Israeli programmer hacks Kindle, breaks DRM protection

By on Dec 22, 2009 at 8:04 AM
Breaking December 22, 2009

kindledx

Nothing makes you feel like you truly own your media and content like being able to do almost whatever you want with it. We’re already used to DRM for our MP3s and the limitations it puts on device selection and sharing, but the idea that the same kind of protection would be put on our books was a head-scratcher. For books on the Kindle, it works just that way. You can’t go putting your content on any device you want, whenever you want to — until now. An Israeli hacker has managed to break the DRM for books on the Kindle so that that content can be downloaded onto any other device.

The hacker, known only as Labba, posed a challenge on a hacker forum and was quickly aided by other programmers to discover the hack for the Kindle. They were essentially able to break the DRM protection and find a way to get the eBooks converted to an open format and into PDF files. This allows the files to be read on several eReaders, not just the Kindle. Now we have to wait and see what Amazon will do to patch things up, but Labba says whenever Amazon does release a software solution, he will be able to hack it again — just like the iPhone getting jailbroken with every software update. Or, you know, you can just buy paper books.

Thanks, Friend of BGR!

UPDATE: Looks like this was just “hacked” again as an original DRM workaround has been available since a year or so back.

Read

Tags:
, , , , , , , ,
30 Comments

Related Articles

  • http://www.bgr.com Mitch

    Wow, first twitter hacked by Iranians now kindle by Israelis. What’s next? The Droid lol

    • http://jelpern.blogspot.com Jordan

      I should point out the poetry here that the Israeli guy was freeing knowledge for the masses while the Iranians were shutting it down (and yes, I’m Israeli).

      • Mark

        Yes, because we all know how keen Israel is to provide freedom to the masses…

      • EatMyShorts

        Oh snap ! LOOL

    • bobsuruncle

      Droid has already been rooted.

  • Hmm.

    Um. Maybe I am missing something, but broken Kindle DRM and converting to other formats is old news. This was done long ago.

  • Paul

    This has been available since shortly after the Kindle was released!

  • http://www.facebook.com/Drummer85 Ndamukong Suh

    IM IN UR KEN DOLL KRAKEN UR PROTEKSHUNS

    • …

      NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! Leave my barbie out this too.

  • http://burningbird.net Shelley

    Yes, we’ve had that ability for quite a long time, now.

  • jason white

    you would think the person who did this post would know that oh well

  • moog

    No hack it so it supports epub files and we’re set.

  • Justin

    DRM music! Are you kidding me? There is nothing like DRM music today.

  • tome

    help!! Samsung Omnia II SCH-I920?
    how to reset Samsung Omnia II SCH-I920？？？anyone know something about it?
    thank you ! can it work?
    http://www.verizon-cellphones.org/how-to-reset-samsung-omnia-ii-sch-i920.html

  • rederikus

    That’ll teach Bezos to remove 1984 from all the Kindles.

    This sort of thing makes you feel really good.

  • Tim

    You can’t DRM ebooks. It’s too easy just to build a rig to photograph & OCR them.

  • chompdawg

    So, where are the hack instructions and hacked PDF’s

    • http://www.edoubleclicks.com John Green

      i find it not that useful, not worth the money

  • John

    To hack a drm Kindle book you need two things – the hacking script, which yes has been available for a while now, but also the the device pid, the identifier that unlocks the book and without which the script is useless; so for example nobody can hack a Kindle-drm book this way unless they have that number from their own device

    There are documented ways how to find The Kindle pid and the iPhone/Kindle pid, but Amazon released a Kindle for PC app and the achievement described above is to find a way to discover the pid of that one

    So if you own a Kindle or an iPhone and you transfer you drm-Kindle book you use the old ways,but if yo u want not to bother but directly download the KIndle-drm book with K4PC, you need the new thingy…

  • TopofNewYork

    I love these hackers (minus any hacker with bad motives trying to take websites down and stuff but jailbreaking etc Iam all for it). Fight the power! Developing code and cracking code should be protected by the constitution.

  • Smooth

    When News is Not Really News – This just in: This Post is Old Hat!

  • Ron

    Hackers must be bored if they are hacking into peoples Kindles.

  • Alex K

    Already done a long time ago … but not by an israeli which is the whole propagantiste point of this post.

    • Ed

      The achievement described is the way to discover the kindle pid

  • jquest

    Yeah, for a minute I thought they had cracked Topaz, but it looks like it’s still the old mobi crack sort of juiced up. :(

  • http://AirJordan Air Jordan

    you never really know what you can’t really see
    i’ll be there, i’ll be there

  • http://osvandir.blogspot.com manoel.amaral

    Parece ironia, mas os sinais para TV do satélite Amazonas,também já foram pirateados. Viva a pirataria a AzBox, Megabox, Goldbox e outros oxs.
    Adeus as explorações da Sky e TVs a cabo.
    Lembro até que o Presidente Lula queria liberar 144 canais de TV para o povo, mas as TVs a cabo não deixaram. Os piratas fizeram o trabalho. Salve, Salve.
    Manoel.

  • nutflipped

    It has Israeli in it, it must make the news. Remember, they will save us on independence day ;) .

    BTW, before the net, this kind of news was gobbled up as true, but as you can read from the comments (some them from real hackers), this was done before. So this Israeli was just kiddie scripting noob.

    Thumbs down.

blog comments powered by Disqus