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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

#41
It will make people uncomfortable, but this is standard practice in terms of event collection for analytics. Many articles here write about discovery from the side of a particular app or site.

If people reviewed some analytics solutions (many trials are available), then they'd see how pervasive this is and what product vendors are encouraging. The like's of Amazon have much more scrutiny around the use of data collected than those of smaller organizations. Obviously, they wield great market power so the concerns are broader, but an attacker has a much better chance of raiding smaller developers for volumes of data with much the same fidelity.

Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

#42
post #33

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…

What formats does it handle? Can it handle EPUB for example?

The Kindle handles .mobi and .azw3. It is trivial to convert EPUB to MOBI before you send the book to the device over USB (it can even be done as part of a command-line script, for example).

Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

#43
post #33

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…

What formats does it handle? Can it handle EPUB for example?

Loading books using programs like calibre [1] allows you to covert EPUB to MOBI (the kindle format) seamlessly before transferring. In my experience this works perfectly.

[1] https://calibre-ebook.com/

Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

#44
This is only one reason why I absolutely love my Kobo Aura HD, it's never been connected to WiFi. Its storage device is a standard SD card which can be swapped for a larger one. Oh, and it's not giving money to Amazon which is always a big win for me. It also happens to be a super nice piece of kit, and it has my warmest recommendations.

Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

#45
post #22

Why would you leave on wifi on an e-ink kindle, when not actively downloading a book? The battery lasts 3-4x as long with it disabled (on my 3rd gen device at least). I doubt most users need a real-time sync of their book location to the cloud, unless they read on multiple devices. Also, if you use the kindle to get loaned/library books on this particular model, they aren't removed even if the due-date is exceeded un…

> Why would you leave on wifi on an e-ink kindle, when not actively downloading a book? The battery lasts 3-4x as long with it disabled (on my 3rd gen device at least).

I concur with keeping the wifi off while not downloading, because battery life is way better, but it doesn't help against data collection.

> Each request also isn't sent as soon as it's generated. A number of these records are created and stored locally, then uploaded (note the sequence_number field). Even if a person is offline while reading, this data is stored and sent when reconnected.

Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

#46
post #33

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…

What formats does it handle? Can it handle EPUB for example?

No it cannot. It only supports Amazon's proprietary ebook formats: AZW and MOBI. I love the paperwhite, but the limited format support led me to choose a different ereader when I last bought a new one.

Edit: I know I could convert between formats, but that process is not always perfect and can lose important formatting.

Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

#47
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What formats does it handle? Can it handle EPUB for example?

The Kindle handles .mobi and .azw3. It is trivial to convert EPUB to MOBI before you send the book to the device over USB (it can even be done as part of a command-line script, for example).

Having to deal with the .epub conversion was the main reason I ditched my Voyage and got a Kobo Aura One instead.

Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

#48

This is a bit unfortunate, because the kindle paperwhite is just phenomenal. It's easy on my eyes and it's a godsend for traveling. I suppose the solution here is to just keep it in offline mode when not syncing books. [edit] as others have noted, it's possible to permanently use offline mode, and transfer books via usb cable. > Unfortunately, in order to use a non-Kindle application, I have to buy DRM-Free books. On…

> Each request also isn't sent as soon as it's generated. A number of these records are created and stored locally, then uploaded (note the sequence_number field). Even if a person is offline while reading, this data is stored and sent when reconnected. Keeping it in offline mode doesn't help.

> Keeping it in offline mode doesn't help.

Permanently keeping it offline and only transferring via USB does.

Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

#49
post #33

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…

What formats does it handle? Can it handle EPUB for example?

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!

Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

#50

Are these requests sent to a separate domain? I may have missed it in the article but it’d be great to know whether we could null route these without disrupting functionality.

I reckon it's time to stop working around all data collection bullshit. No more technical solutions to political problems. Applying technical workarounds is still supporting a company, and is giving them a thumbs-up to keep at it.

> I reckon it's time to stop working around all data collection bullshit. No more technical solutions to political problems.

I agree, generally. However, if you already have the hardware than it's wasteful to not make use of it.

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