Was Kindle's DRM Hacked?

from the reverse-hacking dept

Fri, Dec 14th 2007 9:53am — Timothy Lee

Engadget is reporting that someone has "hacked" the Kindle. But that's a little misleading: it doesn't mean someone has figured out how to crack the copy-protection on Kindle-formatted e-books. Rather, someone has figured out how to convert protected books in MobiPocket format (which Amazon owns) to the closely-related Kindle format. That means that if you've purchased protected Mobipocket books, you now have the option to play them on your Kindle. That's good news, but it's not exactly a major crack in the Kindle's DRM scheme. It's more reminiscent of Real's Harmony software, which allowed Real's DRMed music to be played on iPods. Still, it's only a matter of time before someone figures out how to crack Kindle's DRM wide open. My guess is that so far no one has bothered because there aren't enough Kindles around for anyone to care.

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Filed Under: drm, e-books, hacked, kindle

15 Comments

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Damien, 14 Dec 2007 @ 10:19am

Why aren't they ALREADY compatible?
Ok, so Amazon owns the MobiPocket digital book format and produces the Kindle. Why exactly aren't they compatible already? That would seem like a no-brainer.
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Thought Cancer, 14 Dec 2007 @ 10:33am

The Kindle Would Be More Useful If
The Kindle would become infinitely more useful if Amazon provided software to convert other file formats to Kindle (kind of like how Sony's "mp3" players would take your tracks and convert them to the fairly useless ATRAC format).

For example, I have a respectable collection of books in PDF, CHM, and TXT format that I would LOVE to take with me in a Kindle. But there's no real easy way to convert books in other formats to Kindle, and even less so if I wanted to batch convert thousands of books (as I do).

If only the Kindle were able to handle other book formats, it's sales would skyrocket. I'm not the only person with a large digital book collection, and I'm not about to rebuy my library.
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- John Duncan Yoyo, 14 Dec 2007 @ 10:54am
  
  Re: The Kindle Would Be More Useful If
  I believe you can get files converted by Amazon by emailing the file to them and they either email back for free or send via wireless at a small charge.
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  - Amalthia, 14 Dec 2007 @ 3:07pm
    
    Re: Re: The Kindle Would Be More Useful If
    Actually it's not free, it costs 10 cents per file.
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    - Phuoc Le, 8 Feb 2008 @ 2:17pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: The Kindle Would Be More Useful If
      Actually, do your research before you speak.
      
      It is free if you don't want to have it delivered wirelessly.
      
      Just email it to yourname@free.kindle.com instead and the conversion will be EMAILED back to you. Then you load it on your Kindle via USB.
      
      The 10 cents fee is only if you wanted the converted document delivered wirelessly. There is a charge from Sprint for that after all so they need to recoup it.
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- Mike, 31 Dec 2007 @ 1:52am
  
  Re: The Kindle Would Be More Useful If
  Very recently I came across one website which provide ebook conversion service along with kindle ebook conversion at very affordable rates, mostly for the PDF ebook which consists of tables and images which are quite tough to convert them to ebook format such as mobipocket, kindle or MS reader, but I have found that the above ebook conversion company converts these type of ebooks in more profession and efficient way at very reasonable rate.
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David Mould, 14 Dec 2007 @ 4:51pm

The future should be Mobipocket
Despite Kindle's good points it's current weaknesses don't make up for it's strengths. Too US centric today. iRex's iLiad supports the Mobipocket format and with their recent deal with Dymocks in Australia the device can use the onboard WiFi connection to download the eBook content there in the store.
That model is certainly more flexible than relying on EV-DO services.
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Alfred E. Neuman, 14 Dec 2007 @ 5:23pm

kindling
Hmmm, looks like it might burn.
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DeveloperZero, 16 Dec 2007 @ 12:05am

Kindle conversion
There are, in fact, two ways to convert files. When you register your kindle, you are given to e-mail addresses; the first one converts the file, then sends it back to you, the second one converts the file, and sends it to your kindle. The former is free, and the latter costs 10cents each.

The kindle is compatible with about half a dozen file formats (including .txt and .pdf), but they have to be sent to one of the above mentioned addresses and converted first. However, it is NOT compatible with any form of DRM file except the proprietary kindle format (which is just Mobipocket with an extra digit added to the encryption key).

Note: All the above information is secondhand knowledge gained from reading the Mobilread.com Forums, the best place to go to find anything related to eBooks.
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jtmonrow, 22 May 2008 @ 12:26pm

Kindle DRM
But has anyone enabled the sharing of Kindle DRM format book files?
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Jack, 8 Jul 2008 @ 11:46pm

Now the generation begins for ebook, a very easy way to drag out the information you want any time, the way you want, and feed it in our brain. Ebook reading is one of them, we can convert any files format to kindle with a high resolution quality...so our thanks to www.itglobalsolution.com and www.kindleconversion.com for their research on ebook.
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Al, 3 Oct 2008 @ 3:21pm

Kindle Crack
Actually, using the Python scrips, I took a kindle DRM encoded book I own, and stripped the DRM off and converted to perfectly readable HTML, which using Mobipocket creator, I then converted to a non-encrypted kindle book
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Webrecsol Optimizer, 14 Mar 2009 @ 12:39am

it is a kindle DRM encoded book I own, and stripped the DRM off and converted to perfectly readable HTML, which using Mobipocket creator, then i converted to a non-encrypted kindle book
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Web SEO, 14 Mar 2009 @ 12:42am

actually Kindle's DRM is very use full software and kindle data base is html base so it is not good
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Not Kindle, 22 Sep 2009 @ 2:03pm

Amazon.com going after webpage owners
I just heard that amazon.com's legal team is going after any website that offers to convert books, etc. over to the kindle format. That is a one really good marketing plan on their part. Limit the number of companies that can convert books to Kindle format and thereby limit the number of kindles that will be sold.

I wonder what Harvard Business Graduate/Genius thought of that one?

BTW: I wonder how all the people named "Kindle" (and there are many) feel about their name being used like that?
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