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Amazon Just Removed Encryption From the Software Powering Kindles, Smartphones, Tablets (dailydot.com)

Posted by whipslash on from the backdoor-or-no-door dept.

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.

6 of 202 comments (clear)

  1. Not the e-ink kindle! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Only the Fire OS powered Kindle, which is a full fledged tablet with the Amazon android fork. Old fashioned e-ink kindle doesn't have encryption to start with.

  2. Amazon finally went DRM free? by sims+2 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

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    Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
  3. I'd prefer no encryption by Rhaize · · Score: 5, Insightful

    to easily circumvented encryption. Seems more honest that way.

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    Within the arms of tragedy, there is little comfort in being right.
  4. How is that even legal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  5. Re: No Surprise by geekmux · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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".

  6. Re: Be One Of Us! by Darinbob · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.