How do I use "URLLink.acsm" file from Borders.com? (ADE in Wine)

[Darth_Bane]

Originally Posted by KenJackson

I'm looking around for those inept python files to clean off the DRM, but I've only found a version that's specific to Windows or Mac, that tries to open use Windows DLLs. I suppose I could install windows python under Wine, but that's kind of offensive. The hallmark of scripting languages like python is that they are supposed to be platform independent. I'm mucking with it to see if I can clean out the Windows-specificity.

The Windows-specificity runs pretty deep, and it's rather difficult to remove in this case. You need to run in Windows because ineptkey relies on the fact that the Windows version of ADE is installed and pulls your DRM key from the registry.

If you've already got ADE running in wine, Just install Windows python and PyCrypto and it'll just work. Good luck!

[KenJackson]

Originally Posted by Darth_Bane

The Windows-specificity runs pretty deep, and it's rather difficult to remove in this case. You need to run in Windows because ineptkey relies on the fact that the Windows version of ADE is installed and pulls your DRM key from the registry.

Oh I can get what I need from the registry. I just opened regedit, navigated to HCU/Software/Adobe/Adept, exported and am viewing it with strings -el. There's lots of intersting stuff. There's a privateLicenseKey, a licenseCertificate, an authenticationCertificate and there are 6 copies of each. (I must have tried six times.)

I want to get better at Python anyway, and poking around and figuring things out is fun. The only difficulty is that If I do come up with a good script or program, I'll be hesitant to share it for fear that evil doers will shut me down and fine me.

One thing I need to figure out is how to fetch the epub. The .acsm file has a URL but it also has lots of other information. I'm wondering if ADE adds HTTP GET parameters to the URL when it downloads, maybe something like ..covers.com/?hmac=5Uax...

[stodge]

Interesting - could you post the relevant portion from the acsm? I'd like to look at that and see if I can understand what it's doing. (I'm at work )

[KenJackson]

Originally Posted by stodge

Interesting - could you post the relevant portion from the acsm? I'd like to look at that and see if I can understand what it's doing. (I'm at work )

OK. Here is URLLink.acsm, with specifics zeroed or made generic.

<fulfillmentToken fulfillmentType="buy" xmlns="http://ns.adobe.com/adept">
  <distributor>urn:uuid:00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000</distributor>
  <operatorURL>http://acs4.shortcovers.com:8080/fulfillment</operatorURL>
  <expiration>2010-11-15T06:16:04-06:00</expiration>
  <transaction>00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000</transaction>
  <resourceItemInfo>
    <resource>urn:uuid:00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000</resource>
    <resourceItem>1</resourceItem>
    <metadata>
      <dc:title xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">The Book Title</dc:title>
      <dc:creator xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">Author</dc:creator>
      <dc:format xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">application/epub+zip</dc:format>
      <dc:publisher xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">Company</dc:publisher>
      <dc:language xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">en-US</dc:language>
      <dc:description xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"></dc:description>
      <dc:identifier xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">0000000000000</dc:identifier>
    </metadata>
    <src>http://ecimages.shortcovers.com/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000.epub</src>
    <downloadType>simple</downloadType>
  </resourceItemInfo>
  <hmac>000000000000000000000000000=</hmac>
</fulfillmentToken>

[stodge]

http://ecimages.shortcovers.com/0000...000000000.epub

Here's the book - that should be downloadable using your browser.

[KevinH]

Hi,

Yes that will get you the exact same DRM encoded epub EXCEPT that it will not have the rights.xml file that includes the encoded key needed by ineptepub along with information from encryption.xml to actually decode your book.

The key idea here is that there is only one encryption done for that particular book at the source for everyone. The ADE grabs that file and takes the key that will actually decode it and then encodes that key with info based on your personal ADE account (based on your registered device) and creates the rights.xml file inside the epub.

Without that right.xml file you can not remove the DRM.

So you will need to take a peak at the network traffic (which might be ssl encrypted itself!) that goes on when ADE grabs the book using that .acsm info if you somehow want to get things to work for you under Linux.

It is a shame that ADE has not simply made a Linux client.

[KenJackson]

Originally Posted by KevinH

The key idea here is that there is only one encryption done for that particular book at the source for everyone. The ADE grabs that file and takes the key that will actually decode it and then encodes that key with info based on your personal ADE account (based on your registered device) and creates the rights.xml file inside the epub.

Thank you, Kevin. That's a crucial detail that I wondered about and was going to have to figure out.

[KevinH]

Ken,

A google search for this exact string:

"ContentServer_UserManual.pdf"

is an interesting read.

The key idea is without the right signed public/private key pair xml conversation going on between ADE and the fullfillment site (and by the way the hmac is a sha1 hash of the entire xml node conversation so no changes can be inserted) with the proper xml acsm info you will not get a proper rights.xml file created in the .epub you download and so you are out of luck!

Pretty smart as it means only an ADE with a registered signature and key pair can get to a usable form of the book! Ingenious really.

FWIW, I think this would be very very hard to implement outside of ADE or even to mimic what happens in ADE. So I would simply stick to running Wine or even XP on a virtual machine and running ADE to get your ebooks. Then run ineptkey once to get your adeptkey.der and then the whole conversion can be done from Linux.

The funny thing is the ACS code is java and so Linux is used as the server for most of the process. So the back ends runs on Linux just not the ability to actually read an ADE ebook!

[KenJackson]

Thanks again, Kevin, That is and interesting read.

Yes, ironies abound.

[stodge]

Any progress with this?

[doreenjoy]

Originally Posted by KenJackson

Pointless for you or for me? The point is, I'm making progress.

You said you had the book downloaded and were reading it, so I assumed it would be pointless for both of us.

[KenJackson]

Originally Posted by stodge

Any progress with this?

Working through the inept code made me realize just how much I need to learn python. So I stopped working on that and started working on learning python.

But then I noticed that you can download python documentation, and I thought hey, wouldn't it be great if I could convert that HTML documentation into a nice epub so I can read it on my eReader? So I played with that for a while and found it's not a trivial exercise.

This is in addition to enjoying reading on my delightful eReader. Plus surfing the web and being amazed at the wealth of books available for free (including on this site). (And then there's Christmas.)

I feel insecure not being able to control the books that I will eventually purchase, so I'll definitely keep at this. But I've only made a tiny bit of progress so far.

[stodge]

I develop using Python every day at work so I might be able to offer some assistance/effort after Christmas. I wanted to see if I could write a plugin for Calibre to automatically download and add an epub bought from say Kobo.

[reedstrm]

Originally Posted by KenJackson

Working through the inept code made me realize just how much I need to learn python. So I stopped working on that and started working on learning python.

[...]
I feel insecure not being able to control the books that I will eventually purchase, so I'll definitely keep at this. But I've only made a tiny bit of progress so far.

Following up on an ancient thread, just in case others google there way here like I did. ADE 1.7 runs fine on Linux under Wine (1.2.2 in my case). I had the same frustration of 'what do I do now w/ the acsm file' when borrowing books from the library. The answer ends up being "use the file manager to drag and drop onto the ADE window". Yup, not very scriptable, but at least I (and my wife) can read our books now.

[mclien]

Had the very same problem.
What to do with the acsm file, here is the "simple" solution:

I put the acsm file in the same dir where the ade-exe resists, in my case:
~/.wine/drive_c/Programme/Adobe/Adobe Digital Editions
I change to that dir and than execude this command:

wine digitaleditions URLLink.acsm

and then ADE downloads/imprts the book to your shelf.