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Amazon Just Removed Encryption From the Software Powering Kindles, Smartphones, Tablets (dailydot.com)
Patrick O'Neill writes: While Apple continues to resist a court order requiring it to help the FBI access a terrorist's phone, another major tech company took a strange and unexpected step away from encryption. Amazon has removed device encryption from the operating system that powers its Kindle e-reader, Fire Phone, Fire Tablet, and Fire TV devices. The change, which took effect in Fire OS 5, affects millions of users.
Thats awesome!.....Darn that's not what TFA said at all.
So the rich people get to keep their encryption (DRM) and the rest of us get screwed again.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
to easily circumvented encryption. Seems more honest that way.
Within the arms of tragedy, there is little comfort in being right.
That's like a car company disabling half the cylinders in your engine after you buy the car.
Reducing the functionality of a purchased product post-purchase is sleazy and probably should be considered illegal on some level.
I buy their books on occasion, but I won't be buying any of their hardware.
But clearly the pressure is on. The FBI and other investigative and intelligence agencies worldwide want to make you safer by making your data more vulnerable.
This is what happens when you let idiots and sociopaths into positions of power.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I've been looking through TFA and related material, but I'm still trying to figure out what this actually means in practice. What data, on an e-book reader, is usefully encrypted anyway? This is a genuine question, as I don't have any sort of Kindle. Perhaps there is integration with payment services or personal accounts of some kind? If so, does this mean anyone who installs this "upgrade" and then has their device stolen would have some significant credentials compromised?
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
It doesn't just affect the sheeple, it sets a precedant. Now the three-letter agencies can say "look Apple, Amazon got rid of encryption and they're doing fine!"
Perhaps that might work for the average idiot, but someone with half a brain can easily argue that you could remove the locks from your front door and then turn a blind eye to anything bad that might happen. "Look, that citizen got rid of their locks, and they're doing just fine!"
Not for long applies to both idiotic "solutions".
or not.
Amazon wasn't exactly making inroads into the consumer market anyway.
now a stolen device will destroy your life they are worth less than nothing.
Actually, this is a good point. So if you have an Amazon phone (all four of you), you may well want to start shopping for a new one - probably today. No idea who would put sensitive info on their Kindle, though...
Now the fun question is, do they still have DRM/encryption on all their eBooks? I'm betting the answer to that is probably 'yes'.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Actually, Trump has spent his own money - about $250K of it. Much more, however, he has "loaned" his campaign. Eventually, if/when he's the nominee and raises funds from other people, his campaign will pay him back with interest. Thus, Trump will profit off of running for President even if he doesn't win. (That, and the whole "free publicity" thing which he loves.)
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
When we talk about personal data, we mean the union of private personally identifiable information (name, address, phone number, SSN) and information that users create. A credit card number is neither.
You do enter your name when you buy something with a card, but that's the least private piece of PII, and is likely to be present on any device you own anyway, making that not personal data in any meaningful sense except when combined with other private data, such as browsing habits.
A credit card number is a disposable identifier. It identifies your account, not you, and is valid only until the card number is canceled due to theft or whatever. And your liability in the event of theft is zero. This makes CCN theft a problem for CC companies and vendors, but not really a concern for you as the user.
With that said, I do disagree with the original poster for different reasons. There is a definite privacy impact here. People's reading choices can be very personal, and there is enough PII to at least potentially identify the owner (name plus the location where the device was found/stolen). When you combine that with someone's penchant for reading stories about [insert regionally taboo topic here] and their copy of the Anarchist Cookbook, you suddenly know more than any third party rightfully should know about someone even without having what most people would think of as "personal data".
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Of course they have DRM still. They just made a decision that protecting the publisher's data is more important than protecting the customer's data.
Let me fix that for you...
> They just made a decision that protecting the customer's data is more important than protecting consumer's data.