10 dollars for the worlds shittiest hot dog followed by watching 40 mins of ads at the theater will I ever give a fuck...It doesn't stop there, this kind of shit is everywhere.

Time for some crapflooding.

[AnotherBlackHat]

If Digital Editions, or any other program, is sending meta-data about the contents of hard drives, then they deserve to what they get.

I picture a small program that creates millions of pseudo-random file names ending with .epub, .pdf, or whatever else D.E. is scanning for.
I'd certainly be willing to dedicate a few gig to the task, I'm sure there are several thousand others who feel the same.

Re:Time for some crapflooding.

[tbuddy]

If they aren't encrypting they probably aren't set up on whatever is reading these for SQL injection or all sorts of other fun. Could be hilarious actually.

Re:Time for some crapflooding.

[Em Adespoton]

Yeah; I think everyone needs a copy of "'Alice In Wonderlands) ; DROP TABLE Books ; --.epub" as mentioned by geantvert earlier in this thread. There's a few other titles that are equally entertaining that are must-reads.

Re:Time for some crapflooding.

[AnotherBlackHat]

Injection attacks or other unsanitized data.
Material that you (or Disney) hold the copyright to.
Anything illegal to export/import (nuclear secrets, cryptography)
Sensitive personal information of important people.
Any information Homeland has forbidden you from discussing.
Even just the simple volume of the material could be a problem. (Of course the list of my ebooks is 24 terabytes, why how big is yours?)

The list of things they can get into trouble just having a copy of is almost endless.

Re:Time for some crapflooding.

[jones_supa]

If Digital Editions, or any other program, is sending meta-data about the contents of hard drives, then they deserve to what they get.

I picture a small program that creates millions of pseudo-random file names ending with .epub, .pdf, or whatever else D.E. is scanning for.
I'd certainly be willing to dedicate a few gig to the task, I'm sure there are several thousand others who feel the same.

They won't care about your bogus files. Just stop using Digital Editions and send them a proper feedback in which you calmly tell them how you feel they are violating your privacy.

Re:Time for some crapflooding.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. Because that'll work and they'll listen. They care about our hurt feelings.

Re:Time for some crapflooding.

[jones_supa]

It's not the hurt feelings but a lost customer.

Online Armor

[pigsycyberbully]

Microsoft does this with USB storage devices. Adobe would be breaking European law but it would require somebody to take legal action against them. Couldn't the novice what ever that really means use a simple firewall like "Emsisoft Online Armor" to block the IP address outbound and inbound simply by dropping the IP address into the block folder.

I just hope that they ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Bobby, we've talked about this...

There is a bright side...

[Rick Zeman]

...if Adobe had used encryption no one would have known that the hard drives were being scraped of epub data.

That's not DRM

[mknewman]

That's spyware.

Re:That's not DRM

[DoofusOfDeath]

I wonder if one could argue that the person who installed the computer did not understand the EULA, and therefore no contract was formed.

At that point, Adobe could sue the user for copyright infringement, and the user could request criminal prosecution of Adobe for computer hacking.

Re:That's not DRM

[gregoriodesign]

You're right man. Shame on them.

Re:That's not DRM

[brit74]

Yup, but lots of Slashdotters love to get any angry about DRM and that's pageviews, baby!

Why would anyone want Wi-Fi in an ebook reader?

[rotenberry]

Anyone who has an ebook reader with Wi-Fi is asking for trouble.

It will be a sad day for me when my Sony PRS-300 reader fails to start. This reader has no Wi-Fi.

What is that I hear you say? Turn off the Wi-Fi on the reader? Please, how naive do you think I am?

"The only controls available to those on board were two push-buttons on the center post of the cabin -- one labeled on and one labeled off. The on button simply started a flight from Mars. The off button connected to nothing. It was installed at the insistence of the Martian mental-health experts, who said that human beings were always happier with machinery they thought they could turn off."

- Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan

Re:Why would anyone want Wi-Fi in an ebook reader?

[hackertourist]

Digital Editions is the PC app you use to download ebook files from the internet, and then upload them to your non-Wifi ebook reader.

Re:Why would anyone want Wi-Fi in an ebook reader?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would anyone want an ebook reader?

There, fixed that subject line for you.

Re:Why would anyone want Wi-Fi in an ebook reader?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know what Amazon is currently doing, but my Kindle could browse Amazon's store and download new eBooks. I always kept Wi-Fi off, but I can easily see how that would be useful. It would also be easier to wirelessly transfer files to the eReader than carry around another cable.

Re:Why would anyone want Wi-Fi in an ebook reader?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not difficult to disassemble sony readers and physically disable the wifi antenna.

Re:Why would anyone want Wi-Fi in an ebook reader?

[Anonymous Coward]

To read books without lugging heaps of paper?

Re:Why would anyone want Wi-Fi in an ebook reader?

[askins94612]

You could deny all outbound (and inbound if need be) connections by software like this - which isn't that difficult to do. For extra security, there are plenty of programs out there that you can setup to periodically delete specific files on your system. (I personally use Autohotkey...) However, any ebook junky knows that Calibre is the de facto reader of choice. The first thing I do when I dl any book from Amazon is immediately load it up into Calibre and strip the DRM out of it followed by converting it into an epub to be stored on my cloud on Mega...

Re:Why would anyone want Wi-Fi in an ebook reader?

[RandomAdam]

How do I know that the WiFi is turned off on my ebook reader? (Kobo Aura HD) Simple battery life, more then doubles when the WiFi is off, thus it is always turned off. All files come through the USB cable and my collection is managed by Calibre on my Linux laptop.

Re:Why would anyone want Wi-Fi in an ebook reader?

[Famak1994]

Log in to your router and check which devices are connected... Sheesh! I thought this was a site for nerds and not your average Joes?

Re:Not to worry, I store my eBooks in my butt...

[Anonymous Coward]

Cloudtobutt strikes again!

plenty of alternatives to adobe

[volvox_voxel]

..Like Okular on Linux, etc. I'm not fond of any program contacting the mother-ship without my permission..

When I was in college, I remember being nervous about checking out books in the library. The librarian assured me that your lending habits are not part of the public record. At the time, I was working in a physical chemistry research lab, and the books in question were locked up in the cage out of a concern for explosives and public safety.

Re:plenty of alternatives to adobe

[grnbrg]

Yes, of course your lending habits are kept private, and legally protected. You can relax.

The access logs of the security cage, on the other hand.....

Re:plenty of alternatives to adobe

[Anonymous Coward]

You are really ignorant of the subject here.
This is not about a PDF reader; it's about the standard software for reading DRMed ebooks and putting them on your e-reader.

Re:plenty of alternatives to adobe

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you use DRMed e-books? Plenty of DRM-free e-books exists and on those limited by DRM, it can be removed easily in most cases.

Re:plenty of alternatives to adobe

[david_thornley]

After the Patriot Act, the American Library Association pushed policies where libraries would not keep any information about the patron who checked out a book once the book was returned, so that they could not tell the FBI whether person A had checked out book B under any coercion. The ALA is doing a better job of patriotism than the three-letter agencies, that's sure.

Re:"Inquiring minds want to know"

[Anonymous Coward]

Barb, that's no answer to a question on why you did a "Run, Forrest: RUN!!!" in the link noted barb.

Congratulations to Adobe

[CptJeanLuc]

Congratulations to Adobe, as I would congratulate a fellow human being (since the supreme court ruling that corporations are people), for truly living the hardcore capitalist version of the American Dream. Doing whatever you can legally or illegally get away with to make more money, and not giving a [your favourite naughty word for excrement goes here] about anyone you walk over in the process.

It is the spyware part which bothers me the most. It is like having a plummer come to fix your toilet, you step out of the house for a few minutes, only to find when you come back that he is going through all your stuff - in order perhaps to understand you better as a person so that he can service you better in the future - or figure out if you are rich so he can charge you more. Or perhaps sell a list of your inventory to someone, for whatever purpose which is no longer the plummer's concern once he gets payment.

I should probably be upset about this whole Adobe thing, but after watching John Oliver's Last Week Tonight show from yesterday about how the police in the US can cease assets and bring cases against physical objects such as money or houses on a guilty until proven innocent basis, and proudly spend the money on whatever they want including machines for making frozen margueritas in the office - I just give up. How can you expect companies to do the right thing when the whole system is rotten to the core.

Re:'Inquiring minds want to know'

[taustin]

I think you have mistaken me for someone of your own species, living in your own world. I'd tell you to smoke less dope, but I suspect the real problem is not enough drugs, rather than too much.

In any event, dude, have fun.

Re:You probably agreed to it-- it's too long

[BoRegardless]

Tried to read a EULA online the other day. Before I was half way through, it timed me out and dropped me off the web page.

In other words, they DON'T want you to READ THE DAMN THING, and if you try to read it, they don't want you as a customer.

Re:Not to worry, I store my eBooks in my butt...

[cbhacking]

I was going to say, this is one of the best examples of how Cloud2Butt can make a statement so much more true...

Fortunately, it is plain-text

[rduke15]

If it were encrypted, we would never have known. Adobe could have said it's just a "license check" or whatever. So I wonder if we should actually mandate all "phone home in the background" communication to be plain text.

Re:Not to worry, I store my eBooks in my butt...

[QuietLagoon]

It may make it more true, but it would not be as funny as I had intended it to be. :)

Stallman is right...

[Stephan Schulz]

Even if he can be hard to handle, this is one of his core arguments. If you don't control your computer, your computer controls you. With proprietary software, you are basically handing control of your computer over to the software company. You can hope that are both honest and competent. Keep those fingers crossed...

Re:Stallman is right...

[jones_supa]

With proprietary software, you are basically handing control of your computer over to the software company.

Yes, commercial software is based on trust. We have now found out that Adobe does not respect our privacy and we can simply stop using their products. The system still works.

Re:Stallman is right...

[Stephan Schulz]

Yes, commercial software is based on trust. We have now found out that Adobe does not respect our privacy and we can simply stop using their products. The system still works.

Maybe you forgot a smiley here? We run this risk every time we install and run a proprietary program - how often do you need your nude pictures, private medical records and credit card information leaked all over the internet?

Re:Stallman is right...

[jones_supa]

It's not any different with open programs, as no one has the time to read the source code anyway. It always boils down to trust towards the vendor.

Re:Stallman is right...

[Stephan Schulz]

It's not any different with open programs, as no one has the time to read the source code anyway. It always boils down to trust towards the vendor.

That's wrong. Not everyone has that time, but someone usually does have - and for popular programs, many people do take the time. That does not make the system completely fool-proof, but it does make hidden backdoors a lot less of a concern. If neither of two approaches is perfect, it does not mean that one is not vastly superior to the other. Take antibiotics and witchcraft as treatments for pneumonia....

Re:Stallman is right...

[jones_supa]

That's wrong. Not everyone has that time, but someone usually does have - and for popular programs, many people do take the time.

I doubt that. A lot of programs these days are tens or hundreds of thousands of lines of code. It takes months to go through that and familiarize oneself with the codebase. It's a feasible act only for the original developers.

Can we Eff with the data?

[AdamnSelene]

Since this idiocy is in plain text, anyone want to collaborate on a sniffer that will replace the names of books with "Eff you, Adobe! Shame on you for Spying on your Customers!"? And of course that will kill switch it as soon as the bastards move to encrypt it...

Reading location

[iamacat]

Want to read the same book on your tablet and your phone? Think about how Kindle or other reading location sync is implemented. With free epubs one can developed somewhat more privacy-friendly algorithms. If publishers want a (somewhat reasonable) assurance that a given purchase is not being read on 500 devices at the same time, this is much harder task. I would say that this is likely part incompetence part technical necessity rather than malicious intent. They certainly shouldn't be sending data as plain text over plain HTTP.

Re:Reading location

[david_thornley]

The reader scanned all the books it could find, regardless of source or activity, and reported back to Adobe. That is not incompetence or technical necessity. It is malicious intent.

Re:Reading location

[iamacat]

Ever worked in a big company? It's always incompetence. Anything deemed the slightest bit controversial is avoided like fire. They just couldn't think of a way to solve whatever problem they were thinking of more elegantly, or forsee that anyone would analyze how their app works.

Denied

[Anonymous Coward]

And this is why I deny all outbound connections by software like this.

Project much, douche?

[Anonymous Coward]

He wasn't talking to you stupid! Then again, that's why you answered like you did: You're probably yet another BarbHudson sockpuppet like these we already know that transtecticular freak has http://slashdot.org/~BarbaraHu... = http://slashdot.org/~tomhudson... + http://slashdot.org/~Barbara%2...

How'd "eating your words" taste?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here http://news.slashdot.org/comme... ? Flavored w/ your foot in your mouth to "ram 'em down" + washed down w/ "the bitter taste of SELF-defeat" too, perhaps?

R O T F L M A O!

Of course, now, the "TrAnStEsTiCuLaR-MoNsTrOsiTy" Tom (BarbaraHudson, the resident 'confused' on who/what he/she is, evidenced also by multiple sockpuppet accounts on slashdot for cheating moderation http://slashdot.org/~BarbaraHu... = http://slashdot.org/~tomhudson... = http://slashdot.org/~Barbara%2... ) will "Run, Forrest: RUN!!!" from questions in the 1st link above as always!

Hooray!

[gcobb]

This is exactly the behaviour we need to allow us to request the Library of Congress to create an exception to allow us to break Adobe's DRM so we don't have to use the Digital Editions spyware to read our legitimately purchased books. In the UK we can make a similar request to the Secretary of State.

How'd "eating your words" taste, BarbaraHudson?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here http://news.slashdot.org/comme... ? Flavored w/ your foot in your mouth to "ram 'em down" + washed down w/ "the bitter taste of SELF-defeat" too, perhaps?

R O T F L M A O!

Of course, now, the "TrAnStEsTiCuLaR-MoNsTrOsiTy" Tom (BarbaraHudson, the resident 'confused' on who/what he/she is, evidenced also by multiple sockpuppet accounts on slashdot for cheating moderation http://slashdot.org/~BarbaraHu... = http://slashdot.org/~tomhudson... = http://slashdot.org/~Barbara%2... ) will "Run, Forrest: RUN!!!" from questions in the 1st link above as always!

Adobe Digital Editions forum, strangely silent

[Anonymous Coward]

https://forums.adobe.com/community/content_server

Never attribute to malice...

[Anonymous Coward]

...what can be adequately explained by stupidity.

They've been investigating this over at Go To Hellman:

Correcting Misinformation on the Adobe Privacy Gusher