Adobe ADEPT DRM for PDF circumvented

[Leep]

Originally Posted by joblack

Ok, I just removed my registry and reactivated with the new version of ADE. Script works fine so far.

So they haven't changed the key saving scheme. Very strange - could be that some have more than one key in the registry (the key retrieval gets the first it finds).

People who have problems with this bookkey thing, inspect your registry for more than one entry like

privateLicenseKey

in the

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Adobe\Adept]

(To open the registry -> Start -> Execute -> regedit (under XP don't know if that works for Vista)).

PS: I've got another suspicion: Have the ladies/gentlemen changed their hardware in the past and had to reactivate the ADE?

My impression is that if you already had your adeptkey.der file, and had to upgrade DE, DE uses your old authorization key. So we have no problems decrypting with the new script.

It seems that people having problems are those that are running the key file for the first time after having upgraded to the latest version of DE. For some reason adeptkey.pyw does not find the key in the latest version, supporting your theory that Adobe may have moved the key to a different register within DE. Therefore, the script that needs possible modification now would be the adeptkey.pyw (or ineptkey.pyw) script, once someone can identify where the key in the new version is stored.

Does that may sense to your way of thinking?

cheers

[joblack]

Originally Posted by Leep

My impression is that if you already had your adeptkey.der file, and had to upgrade DE, DE uses your old authorization key. So we have no problems decrypting with the new script.

It seems that people having problems are those that are running the key file for the first time after having upgraded to the latest version of DE. For some reason adeptkey.pyw does not find the key in the latest version, supporting your theory that Adobe may have moved the key to a different register within DE. Therefore, the script that needs possible modification now would be the adeptkey.pyw (or ineptkey.pyw) script, once someone can identify where the key in the new version is stored.

Does that may sense to your way of thinking?

cheers

Well, I renamed my registry entry so ADE should think it is new. For complete certainty it's necessary to reinstall the newest ADE on a clean windows system. I'm not willing to do that at the moment so it still is a mystery.

The key is found (if it wouldn't find it the retrieval script would complain) - the question is if it is the key needed. I still can't repeat the error on my system so obviously I can't find the bug in it.

Btw. does somebody have the PDF Reference 5th Edition? I have only found the 6th Edition online ... if yes please publish a link or send it to me - thx.

[joblack]

Perhaps this explains:

This document accompanies the release of Digital Editions 1.7.1. This release consists essentially of the removal of one now-obsolete feature and some bug fixes. The feature that has been removed is that Digital Editions no longer supports fulfillment from Adobe Content Server 3-powered sites. Adobe Content Server 3 is now obsolete, having been replaced by Adobe Content Server 4.

As of March 30, 2009 Adobe de-activated the support in the Adobe Content Server 3 activation server such that no new instances of Acrobat or Reader could be activated. Existing instances of Acrobat and Reader that had already been activated will continue to work and can still fulfill content from any website still providing Adobe Content Server 3 content.

With this release, Digital Editions will no longer fulfill content from sites powered by Adobe Content Server 3 (though few are left at this time). Digital Editions is still able to migrate existing Adobe Content Server 3-licensed eBooks to the new Adobe Content Server 4 license format. Such migration will be supported until mid-December 2009. After that no more migrations will be possible.

http://www.adobe.com/products/digita...ease_notes.pdf

[grim_reader]

Originally Posted by itsonlypatrick

I've been having issues with PDF1.6, and using NitroPDF to re-save the unDRMed file just did the trick. Basically, I used version 3 of the scripts and the latest ADE to get the key and decrypt. Previously, when I tried opening the unDRMed files, I ended up with errors 131 or error 14. However, I opened and re-saved the file with NitroPDF, and voila! Success!

Hope this helps someone.

Thanks a lot! It sure helped me!

At last I know the solution to the problem when when Acrobat refuses to open a decrypted PDF saying:
"There was an error opening this document. There was a problem reading this document (14)."

even though ineptpdf says:
"File successfully decrypted".

Great!

[exscape]

Hi all,
I just bought a digital editions ebook, but I don't like the reader... so I started searching for a way to make it a real PDF, and ended up here. I only have version 2 of the script, so PMs would be appreciated!

Anyway, version 2 SAYS it decrypts successfully, but the output file isn't a valid PDF - OS X's Preview.app and Foxit both reject it. It's not all garbage though, looking through the raw data I can see the chapters in there, but the text is all garbage (encrypted I guess).

I tried running it through Nitro PDF... It crashed on opening the corrupt PDF. "Runtime error".

Any ideas? Help would be greatly appreciated. Kind of a waste of $25 if I can't read it!

DE 1.7.1.1085
ineptpdf/key version 3
Windows XP

Thanks in advance.

[joblack]

Originally Posted by exscape

Hi all,
I just bought a digital editions ebook, but I don't like the reader... so I started searching for a way to make it a real PDF, and ended up here. I only have version 2 of the script, so PMs would be appreciated!

Anyway, version 2 SAYS it decrypts successfully, but the output file isn't a valid PDF - OS X's Preview.app and Foxit both reject it. It's not all garbage though, looking through the raw data I can see the chapters in there, but the text is all garbage (encrypted I guess).

I tried running it through Nitro PDF... It crashed on opening the corrupt PDF. "Runtime error".

Any ideas? Help would be greatly appreciated. Kind of a waste of $25 if I can't read it!

DE 1.7.1.1085
ineptpdf/key version 3
Windows XP

Thanks in advance.

You can try the FBReader - newer versions can display ePubs very well. As for a conversion tool to pdf, I suppose there are a lot of tools to convert (not encrypted) epubs (which are basically some kind of xml format) to PDF.

You can additionally ask your question in the epub forum thread - they might be more informed about the exact circumstances ...

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by exscape

I only have version 2 of the script

Yahoo is updating its search of pastebin more frequently than Google.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by nohmi2

I was locked in mortal combat last night trying to convert a PDF to prc.

Half of the jargon is way over my head (OK so I'm dumb).

I do like the idea of being able to convert the whole file though.

Will get back into the trenches and do battle again today.

When you try to conver most PDF, think of the alternate meaning of PDF (Pretty Darn Foolish).

[shankez]

Originally Posted by Leep

My impression is that if you already had your adeptkey.der file, and had to upgrade DE, DE uses your old authorization key. So we have no problems decrypting with the new script.

It seems that people having problems are those that are running the key file for the first time after having upgraded to the latest version of DE. For some reason adeptkey.pyw does not find the key in the latest version, supporting your theory that Adobe may have moved the key to a different register within DE. Therefore, the script that needs possible modification now would be the adeptkey.pyw (or ineptkey.pyw) script, once someone can identify where the key in the new version is stored.

Does that may sense to your way of thinking?

cheers

This is my esperiment, may be it is useful:

Newly formatted computer, I have done a new complete installation of Adobe Digital Editions 1.7.1.1085; then I have re-downloaded two e-books from e-book.com (both pdf 1.5). I have authorized ADE, and downloaded them. I used the ineptkey.pyw to retreive the adeptkey.der and decripted with ineptpdf.pyw v.3 the newly downloaded file in the newly installed ADE: success! They can be read and opened in any pdf reader.

Then I tried to decrypt as well with the newly reteived key the encrypted version of the books previously downloaded with the old ADE installation: success too!

Finally I tried to decrypt a prevoiusly downloaded encrypted book from another vendor (pdf 1.4), wich isn't possible to re-download with the new ADE installtion: success too!
Note that this last ebook (pdf 1.4) was the only one I couln't decrypt with version 2 of ineptpdf.pyw, but only with version 3.

This version (3) is the one I used in all the experiment. In my experience, ineptpdf.pyw, version 3 (that can be retreived using yahoo search) seems to solve any problems..
Thank you i♥cabbages !

[exscape]

Yes! Thanks a lot for the yahoo hint (and the two PMs ), it works great now! The DE reader had much too blurry fonts for my liking, but now I can use any viewer I want. (That, and the page fit thing wasn't great on OS X - one page at a time was a bit too small, and custom made the scrollbar suck.)

Oh, and DRM sucks!

[joblack]

If the pdf is decrypted successful but when you try to open it you get a

blabla error 14 or error 131

it's probably not a decryption or key problem.

After my quick analysis i think there is still a parsing problem which occures in rare circumstances.

[joblack]

Does anybody have working encrypted pdfs where the inept script fails with 'no root object found' or similar behaviour?

If yes please PM.

[tuufbiz1]

Originally Posted by i♥cabbages

Déjà vu time! I have successfully and reproducibly circumvented Adobe's ADEPT DRM system for PDF files. A discussion of the system and the circumvention is available in a blog post I've made on the subject: Link removed

Am I understanding this correctly...... you posted a link for this adobe cracker today and it was already removed? If so, how do I get it?

[desertgrandma]

Originally Posted by tuufbiz1

Am I understanding this correctly...... you posted a link for this adobe cracker today and it was already removed? If so, how do I get it?

The date of that post was 2/25.

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by tuufbiz1

how do I get it?

The names of the scripts are ineptkey (ineptkey.pyw) and ineptpdf (ineptpdf.pyw), the INEPT is a play on ADEPT which is a bit unfair of i♥cabbages because the scheme held up for years until he/she came along. On the other hand, i♥cabbages should know, if anyone outside Adobe does, how inept the DRM really is.

As I said above: Yahoo is updating its search of pastebin more frequently than Google.