DRM and tablet/phone only books

[Nightyume]

Okay. I know speaking of DRM and its removal is limited here so don't worry, my questions will not requests specifics.

I have some device only books and by device I don't mean ereader devices. Some books, like comics, can only be read on tablets and phones (not even the desktop). I also know there is a way to de-DRM kepubs (which I haven't quite explored/figured out how to use yet).

Now here's my question: Does anyone know if this method works with these books? Are they also kepubs? I have a comic and some picture books (with audio) on my tablet and, as I use these occasionally for work it would be nice to have backups so as not to lose my small investment (I would never have bought some of them if it wasn't for work).

Well, any help to be had would be appreciated. I don't think I violated any DRM talk rules but if so just tell me and I will modify my post.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Nightyume

Now here's my question: Does anyone know if this method works with these books? Are they also kepubs? I have a comic and some picture books (with audio) on my tablet and, as I use these occasionally for work it would be nice to have backups so as not to lose my small investment (I would never have bought some of them if it wasn't for work).

The easiest way to tell if they are .kepubs is to open the file with an archiver (7Zip is my personal favourite at this time). If the file structure looks like the image I've attached (possibly with more subdirectories such as audio and video), it matches the epub/kepub file structure.

Regards,
David

[eschwartz]

The easiest way to figure out if it is a .kepub is to look at the file extension, which should be .kepub. Obviously, you will have to apply a fix to Windows so you can actually see what type of files you have, since Windows is by default an idiot.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/w...ame-extensions

Besides, it could prove quite difficult to open a DRM'ed file with an arcive program, since the encryption kind of ... welll ... ENCRYPTS the contents!!

The DRM tool shouldn't care about what's in the .kepub and so long as it's designed to decrypt .kepub, it will do so for ALL .kepubs including these.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Besides, it could prove quite difficult to open a DRM'ed file with an arcive program, since the encryption kind of ... welll ... ENCRYPTS the contents!!

The DRM tool shouldn't care about what's in the .kepub and so long as it's designed to decrypt .kepub, it will do so for ALL .kepubs including these.

Kobo's .kepub.epub files are simply renamed .zip files (exactly the same as a .epub file). You can open the file with your favourite unarchiver and look at the contents. The encryption is applied at the level of the files inside the archive and not on the archive itself.

Regards,
David

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Kobo's .kepub.epub files are simply renamed .zip files (exactly the same as a .epub file). You can open the file with your favourite unarchiver and look at the contents. The encryption is applied at the level of the files inside the archive and not on the archive itself.

Regards,
David

I don't remember being able to do that with any of my ADE books. I could be wrong, though, because I mostly use Kindle, and all my ADE books are DeDrm'ed in calibre and I don't actually have ADE or the encrypted books on my hard drive.

Still, looking at the file extension should be easier anyway. But of course Windows makes that difficult, I forgot.

Go linux!

[TechniSol]

Geez, Schwartz...

To hear you talk it sounds like you have Dresden-like problems dealing with PCs yourself... Open the explorer, pull down the rightmost menu(IIRC), click preferences or somesuch, scroll down and unselect the "hide known file extensions" or such like... You only have to do it once. Good luck.

[eschwartz]

I know exactly how to do it. On XP it is easy, but should never have had to be done in the first place. On Win7 they hide that setting under the control panel but I still knew how to do it, and am well used to applying that particular setting.

I prefer linux because by default things make sense, and you don't have to do stupid configuration options that should've been the default to begin with.

And things run faster of course.

I am not clueless when faced with Windows, I simply despise it and make as many snarky bordering on offensive comments as I think I can get away with.

In the friendliest possible way, of course, since it's not the fault of the computer owner, after all.

Microsoft just likes to make people work.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

I don't remember being able to do that with any of my ADE books. I could be wrong, though, because I mostly use Kindle, and all my ADE books are DeDrm'ed in calibre and I don't actually have ADE or the encrypted books on my hard drive.

Still, looking at the file extension should be easier anyway. But of course Windows makes that difficult, I forgot.

Go linux!

I just tried a couple of library books that are Adobe's ADEPT DRM protected. 7Zip opens the archive and shows the contents. That is pretty much the behaviour you would expect from any program that is epub standard compliant.

As for Windows making it hard to see file extensions? I've never noticed that much difficulty -- show extensions for known file types, apply, apply to folders which I do once when setting up a new computer. Perhaps you were thinking about Linux systems where starting a file or directory name with a period hides it? Ahh... the joys of remembering what dotglob does. Mac OSX makes it even more fun with a hidden attribute and we mustn't forget Gnome's .hidden filelist file.

Pretty much every OS I've used since OS/8 has had it's quirks.

Another issue is that a Kobo .kepub.epub book as downloaded by the Kobo desktop application or directly to the ereader via WiFi does not have a file extension -- the file name is a hexadecimal string with no extension, sample being 5e5eee09-e4e7-45bb-b46e-1c4902fbbe43. Care to guess from that string what the book title/author is?

Regards,
David

[eschwartz]

Sorry, my experience is with my Kindle, + infrequent use of ADE. Never had a Kobo or used their software. I leapt to a conclusion -- I assumed the DRM was applied at the zip level. Now that I actully think for a second I could kick myself -- I KNOW calibre can read the metadata from DRM'ed files, which should only be possible if some part at least is readable.

On Kindle and in ADE or K4PC they don't use UUID's to name an ebook file. I thought only Apple was that stupid -- apparently I was wrong!

As far as file extensions go, I simply find it objectionable that I should have to make the change at all. And linux makes sense where .filename is hidden, it's totally different.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

On Kindle and in ADE or K4PC they don't use UUID's to name an ebook file. I thought only Apple was that stupid -- apparently I was wrong!

Can you state exactly why you find giving an ebook a unique identifier to be stupid? That way my copy of the Kobo downloaded ebook has a different identifier from anyone else's copy of the same ebook making it easy to distinguish them. The display on the ereader shows the title, series, author, file size, etc. You can search on the title, series, author. So from that point of view there is no difference between epub and kepub.epub.

Hmmm... 128 bits (16 hex octets) is 3.4x10^38 -- oddly, the same as IPV6's address space.

Regards,
David

[eschwartz]

Well, if it's on my device, it must be my copy.

It makes it a pain to deal with maintenance using the filesystem. Though it's okay for anyone who is content to allow the device itself to sync with the server and let that be the end of it.

Plus, if Apple did it, you KNOW it's not normal.

[Nightyume]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

I know exactly how to do it. On XP it is easy, but should never have had to be done in the first place. On Win7 they hide that setting under the control panel but I still knew how to do it, and am well used to applying that particular setting.

You don't have to go to the control panel to activate it. The important thing is for people to learn that if you press "Alt" in windows you normally get the hidden menus that were visible in XP. So if you're in any browser window you can press Alt, choose Tools, then Folder Options, just like in XP. No control panel necessary.

Thanks guys. So here's what I've learnt:

1) Yes, the encryption is on the file level within the kepubs.

2) on devices you don't have kepubs per se but rather the decompressed but still encrypted contents of kepubs (can't even open up the cover image file)

3) You can still get the kepubs that only work on devices. What you have to do is remove them form the device, open up a file browser and go to the kobo folder which contains the epub folder but don't open the epub folder (from what I understand this would be difficult as heck on an iOS device but easy on Android), switch back to the kobo app, redownload to the devices, then switch back to the file browser. Once back in the browser you will need to refresh if it doesn't automatically do so and you will see a .temp file with the kind of name DNSB sampled. If you keep refreshing at some point it will change from .temp to "downloaded" ("downloaded is added to the file name but is not an extension, it remains extensionless).

Now I just have to get around to seeing if I can de-DRM these on the computer so I have a backup (and am hopefully not be restricted to my tablet for a decent reading experience with these books).

[DNSB]

[QUOTE=Nightyume;2685542]1) Yes, the encryption is on the file level within the kepubs.</QUOTE]

Correct.

Originally Posted by Nightyume

2) on devices you don't have kepubs per se but rather the decompressed but still encrypted contents of kepubs (can't even open up the cover image file)

The contents of the .kepub.epub file are still compressed. Decompression is done on the fly.

Originally Posted by Nightyume

Now I just have to get around to seeing if I can de-DRM these on the computer so I have a backup (and am hopefully not be restricted to my tablet for a decent reading experience with these books).

Try a search on obok.py 2.01 ( makes a change from searching for Apprentice Alf )

Regards,
David

[Nightyume]

[QUOTE=DNSB;2685554]

Originally Posted by Nightyume

1)


The contents of the .kepub.epub file are still compressed. Decompression is done on the fly.



David

Not on the apps. First you get the extensionless file downloaded then it is decompressed and the folder ends up looking like this. And in the folders are all the files normally found in a zip/epub gile.



And yeah, I've got that bit, just need to install all zhe required programs, files, make the modifications for my computer etc. Got some basic help from another member with zhis (and i am so incredibly thankful for that) and now its up to me to figure out the rest through trial and error.