MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - A hack to display/ERASE the log Amazon collects?

yifanlu · 02-23-2011, 07:45 PM

I looked into this a while ago. First of all before putting you tin hat on, know that Amazon doesn't have the time to read through the logs of millions of Kindles. The only possible downside of having your logs sent (other then just the privacy issues) is that if your kindle breaks, they COULD deny you service because it was hacked. However, I know tons of people with broken kindles that are jailbroken and hacked (without even uninstalling them) and amazon replaced them. However, if you really want to disable the sending of logs. I'm looking into this right now by capturing the Wifi packets the Kindle sends. When I find out exactly what Amazon sees, I'll report back.

EDIT
Ok, my first attempt at stoping logging.
removed... bad idea
Untested. Requires jailbreak.

What I did is find how amazon finds "where" to send the logs and redirect them to a non-existant url. However, I do not know if Amazon sends other stuff through other means.

Included in the zip is tcpdump-arm. ONLY IF YOU'RE AN ADVANCED USER: Copy and chmod +x tcpdump to the kindle (/mnt/us/). Disable wifi. Run "./tcpdump-arm -w packets.pcap -i ppp0 -s 0". Now use the kindle as normal for a few minutes, then leave the kindle alone for an hour or so, preferably overnight. After a long time, SSH back into kindle. "killall tcpdump-arm" to kill it or restart the kindle. Find packets.pcap and analyze it with wireshark. If you don't know what to look for, send me the pcap.

02-23-2011, 07:45 PM	#10
yifanlu Kindle Dissector Posts: 662 Karma: 475607 Join Date: Jul 2010 Device: Amazon Kindle 3	I looked into this a while ago. First of all before putting you tin hat on, know that Amazon doesn't have the time to read through the logs of millions of Kindles. The only possible downside of having your logs sent (other then just the privacy issues) is that if your kindle breaks, they COULD deny you service because it was hacked. However, I know tons of people with broken kindles that are jailbroken and hacked (without even uninstalling them) and amazon replaced them. However, if you really want to disable the sending of logs. I'm looking into this right now by capturing the Wifi packets the Kindle sends. When I find out exactly what Amazon sees, I'll report back. EDIT Ok, my first attempt at stoping logging. removed... bad idea Untested. Requires jailbreak. What I did is find how amazon finds "where" to send the logs and redirect them to a non-existant url. However, I do not know if Amazon sends other stuff through other means. Included in the zip is tcpdump-arm. ONLY IF YOU'RE AN ADVANCED USER: Copy and chmod +x tcpdump to the kindle (/mnt/us/). Disable wifi. Run "./tcpdump-arm -w packets.pcap -i ppp0 -s 0". Now use the kindle as normal for a few minutes, then leave the kindle alone for an hour or so, preferably overnight. After a long time, SSH back into kindle. "killall tcpdump-arm" to kill it or restart the kindle. Find packets.pcap and analyze it with wireshark. If you don't know what to look for, send me the pcap. Last edited by yifanlu; 02-23-2011 at 11:30 PM.