[joshr]

I bought a book that uses Adobe's suffocating DRM and although I was willing to deal with the DRM I expect it should at least work. Supposedly it will work with Acrobat Reader 7, it doesn't work with 8, the problem being that you can't install reader 7 on an intel mac. So what do I do?

[zionlion]

joshr, on Feb 6 2008, 05:42 PM, said:

I bought a book that uses Adobe's suffocating DRM and although I was willing to deal with the DRM I expect it should at least work. Supposedly it will work with Acrobat Reader 7, it doesn't work with 8, the problem being that you can't install reader 7 on an intel mac. So what do I do?

I had no idea that DRM existed on PDF's, perhaps windows may help? or perhaps look at something more "indie" on the mac perhaps one of the free comic book readers?

I learned something today, thanks :-)

[joshr]

zionlion, on Feb 6 2008, 10:21 PM, said:

I had no idea that DRM existed on PDF's, perhaps windows may help? or perhaps look at something more "indie" on the mac perhaps one of the free comic book readers?

I learned something today, thanks :-)

It does exist and it can be suffocating. The particular book I bought doesn't allow printing, copy/paste, and can't be backed up [not sure exactly what that means]. I would be more than willing to use one of the more "indie" pdf readers but I don't know of any that support the DRM. Window's would certainly help since I could then install reader 7 which will apparently work. Problem is I don't have and don't want windows on my mac. Frankly I would liek to find a way to break the drm using either an older mac or a windows machine. That way I could then move the content I paid for over to my macbook pro and use it like I would any other pdf. On a side note if you check the user forums over at adobe almost every message is about how their stuff doesn't work. http://www.adobeforu...webx/.3bc43717/

[zionlion]

Its probably a long shot Josh but have you tried Bit-torrent, maybe they have a cracked version and ethically you would be more than covered to do this, not that you need mine or anyone else's sanction:-)

I have done some sniffing around and it amazes me how many honest ppl this sort of DRM hammers and as far as cracking EBook DRM it seems little interest is taken in this media so many books are just scanned and/or stolen from public libraries, yet another winning formula for DRM!!

I have looked at some eBook readers for the Mac but cant find any that would support DRM/authentication.

I have a windows system and if you do find away round the problem and I can help give me a shout :-)

[Huskermn]

I suppose it would be a major pain in the a.. but you could screen shot the whole thing.

Might be able to use Automator.

[ithonicfury]

If your going to try screenshotting it, you could rotate the screen in the display preferences so that you can get a whole page on the screen with as little zooming out as possible to hopefully minimize any quality loss.

[TimothyMDean]

joshr, on Feb 6 2008, 11:42 AM, said:

I bought a book that uses Adobe's suffocating DRM and although I was willing to deal with the DRM I expect it should at least work. Supposedly it will work with Acrobat Reader 7, it doesn't work with 8, the problem being that you can't install reader 7 on an intel mac. So what do I do?

It may not work in your case, but worth try...

The PDF documents I get from my healthcare benefits have editing features enabled but file saving disabled. I believe that the disability to save the modified files is done with Adobe's DRM. What I found (by accident) was that I was able to circumvent those restrictions by opening in Apple's Preview application. I was then able to save even though the Adobe DRM is supposed to disable it.

- Tim

[ithonicfury]

The not being able to save edits in your case was probably due to the fact that Acrobat Reader cant save, only Acrobat Professional can. Not sure if you were using Acrobat professional to open them, but Im guessing it wasnt the DRM preventing it since the DRM would prevent opening of the document in the first place in any other program other then Acrobat.

[isaiah1112]

There is a command line utility called guapdf that claims to break password protected PDFs... However, it can take forever to break the key (4+ days) as it actually tries to strong-arm any protected files. I am not sure how it would do with a DRM encryption but it could be worth a try.

Oh... and you didn't hear this from me...

This post has been edited by isaiah1112: 07 February 2008 - 11:57 AM

[joshr]

Okay so the way DRM'd ebooks work is you download a small .etd file. Then you open that in Acrobat 7 and something happens, unsure as to what since I don't have 7, or you open it in Adobe Digital editions v1.0 and it downloads the book. I did manage to get the book downloaded and opened so at least I am not out the money. I have it on my computer and it's working the way it is supposed to. Unfortunately the way it is supposed to is still pretty bad. Reading in digital editions is nothing like the experience of acrobat. You could screen shot it, that's the analog whole, but we are talking about a textbook that's hundreds of pages long. There was some chatter out there about apple's preview being able to help but I don't know how I would open it in preview. I don't know where the file for the actual book is even stored on my computer. I would also use bittorent unfortunately it's a history text book. Not much demand.

This post has been edited by joshr: 08 February 2008 - 08:36 AM

[groomsy57]

joshr, on Feb 8 2008, 04:35 PM, said:

Okay so the way DRM'd ebooks work is you download a small .etd file. Then you open that in Acrobat 7 and something happens, unsure as to what since I don't have 7, or you open it in Adobe Digital editions v1.0 and it downloads the book. I did manage to get the book downloaded and opened so at least I am not out the money. I have it on my computer and it's working the way it is supposed to. Unfortunately the way it is supposed to is still pretty bad. Reading in digital editions is nothing like the experience of acrobat. You could screen shot it, that's the analog whole, but we are talking about a textbook that's hundreds of pages long. There was some chatter out there about apple's preview being able to help but I don't know how I would open it in preview. I don't know where the file for the actual book is even stored on my computer. I would also use bittorent unfortunately it's a history text book. Not much demand.

In regards to Preview, when you go to the file, can you secondary click on it and see if there is an option of "Show Package Contents"? Perhaps they made a wrapper for a pdf file that helps with their DRM. See if you can do that and find a .pdf file inside the package once you open it. That's really the only thing I can think of.

[joshr]

groomsy57, on Feb 9 2008, 01:09 AM, said:

In regards to Preview, when you go to the file, can you secondary click on it and see if there is an option of "Show Package Contents"? Perhaps they made a wrapper for a pdf file that helps with their DRM. See if you can do that and find a .pdf file inside the package once you open it. That's really the only thing I can think of.

That's not a bad idea but I have no idea where it is on my system. The .etd file just initiates the download. Think of it like a torrent tracker. Once it's on your system though I have no idea what happens to it.

[groomsy57]

joshr, on Feb 9 2008, 05:19 PM, said:

That's not a bad idea but I have no idea where it is on my system. The .etd file just initiates the download. Think of it like a torrent tracker. Once it's on your system though I have no idea what happens to it.

The only thing I can think of to find it would be using Spotlight in some form or fashion. Sorry I can't be of more help.

[joshr]

groomsy57, on Feb 9 2008, 06:30 PM, said:

The only thing I can think of to find it would be using Spotlight in some form or fashion. Sorry I can't be of more help.

Okay I did find it. It just saves as a .pdf. However you can't open it acrobat 8 because it just send you to the adobe site to download digital editions. You also can't open it in preview as it just gives you some blank pages and garbled table of contents. So preview is no good, no show package contents, anyone else got any ideas?

[apparition]

There are two basically types of protection Adobe allows 1) password protected file and 2) user imposed limitations. The first one can be much hard the second one is not problem to crack. In the windows world there are tons of programs that will crack item 2. I got really pissed off when my financial service company started using limitations in MY STATEMENTS. I purchased a $15 program and the limitations were gone.


Since I just recently switched I have not investigated the Mac programs that do this but using Google here are two links.

http://www.soft14.co...886_Review.html
http://www.dailysoft...PDFRecover.html

I do not vouch for this program but I would suggest you look around.

[joshr]

apparition, on Feb 14 2008, 07:15 PM, said:

There are two basically types of protection Adobe allows 1) password protected file and 2) user imposed limitations. The first one can be much hard the second one is not problem to crack. In the windows world there are tons of programs that will crack item 2. I got really pissed off when my financial service company started using limitations in MY STATEMENTS. I purchased a $15 program and the limitations were gone.


Since I just recently switched I have not investigated the Mac programs that do this but using Google here are two links.

http://www.soft14.co...886_Review.html
http://www.dailysoft...PDFRecover.html

I do not vouch for this program but I would suggest you look around.

You are talking about something completely different from what this discussion is about. Password protected pdf's are no problem, lot's of free software out there to break acrobat passwords. I have no idea about the user limitations stuff but it sounds like it is also no big deal to get around. However what this discussion is about is DRM'd ebooks. This is a totally different problem and doesn't work the way you are thinking at all. These types of files don't even open in acrobat anymore since acrobat 8.