Amazon Kindle Hacked, Leading to More E-Books for Readers
Just a few weeks after its release, the Amazon Kindle has already had its DRM cracked. DRM is of course Digital Rights Management, the bane of many legal digital music download users. DRM is applied to the Kindle's files to keep users from simply sharing digital versions of books, magazine, and newspapers with friends. Surprisingly, the new DRM-breach doesn't enable enable users to subvert that DRM and share those files. Instead, the development has expanded the library of file types that are readeable on the Kindle. Currently, the Kindle uses a modified version of the MobiPocket file format, created by a French eBook company that was purchased by Amazon back in 2005 when the Kindle was just a twinkle in Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' eye.
But Reverse Engineering's Igor Skochinsky, the developer behind the DRM-crack, has discovered is that it's possible to take existing MobiPocket files and modify them to be viewable on the Kindle, something that was previously not possible thanks to the MobiPocket DRM. This means that the already reasonably impressive library (90,000 titles) of Kindle titles is now even greater. This is good news for readers, but some of the steam of this discovery was let out with word that Fictionwise, a major e-tailer of MobiPocket eBooks, is also now letting you directly download files in Kindle format, even for books you've bought in the past!
Anyhow, for other MobiPocket files that aren't going to be converted for you, Reverse Engineering provides a few scripts you can try to get them Kindle-ready
So what does all this tech-developer intrigue mean for you? More digital books for you early-adopting e-readers ou there -- -- assuming you managed to get one of the things to read them on.
From Reverse Engineering
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Charles F. Wilkes @ Dec 14th 2007 3:03AM
This is great news. DRM is the same as the now totally discreated "copy protection" of the long ago (now) past in the world of the PC. Uses totally rebelled, and in this new generaton which has no memory of those times, they will sooner or later do exactly the same thing.
Douglas @ Dec 14th 2007 12:39PM
DRM does such a disservice to the "masses". The people that companies are trying to ensnare with DRM is the tiny minority of people who are smart enough to hack the security anyway.