Hackers crack Amazon's Kindle DRM.... - Page 2

Shaggy · 12-23-2009, 09:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hidari

Amazon seemed to think that it was the perfect DRM from what I read on the net....

There's no such thing. I'm actually surprised it took this long.

kennyc · 12-23-2009, 09:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shaggy

There's no such thing. I'm actually surprised it took this long.

Well Topaz hasn't been cracked that I know of.

rcuadro · 12-23-2009, 09:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kennyc

I Love Cabbages.

And yes it works well from all reports.
[/url]

I Love Cabbages also

rcuadro · 12-23-2009, 10:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kennyc

Well Topaz hasn't been cracked that I know of.

Not yet...

edembowski · 12-23-2009, 10:19 AM

Why bother cracking Topaz? There are plenty of other book sellers who either sell DRM-free books (Baen for example) or sell books that can easily be converted (anyone selling ePub). Breaking Topaz may be interesting, but it's really of limited use.

- Ed

Shaggy · 12-23-2009, 10:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kennyc

Well Topaz hasn't been cracked that I know of.

All DRM can be cracked, Topaz just hasn't been cracked yet.

Liviu_5 · 12-23-2009, 10:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by edembowski

Breaking Topaz may be interesting, but it's really of limited use.- Ed

That's wrong at least so far since generally Topaz books are not available in other format - personally I believe they are books for which clean digital copies do not exist and for which Amazon uses some scanning and ocr'ing techniques - their size and load time strongly suggests some kind of picture files, bitmaps...

And as a general principles the more drm is broken the more choices we have where to buy

Think about it, buying ebooks, what's not to like...

Nobody bothered to crack lrx for example and guess what, lrx is dead since I strongly believe Sony just saw minimal sales in their ebook store and decided that switching to epub is better for the bottom line too

edembowski · 12-23-2009, 11:26 AM

How many books are available as Topaz only? I'm not being facetious, I just haven't seen any. I'm not much of an Amazon customer.

I'm totally with you as to why lrx died off, and why Sony has pushed so hard for ePub. I'd really like to see the same happen for all DRM'd media, but having it in a convertable format is the next best thing.

- Ed

delphidb96 · 12-23-2009, 11:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shaggy

There's no such thing. I'm actually surprised it took this long.

Is TOO! It's called the 'vaporbook'!

(If you don't have a novel for your customers to read, then any DRM applied to it is essentially 'perfect'. )

Derek

kennyc · 12-23-2009, 12:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shaggy

All DRM can be cracked, Topaz just hasn't been cracked yet.

That wasn't the point. It was about perfect DRM and I said Topaz hasn't been cracked, maybe it IS the perfect DRM.

wallcraft · 12-23-2009, 12:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by edembowski

How many books are available as Topaz only? I'm not being facetious, I just haven't seen any. I'm not much of an Amazon customer.

I don't think anyone knows how many TOPAZ ebooks there are, because Amazon does not allow a format specific search. However, no matter how many there are they are almost all TOPAZ exclusives. If they were available in another reflowable format (ePub or MOBI or eReader) then there is no need for the publisher to pay Amazon to produce a TOPAZ version. So it isn't usually a matter of buying in ePub (say) instead, there is typically no legal alternative to TOPAZ. I have a couple of TOPAZ ebooks that are no longer on sale in the Kindle Store because they have been replaced by AZW vesions. So over time the publisher might decide to do their own ebook, supplanting the TOPAZ, but this does not happen often in my experience.

rcuadro · 12-23-2009, 12:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kennyc

That wasn't the point. It was about perfect DRM and I said Topaz hasn't been cracked, maybe it IS the perfect DRM.

LRX from sony was never cracked either

Elfwreck · 12-23-2009, 12:34 PM

Now that Topaz is available on the PC, can it be screencapped and OCR'd? (Which is a slow, complicated way of breaking DRM, but is sometimes used on some of the server-validated PDFs that only work with an active internet connection.)

calvin-c · 12-23-2009, 12:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by David Derrico

Even as an author, I have to say that DRM does more harm than good. It annoys legitimate customers more than it prevents piracy. And, honestly, if someone steals a copy of my eBook, no skin off my back, I hope they enjoy the thing and maybe tell a friend.

Plus, what normally happens is that pirates can crack it anyway, so now it's just annoying legitimate customers and locking them to a particular device. Meh.

It's actually worse than that-there are undoubtedly some people who would like to buy your book, but it's not available in a format supported by their device. DRM prevents them from converting the format (assuming 'perfect' DRM, which luckily doesn't exist) so DRM has actually *cost* you customers.

kennyc · 12-23-2009, 12:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rcuadro

LRX from sony was never cracked either

It could be perfect TOO then.

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12-23-2009, 10:19 AM	#20
edembowski Zealot Posts: 138 Karma: 372 Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: New York, NY Device: Sony PRS-600, Nook Color, iPad	Why bother cracking Topaz? There are plenty of other book sellers who either sell DRM-free books (Baen for example) or sell books that can easily be converted (anyone selling ePub). Breaking Topaz may be interesting, but it's really of limited use. - Ed

12-23-2009, 11:26 AM	#23
edembowski Zealot Posts: 138 Karma: 372 Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: New York, NY Device: Sony PRS-600, Nook Color, iPad	How many books are available as Topaz only? I'm not being facetious, I just haven't seen any. I'm not much of an Amazon customer. I'm totally with you as to why lrx died off, and why Sony has pushed so hard for ePub. I'd really like to see the same happen for all DRM'd media, but having it in a convertable format is the next best thing. - Ed

12-23-2009, 12:34 PM	#28
Elfwreck Grand Sorcerer Posts: 5,187 Karma: 25133758 Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: SF Bay Area, California, USA Device: Pocketbook Touch HD3 (Past: Kobo Mini, PEZ, PRS-505, Clié)	Now that Topaz is available on the PC, can it be screencapped and OCR'd? (Which is a slow, complicated way of breaking DRM, but is sometimes used on some of the server-validated PDFs that only work with an active internet connection.)