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Adobe Spies On Users' eBook Libraries

Posted by Soulskill on from the digital-edition-is-the-worst-software dept.

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.

4 of 150 comments (clear)

  1. DRM vs. Pirating by briancox2 · · Score: 3, Interesting

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

    --
    We should learn what we need to know about issues, before we decide what we need to feel about them.
  2. Time for some crapflooding. by AnotherBlackHat · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Time for some crapflooding. by tbuddy · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.

  3. Re:Outrage burnout by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.