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Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

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Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

#311

Post by paxys »

BEEdwards wrote: post #87
Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #21

I have quite often seen people here and on other tech forums assume that purchasing a Kindle means being locked into Amazon's ecosystem, giving up personal details, and having the risk that your books might be deleted. But you don't have to use the Kindle's internet connectivity: I have owned three generations of Kindle, and with each one I activated airplane mode the second I unboxed the device and I never turned ai…

Why buy a kindle at all then? Any cheap budget tablet can read ebooks and stay off the internet.

Kindle is easily the cheapest and most functional reading device out there.

Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

#312

Post by boogies »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #176
BCharlie wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mention that the data that appears to be used for those purposes is sent again in a separate request to a separate end point, so we have two types of requests: last read location, and reading analytics. Sorry it wasn't clear, I'll try to improve the wording.

Can you provide the URLs so we can use pihole to block the requests?

(off-topic) What’re the advantages of pihole over /etc/hosts?

Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

#313

Post by ptman »

gavreh wrote: post #254
falcolas wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The kindle e-readers do offer an opt-out from the metrics collection. It can be triggered from the website or the device itself. That it's an opt-out and not opt-in is not a good thing, but it can be opted out of on the e-readers.

What are the steps to do this?

https://www.amazon.com/hz/mycd/digital-console/deviceprivacy... ?

Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

#314

Post by GekkePrutser »

benmller313 wrote: post #264
falcolas wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's definitely no good reason why it should be sent to Amazon at all. I was wracking my brain on this, and all I could come up with was "to independently verify the invoicing for Bing translations" and "how many times are people accessing the definition/translation and not highlighting". So, analytics, not something that explicitly benefits the user.

Can we stop pretending that analytics don't explicitly benefit the user? Product Engineering organizations rely on analytics to improve user experiences.

They can but they're often much more than that.

Also it should really be opt in. Our at least opt out. I hate Amazon looking over my shoulder while reading a book.

Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

#315

Post by freeone3000 »

fouric wrote: post #235
danShumway wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The text in question: > Highlighting or tapping any word will send the requests with the text to Bing Translate and Wikipedia, as well as back to Amazon. Is there a reason why that text needs to be sent before the user clicks the "translate" button? Is there a reason why it needs to be sent to Amazon?

> Is there a reason why that text needs to be sent before the user clicks the "translate" button? Yes - UX latency. I would expect this kind of thing to take a few thousand milliseconds, and shaving off a few hundred milliseconds from between when the user highlights text and when they select "translate" is significant. The fact that this data is being sent to Wikipedia of all places further signals that the usage is…

The screen refresh rate on these devices is measured in seconds, so a few hundred millis of network latency is impossible to display.

Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

#316

Post by kofejnik »

whynotminot wrote: post #159
kofejnik wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only until you come into range of any open WiFi which is every public place everywhere

Is that Kindle that promiscuous that it will literally connect to any open AP without prompting?

Parent comment was

> if the developers take the egregious step of nerfing airplane mode,

and I was responding that IF the developers decide to nerf the airplane mode it's very possible they will start using any open AP; some TV's are reportedly doing this already

Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

#317

Post by neiman »

paxys wrote: post #308
neiman wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't you do lost of those things by sending encrypted data to Amazon, and getting back the encrypted data from them? They act as a storage in most cases, not as a server, no?

The data is encrypted.

Encrypted between me and Amazon (such that Amazon could see the content), or encrypted between my devices such that Amazon can't see the content (but only the encrypted form)?

Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

#318

Post by _underfl0w_ »

boogies wrote: post #312
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you provide the URLs so we can use pihole to block the requests?

(off-topic) What’re the advantages of pihole over /etc/hosts?

They both work similarly if you're using them to block outbound requests, but a Pi-Hole would intercept and block outbound requests for every device on the network where it's installed, whereas editing /etc/hosts would only block requests on a single device (unless that device is your router, I guess?)

Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

#319

Post by garblegarble »

boogies wrote: post #312
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you provide the URLs so we can use pihole to block the requests?

(off-topic) What’re the advantages of pihole over /etc/hosts?

>(off-topic) What’re the advantages of pihole over /etc/hosts?

It's good for cases exactly like this - devices where you don't have control over /etc/hosts (or where you have lots of them and don't want to keep the hosts files in sync). I use it for my Samsung TV to keep them from phoning home (but still letting me use apps)

Edit: you can also set up a DoH endpoint and filter traffic while also allowing Encrypted SNI to work

Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

#320

Post by Tijdreiziger »

umvi wrote: post #61
alongreyber wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For this I recommend Calibre: https://calibre-ebook.com/ It will convert any format of E-Book to a compatible format for the Kindle (usually MOBI) and allows you to upload it directly. I use it often and it's an amazing piece of software!

I actually prefer KindleGen[0] to convert EPUB to MOBI - I find it produces a superior e-book. Edit: Oh no, Amazon removed KindleGen! When did that happen? I still have x86 copies for Linux and windows if anyone wants it. Supposedly "Kindle Previewer" can do the same thing, but a cursory glance looks like it no longer supports Linux... [0] https://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000765...

Damn, they removed KindleGen?! What a bummer!
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