Adobe DE 4 spies on users

[shalym]

Originally Posted by ShellShock

Can ADE tell the difference between an ebook which has never had DRM, and the same ebook which has had the Adobe DRM stripped from it (and therefore possibly pirated)? If not, then this could explain why ADE is sending info back about all ebooks in its library, ebooks with and without DRM. They could be trying to check whether the no DRM ebooks have been "pirated", i.e., have had DRM removed, which could be for any number of morally justifiable reasons, e.g., in order to format shift, or back up, or fix typos, or adjust formatting. But to Adobe this may be viewed as piracy.

But see, my point is that they have no right to report on anything that wasn't explicitly run through their service.

Shari

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by shalym

But see, my point is that they have no right to report on anything that wasn't explicitly run through their service.

Shari

Is that what the licence agreement says? Morally, I agree with you, but it's certainly conceivable that the licence agreement says that they do have that right.

[ApK]

Related to Harry's point:
This is probably too broadly political for general forum discussion, but if the lawyers among us could give me some quick citation or link, it would be helpful:

What is the basis for the "right" to privacy that so many people seem think they have?

Not looking to argue, just genuinely asking for my own edification.

[taustin]

Originally Posted by jhempel24

That's what I was thinking, but I didn't think Baen used ADE or any DRM for that matter, so that's why it jumped out at me.

Baen sells through other retailers now, too. It's possible it was bought through somebody else and downloaded through ADE without DRM.

It's more likely it was bought and downloaded without ADE, but added to the ADE library by the purchaser.

[Froide]

Originally Posted by ApK

Related to Harry's point:
This is probably too broadly political for general forum discussion, but if the lawyers among us could give me some quick citation or link, it would be helpful:

What is the basis for the "right" to privacy that so many people seem think they have?

Not looking to argue, just genuinely asking for my own edification.

I'm not an attorney. But it's impossible to overlook the following:

• The American Library Association Code of Ethics. (III. "We protect each library user's right to privacy and confidentiality with respect to information sought or received, and resources consulted, borrowed, acquired or transmitted")
• FERPA (the U.S. Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) - relevant to schoolbooks

And

• From Go To Hellman: "Correcting Misinformation on the Adobe Privacy Gusher." By Eric Hellman. Thursday, October 9, 2014:

On the legal side:

The ADE4 privacy policy is NOT a magic incantation that makes everything it does legal. For example, all 50 states have privacy laws that cover library records. When ADE4 is used for library ebooks, the fact that it broadcasts a user's reading behavior makes it legally suspect. Even if the stream were encrypted, it's not clear that it would be legal.

The NJ Reader Privacy Act is NOT an issue...yet. There's been no indication that it's been signed into law. If signed into law, and upheld, and found to apply, then Adobe would owe a lot of people in NJ $500.

The California Reader Privacy Act is NOT relevant (as far as I can tell) because it's designed to protect against legal discovery and there's not been any legal process. However, California has a library privacy law.

Europe might have more to say.

[taustin]

Originally Posted by shalym

I guess my point is more, why would information on a book that never had DRM need to be sent to Adobe? If they want to scan their library, fine...I get that. The program obviously needs to know what is in it's library in order to function. The program does NOT, however, need to send that information back to the mother ship if there is no Adobe DRM applied to the book. I wonder what I would find if I installed ADE 4 on my computer? Technically it shouldn't send ANY data back to Adobe since I have never purchased a book that used Adobe DRM.

Shari

If, as they say, this is part of a larger, long term plan to combat piracy[1], it becomes an important question of whether an ebook that does not have DRM on it now started out that way. And whether or not they can tell. Sending information about ebooks without DRM could easily be about trying to figure out how many are being stripped of it.

[1]A hopeless cause, to be sure, as the music industry proved.

[John F]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Is that what the licence agreement says? Morally, I agree with you, but it's certainly conceivable that the licence agreement says that they do have that right.

Probably depends on the country/applicable laws?

Kobo has stated that they cannot sync side loaded books (which seems very similar to what Adobe is doing) due to privacy laws.

[mandy314]

Originally Posted by ApK

What is the basis for the "right" to privacy that so many people seem think they have?

In Germany we have something called "Informationelle Selbstbestimmung" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informa...-determination) which itself is based on fundamental constitutional rights (Persönlichkeitsrecht - Art. 2 Abs. 1 Grundgesetz).
Some TOS (Facebook, Google iirc) were under close public scrutiny in Germany. The tracking/logging done by ADE4 is for sure borderline w/o an explicit opt-in by the user and/or for books without Adobe DRM. If a court would see (part of) the data-upload as not necessary for the original purpose of the software (view books / DRM functions) the unspecific TOS/EULA wouldn't help Adobe - but who knows (or who will go to court in Germany against an american firm like Adobe) ...

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ShellShock

Can ADE tell the difference between an ebook which has never had DRM, and the same ebook which has had the Adobe DRM stripped from it (and therefore possibly pirated)? If not, then this could explain why ADE is sending info back about all ebooks in its library, ebooks with and without DRM. They could be trying to check whether the no DRM ebooks have been "pirated", i.e., have had DRM removed, which could be for any number of morally justifiable reasons, e.g., in order to format shift, or back up, or fix typos, or adjust formatting. But to Adobe this may be viewed as piracy.

If Adobe knows that the book being viewed in ADE is supposed to have DRM, and it doesn't have DRM, then they would know either the DRM was removed and/or the eBook was not legally obtained.

They can also know that if the eBook has been modified and multiple people have the same modified copy, then yes, chances are it's pirated and/or given away.

ADE cannot phone home here as I use ADE 2 and I've put the hosts blocks in place. I still have to do this on the Surface but I'll get to that before I use ADE on the Surface.

[Difflugia]

Originally Posted by ApK

Related to Harry's point:
This is probably too broadly political for general forum discussion, but if the lawyers among us could give me some quick citation or link, it would be helpful:

What is the basis for the "right" to privacy that so many people seem think they have?

Not looking to argue, just genuinely asking for my own edification.

The US Supreme Court has ruled (and then subsequently affirmed) that there is a constitutional right to privacy, but there are (at least) two problems with specifically applying it here. First, the entity that US citizens have a right to privacy from is the US government and not Adobe. Second, the full breadth of the right to privacy has never been spelled out and lower courts have ruled both ways in different circumstances.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Difflugia

The US Supreme Court has ruled (and then subsequently affirmed) that there is a constitutional right to privacy, but there are (at least) two problems with specifically applying it here. First, the entity that US citizens have a right to privacy from is the US government and not Adobe. Second, the full breadth of the right to privacy has never been spelled out and lower courts have ruled both ways in different circumstances.

The problem is there is no *explicit* federal right to privacy as such in the constitution, just a series of specific protections (search and seizure, self incrimination, etc). The court has on occasion found an *implicit* right to privacy (the most prominent case started a culture war that is 40 years running with no end in sight) but it is case to case. Congress has legislated a variety of protections as have the states but again, nothing absolute.

There is no absolute right to privacy to parallel the right of free speech, which is why federal surveillance laws like the Patriot Act can exist. And that is probably why: law and order and security concerns.

[Freehunter]

Eric Hellman has an update with a confirmation of Nate:

Update 1PM: Galen Charlton of Equinox Software has now reproduced the scanning behavior reported by Nate Hoffelder. This is important because there was always the possibility that Nate, whose reporting on ereaders has him trying out a lot of stuff, had some strange and unique system configuration.

From Go To Hellman:Correcting Misinformation on the Adobe Privacy Gusher.By Eric Hellman. Thursday, October 9, 2014

[CWatkinsNash]

Originally Posted by Freehunter

Eric Hellman has an update with a confirmation of Nate:

But there's no link any such confirmation of the scanning of other (ie, non-library or non-device) directories. The latest post on Galen's blog states:

The original report by Nate Hofffelder at The Digital Reader also said that ebook that were not known to Digital Editions were being reported, though I and others haven’t seen that — but at the moment, since nobody is saying that they’ve decompiled the program and analyzed exactly when Digital Editions sends its reports, it’s possible that Nate simply fell into a rare execution path.

Is another update available anywhere that they might have been referring to?

[fjtorres]

Comment on Go to Hellman:

It's not reporting on all the books on your computer, but if you have a dedicated ereading device that uses Adobe, then ADE4 DOES report on all the books on that device back to the mothership. See https://gist.github.com/gmcharlt/50707d56ebcb3162e195

So that is how it reported on books ADE never opened: it scanned the reader all on its own and reported on it.

Heh.
Nice trick.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Comment on Go to Hellman:



So that is how it reported on books ADE never opened: it scanned the reader all on its own and reported on it.

Heh.
Nice trick.

I wonder if the reader was managed by ADE. It has no reason to look for books if it wasn't. It only has reason to ask you if you want to authorize it if it's not already authorized.