'Old' man non-techie libertarian expat's challenges getting his first ereader

[hermes]

Before I review the e-reader itself...

I have not read any reviews that rate the privacy and international use aspects of e-readers. For me, the first is useful, the second a requirement that I can't compromise much on as my work and hobbies take me all over the developing world.

PRIVATE? Rather than submit to censorship I prefer to have my gear set up so the varying laws around the world are irrelevent. I read a lot of controversial books while travelling the third world. I don't want border guards in Yemen snooping in my collection and discovering that I have Salaman Rushdie's 'The Satanic Verses' (fatwa frenzy), Canada discovering cartoons from Denmark (believe it or not satirical cartoons are considered 'hate literature'!), Australia prudes discovering I have Bill Henson jpgs (simple child nudes as 'child porn'), USA goons discovering I have books on how to grow opium, etc, or whatever the flavour of the month of political correctness is in Democratic Republic of Congo or UK. These are all just fictional examples of more eyebrow-raising examples of textual and visual material, and as much as I'd like to say, 'who cares?' unfortunately some people and organizations with very big guns, a lot of money and religious 'idealism' don't necessarily agree that I should be able to carry any images and words that in themselves are harmless.

The only way I know to avoid this is to have no connections to my real name or debit/credit cards linked to me for hardware or books themselves, and/or perhaps some sort of encryption or simple file/folder chicanery. James Bond is not my style, but neither is prison.

The problem with at least the 'anonymous' gift cards I have picked up is that US sellers (and perhaps others?) refuse to send an order unless it is registered, i.e. linked to a name and an address. I suppose I could be John Doe at 1234 Main Street in Anytown, Iowa. But this means one has to behave like a criminal and make sure no actual postal deliveries are charged on the actual card (since presumably all this info is retained somewhere). And frankly, I just resent having to do this in the first place. I didn't have to in 1975, why should I do so now? And don't online sellers have ways of determining, maybe even automatically that the ISP of an orderer who lists his address in Antarctica is currently in Colombia?

The very least I expect from an e-reader is the ownership of the device cannot be linked to me and my choice of books likewise is private - which is why I actually prefer traditional books. If one buys and stores Czech art photographer editions or atheist tomes discreetly perhaps one can avoid busybodies with batons asking 'are you a child-molestin' satanist?' No one is the wiser if purchased in cash at bookstores with no cameras. This is my biggest challenge with e-books - how to avoid Big Brother in my reading habits. I prefer to be safe than sorry.

Actually, 99% of my books are so tame no public library would feel embarrassed to have them on display. But not every country has same the attitudes. Malaysia doesn't. France doesn't. Heck, who does anymore? Did they ever?

Others will talk all about identity theft, and yeah, that's another factor. Sony wants me to register and buy stuff from a site where Playstation lost a few million people's credit card info - no thank you! But I make no bones about it - my objection is political and practical, I'm not concerned about commercial thieves as I am of state ones. I just don't trust governments, and it seems that corporations are awfully cozy with Patriot (hah!) Act entities of the John Wayne order. I actually trust national governments more than big business because at least they sort of obey their own laws, whereas the biggest companies are much more socially conservative in their policies than law requires.

The Americans SAY they have freedom of reading but I just don't believe that 5 or 10 years down the road all our personal data won't be used against us, wherever we live. it's not that Pakistani or Irish governments might not want to do the same, but its the sheer power and cowboy/puritan attitude of the US that has me concerned.

This preamble to my review of my first e-reader is as much about staying out of corporate and state databases as the device's library value. I picked up an e-reader, paid cash and no one asked me to identify myself contrary to reading that the trend in the west is to ask all sorts of personal (marketing purposes?) information when one purchases electronics. I didn't buy the extra guarantees and doo-dads. I just wanted to get started, confidentially and portably.

Turns out Sony only sells to USA and Canada. Well I spend more time in China and Ethiopia than either of those places. Does this mean I have to buy prepaid gift cards?

In short, what are the logistics and strategies of remaining an invisible rootless cosmopolitan in the modern world of digital reading? Other than not posting inane rants like this of course. And is it even worth all the effort?

Next - does the damn thing work?

[tvg]

Hi,

while it might be a little paranoid (but who knows for sure..) i love your way of thinking.
This crossed my mind when loading up my iphone/ipad. I thought: what should i do entering country XXX (being from the netherlands). Something completely Legal and Normal here might get me into trouble.
Only thing i could think of is making a small personal website here which costs almost nothing to "keep alive" and then download content from there.

the same could be done with a carefully constructed gmail account.
pleas keep us/me posted about solutions you come up with

Tom

[Giggleton]

Our data is our data, but it is just that, data. I read all sorts of things and I would be the first to tell anyone and everyone what I have read. There are two sides to every coin of course.

If someone tells me, "you aren't allowed to do that", I simply say yes I am.

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by hermes

Does this mean I have to buy prepaid gift cards?

Honestly, given your privacy concerns, I'd think you'd want to use the prepaid gift cards anyway. Provided you live in or regularly visit an enabling country, you can buy them for cash over-the-counter without having to leave any address info.

Certainly you can do it for the Chapters Indigo (a bookstore chain in Canada) gift cards which you can use to pay for your purchases in the Kobo e-bookstore (owned by same said bookstore chain in Canada). They're available over-the-counter with no address info required, and you can go back to "refill" them with another cash payment and thus not dump another credit-card-sized piece of anonymous plastic into the landfill.

And the Kobo bookstore no longer requires you to have a valid credit card on file for purchases as long as you cover the payment via other methods (store credit, gift card) and you can make up anything you like for the billing address provided the postal code is an existing one (and not some random alphanumerical jumble) as long as the country IP matches.

I believe you can do much the same sort of thing with electronic gift certificates/Amazon purchases (you will have to have a Kindle app registered, not necessarily your actual Kindle) and you'd need to break and strip the DRM on the books as they came in (of varying legality in varying locales) unless you lucked out and bought the rare DRM-free books, which are usually available openly via other outlets anyway.

Anyway, as for Sony, you don't have to buy your books through their store if you have concerns about their security. Their e-readers support any standard ADE-DRM store (such as the Kobo store) and of course you can load up DRM-free books from any source.

The Sony readers mostly have no wireless access, so fewer concerns about "phoning home", and you can always use the Kobos without using the wireless (sync or sideload via desktop app alone), and there are many other readers which are similar in this respect.

Amazon does require you to turn on the wireless to register the Kindle and make use of the more useful features, such as collections management. Which can be a problem when people live in areas without reception, but there's an entire thread devoted to workarounds in the Kindle subforum.

Hope this helps, and welcome to MobileRead!

[pidgeon92]

If I suffered from a deep-seated paranoia, I'd avoid the internet.

[Asawi]

Originally Posted by hermes

Turns out Sony only sells to USA and Canada. Well I spend more time in China and Ethiopia than either of those places. Does this mean I have to buy prepaid gift cards?

As long as you have regostered a US address with Sony they don't care where you are when doing the purchase. I'm having no problem whatsoever here in Sweden.

[Ken Maltby]

I think you would be surprised how many "socially conservative, cowboy, John Wayne"
types actually share your distrust of governmental efforts to impose their own contrived
standards as a basis for police action. Particularly in the case of governments/administrations that feel their cause/agenda should be allowed to override
basic civil liberties. Those of us with more Libertarian views, should have been most at
home with the liberals, (given their rhetoric) but it is obviously not the case in the real
world.

As to your dilemma, most ereaders come with removable media, SD or Mini-SD cards as
a rule. But the reality of world travel is that you must be prepared to meet the prevailing
conditions, as they exist in the counties you visit. I wouldn't advise traveling from Texas
to California, with a basket of grapefruit. You could probably slip a mini-SD card with a
copy of "Democracy in America" by Alexis de Tocqueville past the California border guards
easier than a couple of Texas Ruby Reds.

Luck;
Ken

[witeowl]

Originally Posted by pidgeon92

If I suffered from a deep-seated paranoia, I'd avoid the internet.

Easy to point at paranoia, but the OP actually does have a point with what he listed (The Satanic Verses, et al), and one might have some surprises with trying to bring any scientology literature into Germany, for another example (they're very sensitive to anything that feels cultish, for obvious reasons). The point is that we take our freedoms very much for granted, and many of those freedoms do not exist world-wide.

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by Ken Maltby

Those of us with more Libertarian views, should have been most at
home with the liberals, (given their rhetoric) but it is obviously not the case in the real
world.

Which type are you thinking fits well with liberals?

[silasgreenback]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

Which type are you thinking fits well with liberals?

I've voted Libertarian through several elections, but truthfully, I fall under "Bizarrely Hypocritical".

Socially Libertarian, very much yes. Economically, I don't want Wall Street to have any more of a claim to my life and corpse than they're already allowed.

[hermes]

"Only thing i could think of is making a small personal website here which costs almost nothing to "keep alive" and then download content from there."

At first I thought you meant at mobileread, but perhaps by 'here' you mean whichever western country I begin my late in life nomadic exploration from? Thank you for your suggestion. Perhaps your idea is workable.

>the same could be done with a carefully constructed gmail account.
pleas keep us/me posted about solutions you come up with.

Will do.

[hermes]

ATD wrote: "..use the prepaid gift cards anyway. Provided you live in or regularly visit an enabling country, you can buy them for cash over-the-counter without having to leave any address info."

May I ask you or other forum members if anyone has actually done this habitually? Anyone care to give real world examples?

ATD wrote: "Certainly you can do it for the Chapters Indigo (a bookstore chain in Canada) gift cards which you can use to pay for your purchases in the Kobo e-bookstore (owned by same said bookstore chain in Canada).

Ah, very good. I expect I will eventually have several e-readers, and Kobo might be one of them.

> They're available over-the-counter with no address info required, and you can go back to "refill" them with another cash payment and thus not dump another credit-card-sized piece of anonymous plastic into the landfill.

I see. The fact is in my case I am unlikely to ever be coming back to the first world west, except maybe an occassional visit to Singapore or South Africa. There is always the old fashioned method of a very small item being posted by a friend of course.

>And the Kobo bookstore no longer requires you to have a valid credit card on file for purchases as long as you cover the payment via other methods (store credit, gift card) and you can make up anything you like for the billing address provided the postal code is an existing one (and not some random alphanumerical jumble)

I think a lot of this must be not some nefarious plan but simply gathering information for marketing and other not-so-nasty (but still questionable in my view) practices. The trend here in Canada is to ask for name, postal code and sometimes even telephone when making purchases. It's as if soon I will be asked to show some sort of secure ID to get in a taxicab! Take purchasing event tickets. I was paying by prepaid debit card (don't recall if it had been registered at credit union's website) and was told that I *had* to provide my phone number even though paying in person. This was to call me in case of cancellation. I replied that I would call the same day to assure that was not the case. After a bit of polite disputing the order went ahead. Another time two orders at Amazon were declined because the card had not been registered. Another time an event booker refused to book my ticket unless I gave telephone number and address and the card was declined as I had not registered it. Her reason she said was 'we have to know who is in our building.' While I recognize that the world has changed since 9/11 it seems an extreme overreaction and excuse to control financial transactions as well.

One of the challenges with the prepaid cards I have experience with is that the limits are not high - $500. I expect that companies like Kobo etc are even lower. And one has to tie up one's funds at no interest. plus, they are insecure. They are as good as cash.

>as long as the country IP matches.

A friend in Thailand has a *huge* problem doing mail order using his US bank account cards. Apparently in nations that have a story of credit card fraud (and Bangkok used to be such a centre of crime) it is almost impossible for him to use his US cards. I suppose one could disguise one's ISP with various anonymizing software. Ugh, more technical hurdles...

>I believe you can do much the same sort of thing with electronic gift certificates/Amazon purchases (you will have to have a Kindle app registered, not necessarily your actual Kindle)

I do not understand why another kindle would work? Is this a technical or an Amazon policy issue?

>and you'd need to break and strip the DRM on the books as they came in (of varying legality in varying locales) unless you lucked out and bought the rare DRM-free books, which are usually available openly via other outlets anyway.

I understand why this would be necessary if I was planning on reading digitally-copywritten material on a kindle (as a writer myself, I have mixed feelings as to the ethics of this, but mostly I just am not a techie and would rather see if I can find enough to read without this technical challenge). But are we of topic here as I often am? mean, what does the DRM aspect have to do with the anonymity aspect?

>Anyway, as for Sony, you don't have to buy your books through their store if you have concerns about their security. Their e-readers support any standard ADE-DRM store (such as the Kobo store)

Ah, very good.

>and of course you can load up DRM-free books from any source.

[snip]

"Hope this helps, and welcome to MobileRead!"

Yes, it does. Thank you.

[hermes]

Asawi wrote: "As long as you have registered a US address with Sony they don't care where you are when doing the purchase. I'm having no problem whatsoever here in Sweden."

Has anyone registered using a less than 100% accurate name and address for their SONY hardware or service? And had no problems because of it.

[hermes]

"I think you would be surprised how many "socially conservative, cowboy, John Wayne" types actually share your distrust of governmental efforts to impose their own contrived standards as a basis for police action.

At this point I should apologize to all the US citizens on this board, and the social conservatives. In many ways I am actually a conservative myself, such as when a friend of a friend's unregulated gardening project put me at risk: "Of course I support you growing whatever herbs you want, but by being sloppy you have embedded my shoes with the vegetable matter, thereby perhaps putting me at risk when I go to Hawaii and having me blacklisted due to residual matter on the soles. And do you realize that by possibly bringing unwanted attention to you, as someone visiting the house, you do the same to me, and as I am carrying a substantial amount of cash in order to make a silver purchase today - you are doubly putting me at risk. Smarten up."

I am in agreement with all kinds of people, and religious types are certainly not at the top of my list. In fact, in my experience devout Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, etc and even some republicans are more similar-minded than pc liberals. I 'grok' some elements of the right, likewise anarchists, what I don't relate to is the 'we know better and this is for your own protection' mentality of the middle and left, and mainstream churches. It's a sort of fascism worse because it has a happy face. But enough of politics, sorry to get off-track on a mobile reader forum!

>Particularly in the case of governments/administrations that feel their cause/agenda should be allowed to override basic civil liberties. Those of us with more Libertarian views, should have been most at home with the liberals, (given their rhetoric) but it is obviously not the case in the real world.

I have leftist and rightist friends both, and many libertarian ones (small 'l' and party members). We can all have a good arguments among ourselves. It's the 'middle of the road' ones (in Canada, often supporters of the 'Liberal' party, similar to Democrats in USA) who have given up on me and consider me a nut for questioning the status quo.

>As to your dilemma, most ereaders come with removable media, SD or Mini-SD cards as a rule.

Yes, and for this reason I almost bought the larger SONY (plus it has mp3-playing capablity.) The great thing about removable cards is that presuming they have backup (online or on a hard drive), and in an emergency situation even without, those very small storage devices can be secreted or disposed of discreetly.

>But the reality of world travel is that you must be prepared to meet the prevailing conditions, as they exist in the counties you visit.

Of course, and the challenge is when you travel as much as I do, conditions/ laws/enforcement change. And I can never be entirely sure what is illegal in countries I visit. I can't afford to visit a lawyer every time I cross a border. Mind you, maybe I can't afford *not to* either!

>I wouldn't advise traveling from Texas to California, with a basket of grapefruit.

Ah, I miss the fresh-squeezed ruby red grapefruit juice when I was doing totally no-risk educational agricultural video work in that state. So many roadside sellers. Awesome! And in fact, I *support* most civic and even many non-federal laws and their enforcement for public safety etc. It's not like I am some wild animal refusing all civilized limits.

>You could probably slip a mini-SD card with a copy of "Democracy in America" by Alexis de Tocqueville past the California border guards easier than a couple of Texas Ruby Reds.

You jest, no? US, unlike Canada, has constitutional protections for almost all written material.

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by hermes

May I ask you or other forum members if anyone has actually done this habitually? Anyone care to give real world examples?

Personally, yes. This past holiday season, I received a $100 Chapters Gift Card from out-of-province relatives and used it for all of my purchases from my regular Canadian Kobo account since then (was previously using credit card). I no longer have my CC info in my Kobo account and enter the gift card # and PIN every time I make a new purchase.

As for the anonymity aspect, I also have an auxiliary Kobo US account whose billing address goes to a package-receiving-and-holding service right across the border which caters specifically to Canadians. I have never had CC info entered in this account and have been able to pay for the one purchase I made using it with the leftover funds from a second Chapters gift card (which had been a previous year's holiday-gift-from-the-relatives).

Originally Posted by hermes

I see. The fact is in my case I am unlikely to ever be coming back to the first world west, except maybe an occassional visit to Singapore or South Africa. There is always the old fashioned method of a very small item being posted by a friend of course.

Well, in the case of Chapters' Gift Cards, I'm pretty sure they're refillable "online" as well, and you can add extra funds to them via the website and have it paid for via credit card.

Though if you have concerns about that, what you can do is have a friend in Canada buy and maintain a Gift Card, and you have one as well, and they can refill theirs and then transfer the funds over to yours, since you can actually move funds between Chapters gift cards to consolidate those tiny leftover amounts.

Originally Posted by hermes

The trend here in Canada is to ask for name, postal code and sometimes even telephone when making purchases. It's as if soon I will be asked to show some sort of secure ID to get in a taxicab!

I haven't personally noticed when shopping, but I would imagine it might depend on what one intends to buy.

Originally Posted by hermes

Take purchasing event tickets. I was paying by prepaid debit card (don't recall if it had been registered at credit union's website) and was told that I *had* to provide my phone number even though paying in person. This was to call me in case of cancellation.

This seems like a not unreasonable thing to require for event tickets, given that they do get cancelled and you should probably be notified if it happens and you'd been making special plans around the event.

Does this sort of thing happen when you pay cash? Though I suppose vendors might have counterfeiting concerns when confronted with large amounts of cash.

Originally Posted by hermes

One of the challenges with the prepaid cards I have experience with is that the limits are not high - $500. I expect that companies like Kobo etc are even lower. And one has to tie up one's funds at no interest. plus, they are insecure. They are as good as cash.

Well, if you're concerned about interest-bearing, then you'd be better off with a credit card attached to a traceable bank account. The near-cash-convenience-and-liability of a prepaid card is one of the prices you'd pretty much have to accept when using them. It's a trade off between your privacy and whatever else you hold important.

As for your next point, I will simply say that a good VPN IP proxy is your friend.

Originally Posted by hermes

I do not understand why another kindle would work? Is this a technical or an Amazon policy issue?

Not necessarily another hardware Kindle, but a Kindle software app, such as K4PC or K4iPad. Amazon ties their DRM to your account, and in your account you must have at least one registered Kindle app before you can purchase, much less download, any Kindle books at all; even the free public domain stuff.

If you don't want your actual hardware Kindle to be connected to anything that can be traced back to you (in case of embarrassing purchases or whatever), you can workaround it by having a K4App in your account and download and strip the DRM and sideload the books to your Kindle, but this strikes me as being unnecessary hoop-jumping.

Originally Posted by hermes

But are we of topic here as I often am? mean, what does the DRM aspect have to do with the anonymity aspect?

I think I explained it above: if one were really concerned about one's reading material being traceable to one when it would be some sort of liability where one was visiting/lived (this being a point you brought up upthread about concerns about authorities snooping into your reader contents) and one happened to own a Kindle and such, then that's the way one would have to do it.

Also, all DRM schemes are ultimately linked back to your personal info: ADE (used by Sony and Kobo and many more) requires an address registered on their website; B&N uses your name & CC# as a glorified password in their social-DRM thing (but on the upside, there's no activation limit on devices and a file you have lying around for years can be put on a supporting new reader without any problems without having to "authorize" the device via a central server which may be dead by then; plus you can unofficially share your books with friends you really trust this way); Amazon ties it into a combo of both your account and your device.

But if you don't have a Kindle and/or don't care all that much, the above digression was pretty much moot.

Anyway, good luck with balancing your privacy concerns with the practicality of actually purchasing and using e-books from the major vendors.