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Old Kindles Will Be Disconnected Unless You Update By Tuesday (cnet.com)
An anonymous reader writes: If you have a Kindle device, you must update it before March 22 or else it's going to lose internet connectivity. Losing access to the internet means that you won't be able to use Kindle Store to purchase books, and your device won't be able to sync with the cloud. From a CNET article, "According to Amazon, the update is required to ensure the Kindle remains compliant with continuously evolving industry web standards." These are the devices that need to be updated: Kindle 1st Generation (2007), Kindle 2nd Generation (2009), Kindle DX 2nd Generation (2009), Kindle Keyboard 3rd Generation (2010), Kindle 4th Generation (2011), Kindle 5th Generation (2012), Kindle Touch 4th Generation (2011), and Kindle Paperwhite 5th Generation (2012). If you own a Kindle Paperwhite (6th or 7th Generation), or a Kindle 7th Generation, or a Kindle Voyage 7th Generation, you do not need to worry about the update. And suddenly, Amazon sending postcards to remind people about this update doesn't feel that wrong.
" you must update it before March 22 or else it's going to lose internet connectivity. "
I just care about my Calibre connectivity that I use to fill it up with some of my couple of hundred thousand pirated ebooks.
for all devices. example: disable an automobile.
Sony Playstation products are not able to access the store if they're not up to date.
Nintendo products are not able to access the store if they're not up to date.
I believe the same apply for Apple products, not sure about that one though.
And suddenly, Amazon sending postcards to remind people about this update doesn't feel that wrong.
Who exactly felt that was wrong?
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
All your books, songs, photos, etc., "safely stored on the cloud" can disappear at any time.
Does that mean no advertisements uploaded from amazon as well? And Amazon can no longer remotely kill books on my device?
Thank you for crippling amazon connectivity so I don't have to!
Yay Amazon!
Next week... Class action lawsuit against Amazon for bricking kindle devices.
How about your PC gets disconnected from internet unless you upgrade to Win10?
4wdloop
Why would they cut out internet and ability to upgrade later?
4wdloop
You are fine.
I personally think the best kindle made is my DX... why the hell Amazon doesnt make a full A4 or Letter sized Kindle paperwhite DX with current tech I'll never understand.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
This whole thing is a bit misleading. Kindles update automatically, so this is only for some older models, and only if you've left it off in a drawer somewhere for the past couple of years. If you use the Kindle regularly, this should be a non-issue.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
I think the post fails to mention: you can update the Kindle over USB after the deadline.
I've never connected my Kindle to the Internet. Too much risk of an auto update (or just some annoying nag screen) to update my firmware and override all the various hacks I've made to my Kindle. Honestly, I got a Kindle precisely to side load stuff I already own (Humble Book Bundles, among other things). That you can do stuff like play IF or whatever is a nice extra, but the real reason to hack the firmware is to get rid of the ridiculous margin, have a larger range for the fonts, and (if it worked) to support more fonts. Because Amazon seems, stupidly, incapable of recognizing that giving people LESS options when it's trivial to support hundreds of fonts is insane. Not that I want to use hundreds of fonts. But obviously if they've felt the need to change their own font, they'd have to recognize fonts are some sort of "solved" problem and perhaps different people would do better with different fonts, without having to inject it on a book-by-book basis.
Well, that ends my rant. Good for them that they'll now block the update for me. Still won't use the internet, though, since that's an asinine thing for a book reader except under very short bursts to upload/download books. But, then, I can't actually do that. :/ Got to use Amazon services.
MS can take a lesson from Amazon.
IE 6 on Windows XP is the second-most popular browser in the world, still. I say nuke that shit from orbit.
What standards? And why brick if not updated? Weird...
Anyone know what's in this update to cause Amazon to take these drastic measures. Does it contain Win10-like telemetry, for example?
AT&T will be shutting down 2G (EDGE) at the end of the year. And they (claim they) will not grandfather any device until December that didn't specifically ask to be grandfathered before the end of June.
This is affecting multiple companies. Nissan handled it rather poorly, forcing their customers to pay for a modem upgrade in their cars.
http://www.autoblog.com/2016/0...
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
The book (a real one. Made of wood products and glue) that I paid .50 for never needs to connect to the internet, never needs to get anyone else's permission to be read and never expires.
That people think paying $100 or more just to start the process of being able to read a book speaks volumes about the inanity of believing technology can solve all problems or makes one more advanced.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
It's an updated certificate store. If you don't get the new certificate(s) onto your Kindle, it won't connect to Amazon any more. You'll lose access to any books not already downloaded onto your device, and be unable to sync newly-purchased Amazon content to it over-the-air, or sync reading positions, etc.
Way to go Amazon!
You'll brick the kindles and not give any option to upgrade!
Stupid, stupid, stupid!
You might guess that the phone home website for updates & store & cloud library is going to discontinue supporting one or more of the vulnerable HTTPS modes, leaving devices without updates no way to connect.
The book (a real one. Made of wood products and glue) that I paid .50 for never needs to connect to the internet, never needs to get anyone else's permission to be read and never expires.
That people think paying $100 or more just to start the process of being able to read a book speaks volumes about the inanity of believing technology can solve all problems or makes one more advanced.
Ugh, the back lighting on those things is non-existent. The contrast is fixed, and you can't even change the font size. Bookmarking is done with a separate device, literally, a "bookmark". Searching is usually very limited and depends on your personal memory store, index (if provided), and dodgy, imperfect, manual page scanning.
Personally, I wouldn't use a Kindle either, because they are too limiting. PDF support is atrocious and I'm not too keen on having a company peering over my shoulder that is willing and able to delete e-books which I have purchased, not to mention gathering up all sorts of data.
I know you're a troll and I shouldn't feed you but....
I love books too, but I also like to read without headaches. When you get a bit older it's great to be able to adjust the font.
I love books too, but I also like purchasing books instantly without having to go to a physical store or wait for shipping.
I love books too, but I also like having the ability to take a long trip with my entire library.
I love books too, but I also like having instant dictionary lookups for new words. It really helps build the vocabulary.
My mom said basically the same thing you just did when I showed her my first kindle (2nd generation). She now has multiple ones and loves them.
The e-ink device I use cost me $79, but the books have all been free, and I've never used the wifi.
For the first time in history a traveler can carry 8,000 books in his backpack. Actually, a lot more, but that's how many I have.
Sure, there are tradeoffs (especially for non-savvy people who follow the path of least resistance), but you can't say that's not an advance.
No, you don't need to update to read a book. You need to update to maintain access to the Kindle store and automatic cloud syncing, which your real book cannot do either.
I used to be firmly in your camp, "Why would I not just have a physical book? Look at all these drawbacks with the ereaders..." Well, now I'm the other way because there are some major upsides. For a reference document, a physical copy kicks ass, but for pleasure reading? I'll take my Kindle every time. For starters, I can load up a variety of books on a device which is smaller (in volume) and weighs less than your real book. Month long trip and I have all the reading material I want in a handy small package. Yeah, I'll have to charge it a few times a month under heavy use. (Oh NOES! It's not like I have a cell phone charger with me anyway where I just plug the thing once during the day.) I get a handy built in backlight which means I can read with uniform and adjustable brightness in bed and not bother my spouse with either a lamp or bulky attached light. I can select and load a variety of formats, and I can use easily available conversion software to change formats if needed. If I want to look up a word's definition, I just press it and up pops a dictionary. or I can check a Wikipedia page on the subject if I want.
Plus, I have too many books as it is. They take up space and seriously add to the weight of a move. Outside books for my niece, I think I've bought physical travel guides in the last 3-4 years and that's it on the dead tree front.
So your telling me if i wait one more day I can finally have Amazon's claws out of my device?
Sounds like a feature to me.
Why does amazon care so particularly in this case that they make it manadatory.
My speculation goes in several possible directions.
1. Customer protection. If there's a security threat with regard to hijacking my internet connect and perhaps stealing my amazon credentials
2. Publisher protection. Perhaps there's some way to share books because older DRM is cracked and they can't move to new DRM if there any legacy device OS they need to serve.
3. Amazon protection. Perhaps they want to foreclose people from using the devices in unintended ways. Say as readers for sideloaded apps or PDFs they didn't get a chance to screen for copyright infringment.
4. Altruism. Making everyones device truly better and more interoperable will benefit the community as a whole.
Is there some other rationale here for such a strict requirement? Admittedly if there is a security hole that would lead to credential stealing, even though it's the customer's responsibility, few would see it that way if they get robbed. It would be reasonable for amazon to force the issue for th customer and for amazon's benefit. So I'm sort of hoping the reason is #1. But I'md suspecting it's #2 and #3 combined. Those cheapo amazon kindles are mighty tempting for use as IOT control panels if only there was a rock solid way to crack them open and keep them cracked while still allowing system updates. If they are loss leaders, amazon might not appreciate their non intended use, and they might even be scared of customers losing their passwords to evil apps on rooted machines. Given amazon'e customer freindly purchase protections they could have a lot at stake.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
While newer kindles are getting a newly formated home screen the ancient ones are getting just a single change to
(/opt/usr/java/lib/security/cacerts).
So evidently there must be a stolen cert out there that the machine trusts.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Unless you're like a grandma who's only electronic device besides a TV is her Kindle that she was gifted.
Damn, where are my mod points when I need them!
A couple of years ago we gifted our aging parents with Kindles and they love them!
And yes, the only other technology they own is their TV. No computers, no smartphones, no WiFi.
So what should they do? Find someplace in the sticks with free WiFi and figure out how to connect? Go and side load off a public library computer?
Great options for an 83 yro newbie who doesn't drive.
So I guess Amazon's REAL solution for people like them to access their paid for content will be for us to buy them new Kindles! and BTW, the trade in value for the older models is $0.
Guess we know how Bezos is paying for his space toys.
Average Intelligence is a Scary Thing
Yeah. They are called reading glasses. And I need a new prescription every few years. Either that or longer arms.
Have gnu, will travel.
Where are you living exactly? A Swedish prison?
24x7 controlled humidity, cheap acid-free paperbacks as far as the eye can see, with no authoritarian oversight. We should all be so lucky.
We got ourselves a nice Kobo, which is ideal for travel, but never signed up for the business model. Free content, paid content with no DRM, and whatever we can borrow from the library (which also puts the authoritarian jackboots to their ink-and-paper offerings after the same three weeks).
No, they can't make you return your paper copies. But they can make you wish you had, unlike your Swedish jailers. (In hardened cases, the Librarian has time travel at his disposal to set up a group "ook" seance. That'll surely set your teeth on edge in any timeline if your book is a decade or more overdue.)
It's not exactly bricking the device - it just won't connect to Amazon anymore, and it can be updated via USB at any time to restore that functionality. Anything you've already downloaded would still be available for reading as always. An AC below claims it's a certificate store update, which makes a lot of sense to me, especially how SHA-1 is being depreciated everywhere. That would explain the talk about new "standards."
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Sometimes having the books on Kindle (or in storage) is good. For example, when I was fixing a generator, and the starter decides to just stop working. Pull out smartphone, pull up manual, find a fuse that popped, replace it, good to go. I wouldn't be carrying a physical generator service manual everywhere I go, so being able to tap on a phone, find the part and pull it, was quite nice.
Regular books have their place as well. Best thing is to buy both.
Actually, I use mine constantly, but the problem is that it doesn't seem to auto-update very nicely. I followed the steps and left it to update and - while it rebooted once and did *something* - it never got to the final update.
I finally got tired of waiting for it to come OTA and just downloaded the update on a PC and pushed it through via USB. For some people though, that may be beyond their skills.
"Old Kindles Will Be Disconnected Unless You Update By Tuesday"
No. This is NOT TRUE.
From TFA:
"If you do miss the deadline, you'll need to manually download and install the required update."
So if you don't do the update, it will continue to be just fine (particularly if you're using calibre - and if you're not, WHY NOT?).
OTOH, you can update, and make sure that Amazon has the freshest ability to dump shit ads onto your kindle and pester you to buy crap. Hey, maybe it'll even enable them to apply some sort of new DRM to those books you all purchased legally, I'm sure?
Yeah, no. NOT doing the update will do nothing except force you to manually update next time.
As someone elsewhere observed, not updating may even break their ability to stream you new ad content, so there's that.
-Styopa
All this means is I won't be able to buy from Amazon unless I connect to a wifi hotspot.
Who frigging cares?
Your microwave is supported still. Amazed at that? Really, unless it needs an update to the reading software to support a new format, what the hell is there to support with it? If it were not able to use standard wifi, behave as a USB mass storage device, there might be some need to support it.
So I'm as impressed by it as I am that my DVD player is still supported...
The book (a real one. Made of wood products and glue) that I paid .50 for never needs to connect to the internet, never needs to get anyone else's permission to be read and never expires.
That people think paying $100 or more just to start the process of being able to read a book speaks volumes about the inanity of believing technology can solve all problems or makes one more advanced.
Well the actual use case is dozens to hundreds of books.
At that point the initial investment of the kindle is comparable to the cost of shelving or a duffel bag to carry them in. And many ebooks (particularly public domain works) are free, while new releases often are slightly cheeper than new print copies.
I gave away my Chrome casters for this reason happy using them for a disabled person after an update nothing worked like it did.
And will return anything that I cant find out first if updates are auto especially windows, What I learned is Linux is not bad at all what was all the bitchng I read about all about must be paid actors or something KDE is fucing great.
While Apple is fighting the FBI in court over encryption, Amazon quietly disabled the option to use encryption to protect data on its Android-powered devices.
The tech giant has recently deprecated support for device encryption on the latest version of Fire OS, Amazon’s custom Android operating system, which powers its tablets and phones. In the past, privacy-minded users could protect data stored inside their devices, such as their emails, by scrambling it with a password, which made it unreadable in case the device got lost or stolen. With this change, users who had encryption on in their Fire devices are left with two bad choices: either decline to install the update, leaving their devices with outdated software, or give up and keep their data unencrypted.
You're not going to convince the haters. My wife is the target market for Kindle. She reads at least a book a week. Usually more. These days, she usually does it on the iPad app, because that's a much more pleasant experience when you're inside - but we both have our Kindles for beach reading. And I've spent ridiculous sums of money on airfare, hotels, etc. What's a one-time charge of $50 to be able to have books downloadable anywhere with 3G service?
now they force everyone to install magic "industry standard" update, hmmm
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
So ... exactly what am I going to lose?
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"