Kindle Privacy

[whitearrow]

Originally Posted by 6charlong

Unless they were responding to a court order. I was thinking about the situation in the US when the Bush Administration demanded a list of who borrowed certain books from libraries throughout America.

I'm not sure that's exactly what happened, but even if it did, that's at least plausibly a national security issue.

Or a search comparing the copyrighted books on our Kindles against the books we bought from Amazon, since Amazon is the only place you can get AZW encrypted books.

This wouldn't be a national security issue and the government couldn't simply demand the information from Amazon. They would need a search warrant for a specific person's Kindle.

Even though Amazon might be the only place you can get .azw books, there are plenty of other in-copyright books you can get without DRM. I have a bunch of Fictionwise multiformat books -- perfectly legal.

And if there's an unencrypted book that's only available in an encrypted format, it still doesn't mean you didn't get it legally. Look at all the people who strip DRM just to change from Sony to Kindle, for example. Could the government come after you for stripping the DRM when there's no copyright violation involved? I guess. But I don't think it's particularly likely.

[Zerodime]

I'm still pretty sure we should go away from the "I might have illegal books and amazon will sue me" to a more "I might have books the state/country deems illegal from an idealogical standpoint".
Imagine(!) your in America and Amazon has to tell, via law, every purchase of a digital koran, because USA thinks that it might have todo with 9/11 or islamic terror.
This is (probably) not the terms as of now, but thats the real Problem your facing when the Problem is "Privacy".
Its not necessary about the possibility of an RIAA thing but foremost a trust/privacy relationship with your country.
And it's unfortunately not everywhere where we can trust our country we live in.

[whitearrow]

Originally Posted by Zerodime

I'm still pretty sure we should go away from the "I might have illegal books and amazon will sue me" to a more "I might have books the state/country deems illegal from an idealogical standpoint".
Imagine(!) your in America and Amazon has to tell, via law, every purchase of a digital koran, because USA thinks that it might have todo with 9/11 or islamic terror.

I have no doubt that a court would strike down such a "law" so fast your head would spin. It would be patently unconstitutional.

[MrPLD]

Originally Posted by whitearrow

I have no doubt that a court would strike down such a "law" so fast your head would spin. It would be patently unconstitutional.

Since when has that stopped laws being passed through if the person behind them is in the right position of power?

[Zerodime]

Sorry for late replay:

And all in the name of anti-terror (and creating more in the same vain)
You don't even need power just the right explanation.

My government (Germany) tried to install an internet-filter in the name of anti-"child pornography" but worded the law in such a way that almost everything(!) could have been blocked (ok, maybe blocked in a way of "Please don't change the URL to an IP-adress if you want to visit the blocked page" but still.)
That law is still there but not enforced because some bright people could convince our government to go with a "delete before block" mentality not sure if it's better but some things are harder to remove than blocked.

[bjones6416]

I dunno, it seems to me that as I've gotten older, I've gotten less paranoid about stuff like this than I used to be. Life is too short to worry about whether or not the Amazon police are going to knock on my door and put me in jail for what is on my Kindle. Could it happen? I guess so. WILL it happen? It's pretty unlikely, and meanwhile, life is throwing plenty of curveballs at me right now that I need to deal with. So no borrowing trouble for me, thank you very much!

(And, as I overheard one co-worker say to another, rather pityingly: "So you think that just because you don't do online banking your information isn't in a database somewhere anyway, just as liable to get stolen as the name next to yours? Really? I guarantee that unless you are living completely off the grid, all of your information is accessible to somebody, somewhere. It's just a matter of who might want it.")

[Zerodime]

Originally Posted by bjones6416

(And, as I overheard one co-worker say to another, rather pityingly: "So you think that just because you don't do online banking your information isn't in a database somewhere anyway, just as liable to get stolen as the name next to yours? Really? I guarantee that unless you are living completely off the grid, all of your information is accessible to somebody, somewhere. It's just a matter of who might want it.")

Too true. Living on the grid for around 15years now probably a bit more, so if i wanted to go all rebel against my government I have to be a bit more carefull

[MrPLD]

Originally Posted by Zerodime

Too true. Living on the grid for around 15years now probably a bit more, so if i wanted to go all rebel against my government I have to be a bit more carefull

Flood them with disinformation - it works well

[whitearrow]

Originally Posted by MrPLD

Since when has that stopped laws being passed through if the person behind them is in the right position of power?

It wouldn't stop the law from being passed. It would stop it from ever being enforced.