US Programmer Unlocks Content of "Owner Exclusive" Secured Microsoft Reader eBooks

By Planet eBook Editor
August 31, 2001

An anonymous US programmer claims to have circumvented the encryption used to lock "Owner Exclusive" Microsoft Reader eBooks (.LIT) to a particular computer, unlocking the contents and making it available outside of Microsoft Reader. Currently Microsoft's highest, "Owner Exclusive" (Level 5 DRM) encryption limits users to storing their eBooks on two computers.

Like the recent program released by ElcomSoft to remove the encryption from PDF-based eBooks, the US programmer claims he wants to circumvent the security gain better access to the eBooks he purchases.

Unlike ElcomSoft the program developer has not made his tool available to the public and, according to the Technology Review article author Wade Roush, he has no intention of doing so. Additionally, unlike the ElcomSoft program, the program does not strip away the security (in ElcomSoft's case, simply making a secured PDF file unsecured), it instead leaves the user with a series of files much like the ones a publisher would typically use to build the Microsoft Reader (LIT) ebook in the first place.

LIT files are generally created using HTML or OeB (a similar, XML-based markup language designed for ebook publishing) and image files. According to Wade Roush, the author of the original Technology Review article and eBookWeb editor, the "software works by recovering a series of well-hidden encryption keys specific to each activated copy of Reader and to each owner-exclusive e-book. It essentially reverses the process that publishers follow when they assemble source files such as text and images into a final e-book. The software dumps unprotected copies of these files into a new folder on the user's computer—as the programmer demonstrated to Technology Review using an actual owner-exclusive e-book purchased from a major online bookstore."

The news comes not long after Microsoft's decision not to go ahead with its promised update to MS Reader 1.0 which would mean Pocket PC users would gain access to all eBooks (the Pocket PC users are not able to open eBook that have been secured with Microsoft's Level 5 DRM.

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