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How I bypassed Amazon's Kindle web DRM

blog.pixelmelt.dev

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Re: How I bypassed Amazon's Kindle web DRM

#41

Post by ethmarks »

Retr0id wrote: post #11

[flagged]

It's extra distracting because it doesn't even read like normal LLM prose, but it's close enough to feel off.

The frequent use of bold emphasis, lists, and subject-only rhetorical questions ("Those tiny m3,1 m1,6 m-4,-7 commands? They're micro-MoveTo operations.") are classic LLM-speak, but they're used in such a way that makes me doubt that OP actually used an LLM to write this. I think that OP's natural prose just happens to be stylistically pretty similar to that of an LLM.

It's kind of sad that what were once signs of high effort and dedication (e.g. em-dashes) are now signs of low effort and dishonesty, despite the fact that people still use them in human writing.

Re: How I bypassed Amazon's Kindle web DRM

#43

Post by digianarchist »

harshreality wrote: post #23

I don't know what state it's in (haven't used it in years), but do apprenticealf's DeDRM tools, which has been forked to nodrm/DeDRM_tools, still handle kindle PC app downloads? Tinkering with old versions of the PC app might work even if the current version doesn't, and there's a registry hack to disable kfx downloading and get azw3 instead, which worked at some point... it's outlined in apprenticealf's DeDRM repo,…

Also Libation for Audible books.

Re: How I bypassed Amazon's Kindle web DRM

#44

Post by emptybits »

Hell hath no fury like an engineer angered! This was such a good read and epitomizes hacking:

"Was it worth it? To read one book? No. To prove a point? Absolutely. To learn about SVG rendering, perceptual hashing, and font metrics? Probably yes."

Re: How I bypassed Amazon's Kindle web DRM

#46

Post by WD-42 »

javchz wrote: post #20
brendang_sd wrote: post #4

I always love a story of anger based (reverse)engineering.

Spite is an underated productivity tool.

I've partaken in some SDD (Spite Driven Development) myself related to the Garmin ecosystem. The problem with it is once you stop caring, the development stops too.

Re: How I bypassed Amazon's Kindle web DRM

#47

Post by chmod775 »

For books only available through Amazon my workflow used to be buying it, downloading it with their desktop app, importing into Calibre, converting to epub and stripping DRM, then pushing it onto my Kobo.

They broke that a while ago by making their DRM even worse, so now I just pirate those books.

Re: How I bypassed Amazon's Kindle web DRM

#48

Post by wishfish »

Insanity wrote: post #10
wredcoll wrote: post #6

I personally have bought many fewer books over the last couple of years, from amazon, as they've made it harder and harder to, you know, read the books I've paid for. Pirating books is not hard. They're probably the smallest possible thing that people are interested in copying with the broadest variation in acceptable formats. I know I'm screaming into the void, but if I'm paying real money why is the experience from…

Genuinely curious to hear why you think they make it harder and harder to read books? I've been using my Kindle daily since 2017. I read on both the Kindle device (Paperwhite and vanilla), the iPad and iPhone app, and occasionally the web reader. I've never experienced issues with them that break the reading experience. The one issue I occasionally run into is that the book progress doesn't sync when I open the app a…

The reading experience is fine on Kindle. Or at least it was the last time I used it. My main problem is how they've locked down the DRM. I was on Kindle for a very long time and didn't mind the DRM because it was easily breakable. Amazon was also helpful about helping you download the book file directly. The locks they had in place were essentially bathroom door locks. And they seemed chill about it.

That's all changed now. I'd love to know why it's changed. My first thought was publisher pressure. But Kobo hasn't implemented harsh measures. Just Amazon has.

At any rate, I'm now using Kobo for my reading. Easy to break DRM. And they don't assume the same level of control over Kobo ereaders the way Amazon does with Kindle. I have over a thousand ebooks. I'm able to tag books in Calibre, and those tags automatically show up as Collections on the Kobo. It's a simple thing, but Amazon never gave me such flexibility. Makes a huge difference for me.

It's also possible to alter Kobo's UI/UX with various plugins without the need to jailbreak. Kobo (the company) is perfectly happy to let you do whatever you want with your own device. That's such a breath of fresh air compared to how Kindle is locked down.

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