Kindle's e-Book DRM Is Broken
Anything that can be hacked will be hacked, and virtually everything can be hacked. Thus, we see that latest escapade in the land of hacking. The Kindle's DRM (digital rights management, copy protection) has been compromised.
Amazon sells content for the Kindle in a proprietary format, .azw. It contains DRM to prevent users from transferring copyrighted content to other devices. Think of it as the e-book version of what Apple's FairPlay DRM used to represent.
The hack lets users convert the Kindle's e-books into PDF files, allowing them to be read on any number of non-Amazon e-book readers as well as computers, naturally. The hacker, known only as Labba, posed a challenge on a hacker forum and with a little help broke the DRM.
One can expect Amazon.com will come up with a change to halt the hacking, but Labba said that he feels that when Amazon.com does release a "fix," he will be able to hack it again. Consider it jailbreaking the Kindle: new software, new hack, just as with the iPhone.
Amazon sells content for the Kindle in a proprietary format, .azw. It contains DRM to prevent users from transferring copyrighted content to other devices. Think of it as the e-book version of what Apple's FairPlay DRM used to represent.
The hack lets users convert the Kindle's e-books into PDF files, allowing them to be read on any number of non-Amazon e-book readers as well as computers, naturally. The hacker, known only as Labba, posed a challenge on a hacker forum and with a little help broke the DRM.
One can expect Amazon.com will come up with a change to halt the hacking, but Labba said that he feels that when Amazon.com does release a "fix," he will be able to hack it again. Consider it jailbreaking the Kindle: new software, new hack, just as with the iPhone.
