Adobe's Half-Assed Response To Spying On All Your eBooks

from the that's-not-gonna-do-it dept

Yesterday, we mentioned the reports kicked off by Nate Hoffelder's research that Adobe was spying on your ebook reading efforts and (even worse) sending the details as unencrypted plaintext. Adobe took its sweet time, but finally responded late last night (obnoxiously, Adobe refused to respond directly to Hoffelder at all, despite the fact that he broke the story). Here's Adobe's mealy-mouthed response that was clearly worked over by a (poorly trained) crisis PR team:

Adobe Digital Editions allows users to view and manage eBooks and other digital publications across their preferred reading devices—whether they purchase or borrow them. All information collected from the user is collected solely for purposes such as license validation and to facilitate the implementation of different licensing models by publishers. Additionally, this information is solely collected for the eBook currently being read by the user and not for any other eBook in the user’s library or read/available in any other reader. User privacy is very important to Adobe, and all data collection in Adobe Digital Editions is in line with the end user license agreement and the Adobe Privacy Policy.

Some of the research into what's going on contradicts the claims of it only looking at books "currently being read," but even if that's true, it doesn't make the snooping any less disturbing. And while it may be true that Adobe has not violated its privacy policy (though, that's arguable), it really just highlights the stupidity of the concept of privacy policies. As we've noted in the past, the only way you get in trouble on privacy is if you violate your own privacy policy. And thus, the incentives are to write a policy that says "we collect absolutely everything, and do whatever we want with it, nyah, nyah, nyah," because that way you won't ever violate it. Since no one reads the policy anyway, and most people assume having a "policy" means protecting privacy (even if it says the opposite), privacy policies (and laws that require them) are often counterproductive. This situation appears to be a perfect example of that in action.

Either way, the response is tone deaf in the extreme. Even if it's "in line" with the privacy policy, does that make it right or acceptable? Adobe makes no effort to respond to the concerns about this snooping on reading habits -- which can be quite revealing. It makes no effort to respond to the serious problems of sending this info in plaintext, creating a massive security hole for private information.

While Adobe has told some that it is working on an update to "address" the issue of transmitting the data in plaintext, it's a bit late in the process to be recognizing that's an issue. The Ars Technica article notes that this may, in fact, violate New Jersey's Reader Privacy Act. EFF wonders about the similar California Reader Privacy Act and whether or not Adobe's efforts here completely undermine that law.

Since Adobe's Digital Editions are commonly used by libraries (my local library uses it, which I've used to take out ebooks), it really raises some serious questions for those libraries. Librarians have a history of strongly standing up for the protection of reader privacy. In fact, for all the talk we've had recently about Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act and how the NSA abuses it, when it was first passed, the people who protested the loudest were the librarians, who feared that it would be used to collect records on what books people were reading! Some people even referred to it as the "library records" provision (even though it was eventually twisted into much more).

And yet, here we are, a decade or so later, and Adobe has completely undermined this kind of trust and privacy which libraries pride themselves on. And, even worse, it's all in the name of some crappy DRM that publishers demand. Librarians and readers should be up in arms over this, and looking for alternatives. Adobe should stop with the bullshit crisis PR response and admit that they screwed up and that the product needs to change to better protect the privacy of individuals and their reading habits.

Filed Under: copyright, digital reader, drm, ebooks, encryption, libraries, privacy, snooping
Companies: adobe

Is Adobe's Ebook Reader Spying On What You Read -- And What You Have On Your Computer?

from the and-sending-your-data-in-cleartext-too? dept

Ebooks have many advantages, but as Techdirt has reported in the past, there are dangers too, particularly in a world of devices routinely connected to the Net. Back in 2010, we wrote about how Amazon was remotely uploading information about the user notes and highlights you took on your Kindle. More recently, we reported on how a school was using electronic versions of textbooks to spy on students as they read them. Against that background, you would have thought by now that companies would be sensitive to these kinds of issues. But if Nate Hoffelder is right, there's a big privacy problem with Adobe's Digital Editions 4, its free ebook reading app. Here's what Hoffelder writes on his blog, The Digital Reader:

Adobe is tracking users in the app and uploading the data to their servers. (Adobe was contacted in advance of publication, but declined to respond.)

Specifically:

Adobe is gathering data on the ebooks that have been opened, which pages were read, and in what order. All of this data, including the title, publisher, and other metadata for the book is being sent to Adobe’s server in clear text.

Yes, not only is the app spying on you, but it is sending personal information unencrypted over the Net. And it seems that this is not just about the ebook you are currently reading:

Adobe isn't just tracking what users are doing in DE4; this app was also scanning my computer, gathering the metadata from all of the ebooks sitting on my hard disk, and uploading that data to Adobe’s servers.

These are all serious accusations, and completely unacceptable if confirmed. At the very least, an independent investigation by Ars Technica has now confirmed all of the important details, though Adobe has still stayed silent. However, this also highlights why many people prefer to use pirated editions without DRM, which can be read on any suitable software: not because they're free, but because they're better products in just about every way -- for example, in respecting your privacy.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Filed Under: digital editions, ebooks, spying, spyware
Companies: adobe

Big Silicon Valley Firms Aren't Going To Get Off That Easily For Their Anti-Poaching Agreements

from the open-up-that-wallet dept

A few months ago, we reported on how Google, Apple, Adobe and Intel had agreed to settle a lawsuit concerning their collusive hiring practices, in which those companies (and a few others that had already settled) agreed not to "poach" employees from each other. As we had noted, these anti-poaching agreements (led by Steve Jobs who pushed them on many other companies) are a really hideous practice that is not only bad for the employees of those companies, but bad for innovation in general. As we've detailed, allowing the easy movement of employees between innovative tech companies is a huge part of why Silicon Valley became Silicon Valley. Employees shifting jobs between these companies often helps with greater idea sharing, different perspectives and speeds up innovation and (especially) big breakthroughs. It's almost an informal "open sourcing" of certain information, in which employees who are job hopping act as conduits of important information moving between companies in an informal manner.

That's why it's a very good thing that the practice is being called out and shamed -- and hopefully episodes like this can be put in the past. In our comments on the original settlement, however, many people pointed out that the $324 million actually seemed a little "light" given the number of employees involved. It would appear that Judge Lucy Koh agrees, and has rejected the settlement agreement as being too low, saying that the companies should try again with a higher number, starting at a minimum of $380 million.

The ruling also includes more details of how these agreements got started, showing Steve Jobs basically bullying lots of other CEOs -- and demonstrating just how scared everyone was of Jobs. They all seemed to fear going against him and having him declare "war" on them and going after their employees. Either way, it looks like the companies are going to have to cough up more money -- and hopefully this (again) means that this kind of anti-poaching practice is ended. Hopefully, these companies stop thinking just about how employees leaving hurt themselves, but about how they too can benefit from inbound employees.

In fact, there's a new book by Reid Hoffman, Ben Casnocha and Chris Yeh, called The Alliance, which, among other things, recommends that companies get much better about learning (1) how to let employees leave when it's in those employees' best interests and (2) how to keep a strong "alumni" network, recognizing that can benefit them in the long run. Hopefully the ideas like that, as well as all of the evidence on the importance of job shifting for enabling innovation, will mean these kinds of practices go away. I'm sure a bigger payout due to the lawsuit won't hurt either.

Filed Under: anti-poaching, collusion, innovation, job shifting, non-competes, poaching, settlement, steve jobs
Companies: adobe, apple, google, intel

Destructive DRM Strikes Again: Creative Professionals Blocked From Using Adobe Products For Days

from the defective-by-design dept

Last week, if you were a creative professional who relied on Adobe's products, you may have discovered that you were totally screwed over by Adobe's DRM, which made it impossible for lots of people to use the apps they were paying for. Considering how many designers rely on Adobe apps, this basically shut down an awful lot of creative work late last week. MacUser (the link above) has pretty comprehensive coverage of how far reaching the problems were. It initially appeared to be that Adobe's Creative Cloud offering was down, but the impact went much further, blocking even people who had installed desktop apps. This was true even though Adobe insisted that the DRM in those apps only needed to check in with a server once a month.

The biggest problems, though, were faced by users who couldn’t launch apps. Along with many others, Stefan Goodchild wondered: “Can @Adobe explain why all my Creative Cloud apps are all disabled when their login system has an outage? What about when I’m on a deadline?”

Their confusion was understandable: Adobe had categorically assured users and journalists, when replacing Creative Suite with Creative Cloud in May 2013, that apps only needed to check in with the server every 30 days, telling MacUser in a written reply that products would continue to work for 99 days in the absence of a server connection.

The @AdobeCare account seemed to have been given the same information, telling user Robert Lewis at 18:13 on Thursday: “Your apps should launch without checking w/ server.” But Lewis was far from being alone in finding this simply wasn’t the case. “Since I can’t sign in, it won’t let me use my photoshop right now,” complained photographer Linda Watson Nkosi, among many similar tweets.

The MacUser article also noted that Adobe avoided providing workarounds (even as there were a few), insisting that there was nothing that could be done. This was either out of ignorance, or standard corporate fear of revealing basic workarounds to dodgy DRM. Adobe eventually (after more than 24 hours) got things working again and posted a rather weak apology.

Of course, this kind of mishap was exactly what many people feared would happen when Adobe ditched basic software licenses to go with a forced "cloud" setup, whose main benefit (to Adobe) was that it acted as DRM.

This all took place just a few weeks after the official day against DRM and Mozilla's decision to accept DRM in Firefox. Many people still don't seem to realize just how destructive and dangerous DRM can be, but perhaps last week's events will get a few more folks in the design community to recognize the serious problem.

Filed Under: cloud, creative cloud, designers, drm, online service, reliability
Companies: adobe

Big Tech Companies Agree To Pay Up Over Hiring Collusion

from the as-they-should dept

Last month, we pointed out that Google, Apple, Adobe and Intel would almost certainly settle, rather than face an ongoing lawsuit concerning their collusive hiring practices, in which they promised not to poach employees from one another in an effort to keep employees longer and (more importantly for them) to keep salaries down. That has now come to pass, with the four companies agreeing to pay out $324 million to settle the charges. This is good. As we noted in our original story, the hiring collusion was shameful and, worse, antithetical to the kind of job shifting and idea sharing that helped make Silicon Valley into Silicon Valley.

For many years, I've given a series of talks (often to foreign executives and government officials) about why Silicon Valley turned into Silicon Valley. Everyone assumes it's the obvious stuff about lots of venture capital or access to good colleges. And so they try to mimic that, back where they came from. But as you dig down into the Silicon Valley story, you quickly realize that, while those things helped, the true secret sauce is the easy job mobility here, with people constantly shifting jobs -- and sharing ideas across many different companies. What comes out of that is more innovation and the important big breakthroughs that have made this entire industry possible. A few top execs, led by Steve Jobs, tried to throw sand in those wheels, stupidly believing that it was more important to protect poaching of their own employees, ignoring how that also limited their own ability to cross-fertilize ideas and bring in top performers from other companies.

The history of Silicon Valley is littered with stories of job hopping, employment diasporas and the like. Look at how many successful companies that were formed in the past decade have some connection to PayPal, for example. Easy job mobility is a key factor in Silicon Valley to allow innovation to happen, and hopefully this ugly incident puts the issue behind the tech industry, and they can go back to actually innovating.

Filed Under: collusion, hiring, poaching, tech companies
Companies: adobe, apple, google, intel

Apple, Google, Adobe And Intel Have To Face The Music Over Collusive Hiring Practices

from the good dept

It's been nearly five years since we wrote about a DOJ investigation into collusive activity between a number of technology giants, in which the companies basically agreed not to poach employees from one another in an effort to keep salaries and employee turnover down. As the details have come out over the years, they've looked worse and worse, with Steve Jobs acting as sort of a ring leader -- or really more of a mob boss -- threatening retaliation (via patent infringement lawsuits) against companies that didn't obey the "rules." It's one thing to want to be careful about hiring practices to avoid angering a partner, but it's quite another to set up an official agreed-upon policy between a bunch of companies not to go after certain employees.

While some companies have already settled (and a few others likely involved in the agreements have so far escaped lawsuits), Apple, Google, Adobe and Intel have been trying to get a class action lawsuit built off of the DOJ's efforts thrown out. That effort failed on Friday, meaning that it's likely that these four remaining companies will try to work out a settlement, rather than go through a full trial.

As we've discussed for years, part of what actually made Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is the ease with which employees could switch jobs, often between competitors. Multiple studies have made it clear that greater job switching within an innovative industry is actually much better for that entire industry. With job shifting comes important cross-fertilization of ideas, allowing the bigger breakthroughs to happen faster, opening up new opportunities. Without that kind of job shifting, knowledge gets stuffed into silos, and overall innovation gets held back and stymied. In fact, if you look at the success of basically all four of the companies in this lawsuit, you can point to evidence of how the easy shifting of jobs was a key part of important breakthroughs that created tremendous opportunities and innovations (hell, two of the three members of Intel's founding team were once part of the traitorous eight, who left Shockley Semiconductor to form Fairchild Semiconductor -- only to go on to form Intel, AMD and a bunch of others). Job hopping, poaching employees and the like often get a bad reputation, but the research is pretty clear that it was a key factor (according to some, the key factor) in allowing Silicon Valley to become a hub of innovation.

Hopefully, the end result of the DOJ efforts and these class action lawsuits is to maintain an innovation economy where job hopping and information sharing is empowered, rather than hindered.

Filed Under: anti-poaching agreements, collusion, hiring, innovation, silicon valley, steve jobs, technology
Companies: adobe, apple, google, intel

Adobe Releases New DRM For eBooks, Plans To Screw Over Anyone Using Old DRM

from the futile-thrashing-about dept

In the grand lexicon of digital economies, DRM is quickly becoming, ironically, a four-letter word. Each attempt at locking down products in this manner is one more lesson in the futility of the entire effort, with legitimate customers becoming annoyed, while cracks are provided in a matter of days. One wonders why anyone in charge of any company would continue sinking money into an enterprise that has such dismal results, but c'est la vie. Adobe is a company that's perhaps not the most storied in this arena of DRM attempts, but it has its history of failures as well.

But give Adobe credit, I guess, as it hasn't let the failures of the past keep it from taking another turn at the DRM plate. Late last month came word that Adobe was releasing a new flavor of its eBook DRM for the EPUB format, leading to applause from nobody and a general questioning of why the company was attempting to force its customers to leap into the waiting arms of the competition.

Yes, there’s a new type of DRM out there, and yes we will eventually see ebook readers and apps that support it. But for the near future the devices and apps that do not support the new DRM (and frankly, never will support the new DRM) will far out number the newer gadgetry that does. And that means that the vast body of existing ereaders and apps is going to drive the market. eBookstores will want to sell to the largest number of potential customers, so they will continue to offer the older DRM. They already know that they’re losing customers to Amazon, Apple, and B&N, all of which have a proprietary DRM schema, so they’ll do their best to avoid losing what few customers they can get.

In other words, this DRM is likely to have an adoption rate that would make Little Orphan Annie cry. That this is coming so late in the game, with the previous DRM version having been cracked long ago, and the eBook marketplace booming, makes this author wonder what the hell anyone at Adobe is thinking. With futility proven and necessity rebuked, this appears to be little more than an effort to put roadblocks in front of potential customers. Way to go.

Meanwhile, of course, the DRM scheme is already annoying legitimate customers.

There are several reports on Twitter this morning that a bug in the latest version of Adobe DE is wreaking havoc, with several users reporting that they have ebooks which could be downloaded to Adobe DE but not transferred over to an ebook reader (like the Nook, Aura, or PRS-T3). This has also been confirmed by a couple other users. According to Micah Bowers, CEO of Bluefire Reader, the bug is only affecting a small fraction of newly downloaded ebooks and it is blocking users from transferring their purchased ebooks to their ebook readers. That’s not what one user reported on Twitter:

"I had a bunch of books on my laptop & yesterday ADE wouldn’t let me access them. I purchased them 7 years ago. So NOT happy." — Rebecca (@RebeLovesBooks) January 27, 2014

So, just to put a nice little bow on all of this, Adobe is releasing a new version of its DRM which was previously cracked, with the new DRM sure to be cracked, and which has little practical value beyond annoying eBook customers and driving sales for the competition. If one were writing a script of why DRM is a silly idea, one couldn't write it up better than Adobe has.

As if that weren't enough, Adobe has managed to ensure this new DRM attempt will remind customers that, when it comes to DRM, the curse always gets worse.

The tl;dr version is that Adobe is going to start pushing for ebook vendors to provide support for the new DRM in March, and when July rolls Adobe is going to force the ebook vendors to stop supporting the older DRM. (Hadrien Gardeur, Paul Durrant, and Martyn Daniels concur on this interpretation.). This means that any app or device which still uses the older Adobe DRM will be cut off. Luckily for many users, that penalty probably will not affect readers who use Kobo or Google reading apps or devices; to the best of my knowledge neither uses the Adobe DRM internally. And of course Kindle and Apple customers won’t even notice, thanks to those companies’ wise decision to use their own DRM.

But everyone else just got screwed.

So, needlessly annoy new customers while doing zero to battle "pirates" while simultaneously spitting in the faces of the legitimate customers who have spent the past few years buying eBooks? Nicely done, team!

Filed Under: copyright, drm, ebooks, epub
Companies: adobe

Little Evidence Of 'Infringement Risk' For 'Copyright Intensive' Companies

from the more-smoke-and-mirrors dept

For decades now, we keep hearing various "copyright intensive" companies whining to the press and politicians about how the "biggest threat" they face is continued copyright infringement. We hear about how it's undermining not just their business, but entire economic sectors, the basis of capitalism and the fundamental rule of law. Copyright infringement, we are told, is one of the largest risks to the economy and society that you could possibly imagine. We've long questioned the validity of those claims, especially since history has shown that the industry cries wolf fairly frequently and has always been wrong. Most famously, of course, the MPAA's Jack Valenti told Congress that "the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone." That was in 1982. In 1986, the home video market -- which the VCR created -- made more money for the MPAA's studios than the box office did. It's tough to believe the "threat" claims when they're always wrong.

But, the "copyright intensive" industries just keep on making those claims, and there's always some in the press and among elected officials who either don't know or don't care about the past (or technology or reality) and automatically believe those claims. They just assume that of course copyright infringement must be a huge threat because these companies say so.

A new study, however, found a pretty good way to evaluate the reality of that threat. Jonathan Band and Jonathan Gerafi realized that a good "independent" third party to evaluate the risk and threat of copyright infringement would be investment analysts. Their only stake in the game is whether or not the company is going to do well or poorly. If the perceived risk and threat was real, they'd certainly be letting everyone know. So, Band and Gerafi have produced a new research report studying equity research reports issued over the last quarter for eight of the top companies in the so-called "copyright intensive industries."

The choice of companies is interesting, because all eight are among those that regularly scream the loudest about the "threats" of infringement: Sony (owner of Sony Music and Sony Pictures), Vivendi (owner of Universal Music), Disney, Viacom (who also owns Paramount), Microsoft, Adobe, Pearson and Reed Elsevier. If you're keeping track, that's basically three of the largest movie studios, two of the largest music labels, two of the largest software companies and two of the largest publishers. If copyright infringement was really this existential threat they've all been screaming about, certainly it would show up in the equity analysts' reports, right?

Well, let's take a look at the findings:

• None of the 14 reports for Reed Elsevier and 18 reports for Pearson identified copyright infringement as a risk factor.
• Only 13% of the 15 reports for Sony and 22% of the 23 reports for Vivendi mentioned copyright infringement as a potential risk.
• Just 8% of the 26 reports for Viacom and 27% of the 26 reports for Disney referred to copyright infringement as a risk factor.
• 26% of the 19 reports concerning Adobe and 41% of the 27 reports concerning Microsoft identified copyright infringement as a risk factor.
• Cumulatively, only 19% (32) of the 168 reports referred to copyright infringement as a possible risk; 81% did not.

And, in case you were wondering, the reports that didn't list copyright infringement as a risk (i.e., nearly all of them) did list out a variety of other factors. It wasn't just a case where they weren't covering risks at all. They carefully looked at the market, and didn't seem to think infringement was a real risk at all.

And, it's important to note that since these are all public companies, the execs at those companies often spend a lot of time "educating" the analysts about the state of their business. In fact, in the annual reports for six of the eight companies listed, the companies themselves do list infringement as a major risk. It just looks like the analysts looked at the detail and simply didn't see any legitimate threat in most of the cases.

Filed Under: copyright, copyright intensive industries, equity analysts, infringement, jonathan band, jonathan gerafi, risk
Companies: adobe, disney, elsevier, microsoft, paramount, pearson, reed elsevier, sony, sony music, sony pictures, universal music, viacom, vivendi

Adobe's New Subscription Service Goes Live And Is Cracked In Less Than 24 Hours

from the DRM-less-effective-than-leading-deodorant-brands dept

Adobe's products are widely acknowledged to be some of the most pirated software in the world. Not that Adobe has done much to prevent this sort of behavior. True, it has (with the BSA's aid and blessing) "raided" infringing companies and extracted license fees. But it's done nothing at all to make its software more appealing to prospective purchasers. The prices are still astronomical (even more so in many foreign countries) and its steadfast adherence to planned obsolescence means those paying the exorbitant asking price may find themselves with incompatible software a few years down the road.

In an effort to combat piracy and lower the admission fee, Adobe has launched a subscription-only platform called Creative Cloud which gives subscribers access to Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign, Dreamweaver and Fireworks for $30-50/month.

In what will come as a surprise to roughly no one, Creative Cloud has already been cracked.

Adobe latest product, the subscription based suite Creative Cloud is cracked and available on torrent sites one day after its release. The torrent is posted on torrent sites such as the Piratebay and is nearly 1.4 GB big. It was posted by an apparently Chinese user. Comments on the torrent report that the software can be installed and works.

Adobe claims the software will work for 99 days without an internet verification (although the Cloud phones home once a month) before becoming inoperable. It also requires an internet connection during install, but blocking Adobe's access post-install and applying the crack seems to do the trick.

You have to wonder how much was invested in building a DRM scheme that managed to hold out for almost 24 hours. You also have to wonder if this result, combined with any issues the phone-home system may cause for paying users down the road, have had any effect on Adobe's future DRM plans. If this crack works, it's like having no DRM at all, which would definitely be a cheaper route to take during development. Any hopes that a dip in piracy would result in a corresponding sales bump have effectively been scuttled.

At this point, pushing forward with DRM would take the company toward SimCity-esque levels of customer antipathy. Server side-only saves, anyone? Grayed-out menu selections and tools that only work when the software is in touch with headquarters? Accepting the inevitable would save Adobe money, time and aggravation. Or maybe, deep down, Adobe doesn't care. This cracked software is building them a future customer base that will be addicted to its software because they got their first hit for free.

Filed Under: cracks, drm
Companies: adobe

DailyDirt: Fixing Photos And Fooling Folks

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Photoshop has pretty much become a generic verb for altering a digital image. It's so common to use software to fix flaws in photos that it's a bit difficult to find unaltered photos now. Well, software will come to the rescue for that, too, and it'll help people determine which images have been touched-up. Here are just a few examples of some cool photo-enhancing tools.

• Adobe presented a photo fixing feature that can almost magically un-blur digital images. That video could use some "enhance" capabilities for itself. [url]
• Xerox labs has created software that can predict whether or not a photography will be aesthetically pleasing. Beauty is still in the eye of the beholder, but now there's an algorithm to help predict it. [url]
• Virtual fashion models are about to replace human models in advertising. H&M has already started using completely computer-generated lingerie/swimsuit models on its website. Some people are complaining about being tricked by the fake people, but fake people aren't going away anytime soon. [url]
• Maybe you can fool some of the people some of the time, but there's software that will point out photoshopped images. "It seems the scientific community is very aggressive about beautifying its images." [url]
• To discover more interesting photography-related content, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: blur, digital images, lingerie, photoshop, swimsuit
Companies: adobe, h&m, xerox