Free epubs from Adobe ADEPT DRM

If you were referred here for instructions and don‘t care about the mechanics and underlying problems behind it, jump down to the next heading.

Background

Adobe has been pretty successful in propagating their interpretation of DRM in the publishing sector. They made a big change from Adobe Reader 6 to 7, which included an update of all certificated.

[I still have book which I can read only with a certain older version of the reader. A version that is not able to run on Windows 7, for example. Now *I* need to make sure I can read this book by setting up a virtual machine with some old operating system and an antique version of a software just to be able to open that ebook. Repeat after me: DRM is bad for the customer!]

Adobes newest brainchild is the "Adobe Digital Experience Protection Technology", braggingly shortened to "Adobe ADEPT".

It's the first implementation (that I am aware of) of DRM for the epub format. It also supports PDF and is - of course - well integrated in the Adobe Suite of programs.

ADEPT is also an Application Service Provider model, where the buyer of an ebook only gets a "voucher" (Adobe-speak; its a well-formed text file named "URLLink.acsm") from the book seller, and Adobe provides the reader and the infrastructure to present the content, the book, to the reader.

That way, Adobe - and the publisher - are always in control of the ebook. The right to read / print / copy&paste could be changed or removed in an instant, for example, if the account with which the book was bought is compromised, if the publisher goes out of business, if a payment hasn't been made, etc.

Read: If either Adobe or the publisher think you are not entitled to the book anymore, it's gone for good. Have a nice day.

Apart from the backend infrastructure of servers and authentication mechanisms, Adobe provides the software for managing and reading the ebooks. It is called "Adobe Digital Edition". [Good choice. "ADE" means "Good Bye" in german]

It opens the "voucher", knows what book has been bought and would download the content. For that to do, the application itself has to be authorized to download the content and the customer has to be authorized to be allowed to read the book.

So to work, a customer needs

- an account at the book store

- download and install Adobe Digital Editions

- download and install Adobe Flash (since that is the underlying framework for ADE)

and optionally

- an account at Adobe ("Adobe ID")

- authorize ADE with the Adobe Accout for one of six machines

You should go for the optional steps if you plan to setup or change computers eventually in your life, since otherwise your ebooks won't be readable anymore...

Then the customer can

- log in with the account at the book store

- buy a book

- receive a "voucher" (URLLink.acsm)

- open voucher

  -- which itself opens ADE

  -- which asks the Adobe backend for the encryption of the ebook with the customers Adobe ID

  -- downloads the ebook to a directory named Mac: Digital Editions / Win: My Digital Editions

  -- decrypts the ebook

  -- display s the ebook

Fortunately, some very bright people have thought about the Adobe ADEPT DRM, have found a flaw in the architecture to exploit and have written some small python scripts to

a) fetch the users key with which Adobe encrypts the ebooks for this user and

b) decrypt an ebooks with the user key to another file on disk,

thus making an unencrypted, DRM-stripped version of the original file.

After that, neither the user key nor the original DRM-encrypted ebook are needed.

The saved key should be kept in a safe place. With it, all future ebooks protected with ADEPT DRM can be decrypted.

This works for PDF- as well as epub-ebooks, though the following example concentrates on epub.

Follow the steps to free the purchased ebook from its DRM on a Windows machine

First, the installation orgy...

1.a Install Adobe Flash, as this is needed for Adobe Digital Editions via http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/

1.b Since Adobe Flash will only be available if the Adobe Downloader is used, install that shit as well.

1.c Install Adobe Digital Editions via http://www.adobe.com/products/digitaleditions/

1.d Once this is installed you'll be prompted about "authorizing" your copy of Digital Editions. This must be done to create your own personal key. You can use either of the activation options. Using "this machine only" saves you setting up an Adobe ID.

2.a Installed Python via http://www.python.org/download/

2.b Install PyCrypto via http://www.voidspace.org.uk/python/modules.shtml#pycrypto

3. Download the decryption scripts from the post right below this one and put them all in one directory.

Now, the decryption...

4.a Run ineptkey.pyw

This fetches the key and writes it to disk as "ADEPTKEY.DER " in the same directory ineptkey.pyw is in.

4.b Run ineptepub.pyw

A small dialog pops up with three parameters:

- Key file ADEPTKEY.DER

Should be filled automatically, if the ADEPTKEY.DER-file and ineptepub.pyw are in the same directory

If not, klick on the …-button on the right hand side and hunt for the file.

- Input file

Klick on the …-button on the right hand side and choose your ebook. You'll find it in "My Documents\My Digital Editions".

If you just can't find it, open Digital Editions and look the the proporties of the ebook. It tells you where it's saved.

- Output file

Klick on the …-button on the right hand side and enter a filename. Something like BLA.EPUB would be sensible.

Done. Open your newly created, DRM-stripped epub in your favorite application. Read it whenever and on what device you want.

Credits:

These scripts as well as the instructions have been made available by some very intelligent people.

I've elaborated on the instructions given by Ilovecabbage and others for the sole purpose to remind me how I proceeded even if the original websites vanish from the interwebs...

All credit goes to i-u2665-cabbages!

Source:

- http://i-u2665-cabbages.blogspot.com/2009/02/circumventing-adobe-adept-drm-for-epub.html

- http://www.adobe.com/support/digital...tions1x7x1.exe (Thanks Anson!)