Amazon and DRM changes

[Sirtel]

Someone may also write a program for taking screenshots and OCRing from the Cloud Reader. It's already been tried, I believe. Which would be far fron ideal, of course, but still better than nothing.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by lkmiller

Hope Amazon hasn't closed off the few remaining options by then. Just like those of us using the free DeDRM tools.

Although once my Kindle Touch is cut off, I don't really care if my Paperwhite 2 and Kindle for PC still work because I don't want kfx.

But you can convert KFX to ePub and then edit he ePub to make it good.

[John F]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I expect that if the old Kindle workaround goes away (as seems likely) and more modern Kindles are switched to the newer currently unbroken KFX encryption, someone will come up with a new decryption tool in a few months, if only for the intellectual challenge of it.

DRM where you have both the decryption key and the decrypting software on a single computer can always be reverse engineered. It's just whether the effort is worth it.

This.

All this Debbie Downer whinging. How long have ebooks been out and how many times has the DRM changed and how many times has the DRM been cracked.

Personally, I fall into the "books are fungible", so I'm good.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But you can convert KFX to ePub and then edit he ePub to make it good.

Too much fuss and bother plus malware from microsoft required. No thanks.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

Too much fuss and bother plus malware from microsoft required. No thanks.

You don't need Windows. You do it in calibre and then edit in calibre or Sigil. At least until May 20, 2026. Then you would need Windows.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

You don't need Windows. You do it in calibre and then edit in calibre or Sigil. At least until May 20, 2026. Then you would need Windows.

Why would I need or want to convert KFX to EPUB before 2026 May 20?

[lkmiller]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

You don't need Windows. You do it in calibre and then edit in calibre or Sigil. At least until May 20, 2026. Then you would need Windows.

But until May 20, I can still convert from kf8. I'm not inclined to fuss with kfx from my Paperwhite 2 or mess with Kindle for PC even if those are still options by then. The only other Kindle I have is an Oasis 2 which is done for now. And there is speculation that even if something is figured out for new Kindles, it may require jailbreaking. This is all beyond the point I'm interested in dealing with. I'll just be 100% Kobo for buying books, instead of the 99.9% I am now.

[Frogm4n]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Someone may also write a program for taking screenshots and OCRing from the Cloud Reader. It's already been tried, I believe. Which would be far fron ideal, of course, but still better than nothing.

There was a project recently where someone built a scraper for the Kindle cloud reader and pulled the text directly from the webpage. No OCR needed for each page, instead they decoded how Amazon was randomizing glyph IDs every several pages with a substitution cipher of sorts, and got around it by pixel matching them to the rendered font. It was a pretty fascinating reverse engineering project.

[Ma'am-I-Am]

I have a PW2, but I'm sure it's fast-tracked for the chopping block. I'm really sad about losing Send to Kindle and sending articles via my browser (Push to Kindle). You can't download personal docs from Amazon; only deliver them to Kindle. Now I need to process them just like we did when they stopped D&T. So much work.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by Ma'am-I-Am

I have a PW2, but I'm sure it's fast-tracked for the chopping block.

Maybe not. That device can run a much more recent firmware version (5.12.2.2) than the models losing support next month.

I saw a single report of someone with that model claiming that DRM removal worked for it two days ago but no longer works today. That could be an indication of Amazon rolling out new DRM as they recently did to devices running 5.16.2.1.1 firmware. (Or it could simply be user error. Time will tell.)

[lkmiller]

Just checked my Paperwhite 2 and DRM removal is still working.

[DNSB]

One friend of mine who also has a PW4 has found yesterday that DRM removal no longer works for them while my jailbroken PW4 still allows me to remove DRM. I suspect that this is due to having disabled OTA updates. They are both on 5.18.1.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by DNSB

One friend of mine who also has a PW4 has found yesterday that DRM removal no longer works for them while my jailbroken PW4 still allows me to remove DRM.

You might encourage your friend to report the problem at the appropriate site, along with an import log. That would provide evidence that the failure was actually caused by new DRM being deployed.

Originally Posted by DNSB

I suspect that this is due to having disabled OTA updates. They are both on 5.18.1.

Good news if so.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by jhowell

You might encourage your friend to report the problem at the appropriate site, along with an import log. That would provide evidence that the failure was actually caused by new DRM being deployed.

That's already been done. For what little it may be worth.

[texasnightowl]

for what it is worth, I just connected and downloaded some books to my non-jailbroken, fully stock, 10th gen Oasis 3 which is on 5.18.2. I hadn't downloaded anything in a while, so it was connected for quite a while as it downloaded at least a dozen books. So plenty of time for a non-update/hidden drm update to happen. When I finished downloading, I even manually restarted it.

Connected up to Calibre and selected 5 books to add to the library. Worked fine. All 5 came in as kfx.

Of course we all know things could change at any time.

But, at this exact moment in time on my specific device, 5.18.2 Oasis 3 still works fine for drm removal.