Hackers Break DRM Protection On Amazon Kindle

Hackers from US and Israel claimed to have broken the copyright shell surrounding Amazon’s popular Kindle e-reader, an exploit that enables e-books stored on it to be transferred as PDF files on to other devices.

The hack kicked off as an open challenge thrown up by an online forum for geeks to discover ways to transfer e-books published in the Amazon’s proprietary format on other competing devices.

The challenge was accepted by hackers, named "Gabba" and "i-love-cabbages", and they delivered a working program for it in eight days.

The Israeli hacker claimed to have designed a tool to transfer Kindle-e-books as PDF files on other devices.

The US hacker i-love-cabbages has created a program, codenamed as "Unswindle", which paves the way for the conversion of the books stored in the Kindle for PC app into some other format. 

Once the application "unswindle" is installed, users can convert the Amazon’s proprietary AZW files into Mobi format, allowing users to enjoy reading their favourite books in a way they prefer.

The hack further raised questions about the kind of security being offered by Digital Rights Management (DRM) schemes, which at times prevent the customers from freely enjoying content that they have purchased legally.

This come in the series of several DRM hacks, the most popular being the iTunes copyright reverse engineering performed by Jon Lech Johansen AKA DVD Jon in 2006.