*This post was blatantly copied from ActivePolitic To help people circumvent recent European blockades against thepiratebay, the Piratebay is willing to begin playing wack-a-mole with IPs, the same way they did with Itailian and Belgian DNS blocks. A new IP has been setup, that is not currently blocked in the UK or Holland, and it's just waiting for people to create their own domains to point to it. http://194.71.107.80:80 is a piratebay light, pre-configured to work with proxies, it's the first IP outside of the current government block zones. However, it is limited. "No login/register/comments/upload/torrents, just search/browse and magnets", according to someone familiar with the subject. By setting up a light IP, it makes it easier to create proxies to browse the site. For example, previously when browsing thepiratebay with google translate, it wasn't possible to search and browse.. With the new IP it is, and it works nicely. Also, for those not technically savvy enough to create a proxy, or for those who want to help but simply do not have the bandwidth, a simple redirect will suffice for now.

*This post was blatantly copied from ActivePolitic

To help people circumvent recent European blockades against thepiratebay, the Piratebay is willing to begin playing wack-a-mole with IPs, the same way they did with Itailian and Belgian DNS blocks. A new IP has been setup, that is not currently blocked in the UK or Holland, and it’s just waiting for people to create their own domains to point to it.

http://194.71.107.80:80 is a piratebay light, pre-configured to work with proxies, it’s the first IP outside of the current government block zones. However, it is limited. “No login/register/comments/upload/torrents, just search/browse and magnets”, according to someone familiar with the subject. By setting up a light IP, it makes it easier to create proxies to browse the site. For example, previously when browsing thepiratebay with google translate, it wasn’t possible to search and browse.. With the new IP it is, and it works nicely. Also, for those not technically savvy enough to create a proxy, or for those who want to help but simply do not have the bandwidth, a simple redirect will suffice for now.

In the aftermath of the UK's recent attempt to censor access to The Pirate Bay (which promptly backfired), the galaxy's most resilient bittorrent indexer, Telecomix agents have compiled a list of proxies which netizens affected by the block may use to bypass it and access the popular site that doesn't actually host content which is subject to copyright law. While Telecomix agents are generally quite good at filtering out garbage, beware of scammy proxies which are out to impose a toll. Following is the Telecomix list in its complete formate at the time of this post: http://snipurl.com/tpb2 - read this If you've set up a proxy using guide url below for example then add them to this pad, so this list can be up to date. Also let this pad know if your ISP has blocked any of these proxies in your own country. Tutorial: How to make your own proxy to The Pirate Bay and how to stop censorship (*Nix/Mac/Win) http://about.piratereverse.info/proxy/ NOTE: These are complete. Complete proxies are those that serve static content through  themselves, so if an ISP blocks static.thepiratebay.se then the images  and CSS content will still work. Proxies that are not complete still connect to static.thepiratebay.se to download images and CSS but all other content should work. URL Server location* https://tpb.pirateparty.org.uk/ « highly recommended! | UK http://thepiratebay.se.proxy.piratenpartij.nl/ « highly recommended! | Netherlands http://www.fucktimkuik.org/ | Various locations cross the globe https://piratereverse.info/ | Sweden http://unblockedpiratebay.com/ | Singapore http://labaia.ws/ | Switzerland http://www.pirateproxy.net/ | Canada http://lanunbay.org/ | US http://malaysiabay.org/ | US http://alt.ragerik.info/ | US http://tpb.genyaa.org/ |  US http://tpb.nothingishere.net/ | US http://theunblockedbay.info/ | US http://dewilligen.net/ | NL http://www.ikwilthepiratebay.nl | NL http://tpb.soundreactor.ch | DE http://freedomto.us | FR http://thepiratebay.se.seventhproxy.com | Sweden http://anonymouse.org/cgi-bin/anon-www.cgi/http://thepiratebay.se | Various locations http://tpb.europeancensorship.eu/nph-tpb.cgi/http/thepiratebay.se/ | Sweden http://all4xs.net/repress/thepiratebay.se | NL/UK/US http://depiraatbaai.be/ | SE http://thepiratebay.se.nyud.net/ | US/DE/CH/BR/JP http://www.destroyersim.nl/cgi-bin/cgiproxy/nph-proxy.cgi/00/http/thepiratebay.se/ | US http://www.thepiratebay.musicmarketonline.es | UK http://bay.stryp.in/  | US http://tpb.fl.ax/ | SE http://thepiratebay.se.ipv6.sixxs.org | (ipv6 only) http://thepiratebay.i2p | (i2p network only) UNKNOWN P.S. If anyone has any translations? E-mail them to nospam@piratereverse.info and we'll get them uploaded on http://about.piraterevers e.info/proxy/ *Please add country code behind the proxie. Also check the list before adding. (Thanks) **Blocked because on same network as thepiratebay and same IP range *** Not a proxy - mearly an iframe containing thepiratebay.se http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=en&ie=UTF8&prev=_t&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=cy&tl=en&twu=1&u=http://thepiratebay.se/&usg=ALkJrhhYOLGqCa1nhiaKcoXFw70BHdftkg | Various Locations cross the globe thanks to google <3 More information follow these twitter accounts: @tpb_stun @tpbdotorg @piratereverse

In the aftermath of the UK’s recent attempt to censor access to The Pirate Bay (which promptly backfired), the galaxy’s most resilient bittorrent indexer, Telecomix agents have compiled a list of proxies which netizens affected by the block may use to bypass it and access the popular site that doesn’t actually host content which is subject to copyright law.

While Telecomix agents are generally quite good at filtering out garbage, beware of scammy proxies which are out to impose a toll.

Following is the Telecomix list in its complete formate at the time of this post:

edX is the name of a new online learning platform developed and led by leaders from MIT and Harvard University. "Features will include: self-paced learning, online discussion groups, wiki-based collaborative learning, assessment of learning as a student progresses through a course, and online laboratories." The founders intend to revise and improve upon this platform as time goes by. "Because it is open source, the platform will be continuously improved." As it stands, quality educational material is reserved for the elites of society; those of us who are wealthy enough to buy an education and those of us who are smart enough to find pirated educational content. Unfortunately, the rest of us are screwed. It may only be the beginning, but extending access to educational material which helps people of all financial circumstances to develop practical skills in this way could set a major precedent for universities everywhere to follow. Another great aspect of this way of providing educational tools is that it begins to put education back into the hands of society. As student learning is evaluated and the edX program is revised, it will ultimately be the students who shape the model of education. "The platform will also serve as a laboratory from which data will be gathered to better understand how students learn." The peer reviewed nature of relying on a wiki database means that the quality of information will ultimately be held to the higher standards of being subject to scrutiny by many as opposed to a few. It leave little room for personal agendas while putting much more emphasis on providing accurate information. Perhaps we will see a day when all universities collaborate the same way MIT and Harvard are doing to create a massive online collection of educational tools and content. You can visit edX to at http://www.edxonline.org/

edX is the name of a new online learning platform developed and led by leaders from MIT and Harvard University.

“Features will include: self-paced learning, online discussion groups, wiki-based collaborative learning, assessment of learning as a student progresses through a course, and online laboratories.”

The founders intend to revise and improve upon this platform as time goes by. “Because it is open source, the platform will be continuously improved.”

As it stands, quality educational material is reserved for the elites of society; those of us who are wealthy enough to buy an education and those of us who are smart enough to find pirated educational content. Unfortunately, the rest of us are screwed.

It may only be the beginning, but extending access to educational material which helps people of all financial circumstances to develop practical skills in this way could set a major precedent for universities everywhere to follow.

Another great aspect of this way of providing educational tools is that it begins to put education back into the hands of society. As student learning is evaluated and the edX program is revised, it will ultimately be the students who shape the model of education.

“The platform will also serve as a laboratory from which data will be gathered to better understand how students learn.”

The peer reviewed nature of relying on a wiki database means that the quality of information will ultimately be held to the higher standards of being subject to scrutiny by many as opposed to a few. It leave little room for personal agendas while putting much more emphasis on providing accurate information.

Perhaps we will see a day when all universities collaborate the same way MIT and Harvard are doing to create a massive online collection of educational tools and content.

You can visit edX to at http://www.edxonline.org/

After cutting ties with a major record label, Amanda Palmer has recorded a new album with her band Grand Theft Orchestra and is now looking to promote it by her own efforts (and a little help from some friends). Amanda has always embraced the busker community, often inviting people via her blog to come support nearby buskers at whatever venue she is performing at. She now seems to be embracing the internet for what it is: The busiest downtown street that has ever been busked! Just ask Jimmy Wales. She is asking for support from fans and I'll extend that to anyone who shares a vision of a not-so-distant-future where we don't need these dinosaur labels to produce great music. Is this what that future looks like? Amanda appears quite confident that it is. Check out her video at kickstarter.com and let's find out... Being that she is married to my all time favorite author, Neil Gaiman, I wonder if she won't take a tip from another successful author, Paulo Coelho, who attributes much of his success to sharing his work via bittorrent in order to reach a wider audience. Let's hope so as it would set a positive example for other independant artists, such as Dan Bull and a plethora of others who have turn to The Pirate Bay to help promote their new music through the new Promo Bay service. Well that's about it. Good luck to you Amanda Palmer and happy birthday from le Green Pirate! Update: Amanda Palmer has managed to raise over twice the minimum $100,000 at kickstarter. As of the time of this posting, the funds were at around $35,000. At the time of this update, funds have reached $212,813 with 30 days still left! Congrats Amanda! It looks like the future is here.

After cutting ties with a major record label, Amanda Palmer has recorded a new album with her band Grand Theft Orchestra and is now looking to promote it by her own efforts (and a little help from some friends). Amanda has always embraced the busker community, often inviting people via her blog to come support nearby buskers at whatever venue she is performing at.

She now seems to be embracing the internet for what it is: The busiest downtown street that has ever been busked! Just ask Jimmy Wales.

She is asking for support from fans and I’ll extend that to anyone who shares a vision of a not-so-distant-future where we don’t need these dinosaur labels to produce great music. Is this what that future looks like? Amanda appears quite confident that it is. Check out her video at kickstarter.com and let’s find out…

Being that she is married to my all time favorite author, Neil Gaiman, I wonder if she won’t take a tip from another successful author, Paulo Coelho, who attributes much of his success to sharing his work via bittorrent in order to reach a wider audience.

Let’s hope so as it would set a positive example for other independant artists, such as Dan Bull and a plethora of others who have turn to The Pirate Bay to help promote their new music through the new Promo Bay service.

Well that’s about it. Good luck to you Amanda Palmer and happy birthday from le Green Pirate!

Update: Amanda Palmer has managed to raise over twice the minimum $100,000 at kickstarter. As of the time of this posting, the funds were at around $35,000. At the time of this update, funds have reached $212,813 with 30 days still left! Congrats Amanda! It looks like the future is here.

This weekend, the first Kopimist wedding was held for a couple who practices the sacred ritual of copying. The couple has vowed to share their love, knowledge and feelings together for as long as they both shall live, until the information no longer exists. You can see photos of this wonderful occasion which is also a milestone for the young religion at the First Kopimist Blog of .se and enjoy the video below!

This weekend, the first Kopimist wedding was held for a couple who practices the sacred ritual of copying. The couple has vowed to share their love, knowledge and feelings together for as long as they both shall live, until the information no longer exists.

You can see photos of this wonderful occasion which is also a milestone for the young religion at the First Kopimist Blog of .se and enjoy the video below!

Congress is currently debating and preparing to vote on CISPA. According to supporters of CISPA, the bill that allows corporations to spy on Americans without the same restrictions of due process which government agencies are bound to follow, privacy invasion is ok as long as it is only used for circumstances directly related to "cyber security" and is a "voluntary process." They also feel that having "bipartisan support" make privacy invasion ok. So far the only specific examples of "cyber security" given are "intellectual property theft" and "child pornography". What do you think? Is copyright infringement and the old child porn scare tactic good enough reason to strip the entire nation of its privacy?

Congress is currently debating and preparing to vote on CISPA. According to supporters of CISPA, the bill that allows corporations to spy on Americans without the same restrictions of due process which government agencies are bound to follow, privacy invasion is ok as long as it is only used for circumstances directly related to “cyber security” and is a “voluntary process.” They also feel that having “bipartisan support” make privacy invasion ok.

So far the only specific examples of “cyber security” given are “intellectual property theft” and “child pornography”.

What do you think? Is copyright infringement and the old child porn scare tactic good enough reason to strip the entire nation of its privacy?

Enjoy Dan Bull's new song, FACEBOOK EPIC RAP. Don't forget: Sharing is caring!

Enjoy Dan Bull’s new song, FACEBOOK EPIC RAP. Don’t forget: Sharing is caring!

Green Pirate recently spoke with Dilum Bandara of Colorado State University's Computer Networking Research Laboratory (CNRL) where research is being done to discover new ways in which the power of P2P technology can be leveraged to improve many existing technologies. This one is for futurist nerds, anonymous ciphernauts and anyone else who loves seeing distributed P2P technologies implemented in new ways. CNRL is currently seeking feedback from BitTorrent users as well as developers, researchers and those in various industries which may benefit from CP2P. "How cool would it be if Open Office is online like Google Docs? Though open-source community behind Open Office will be eager to develop an online version, no one is willing to invest in a large datacenter. What if each of us can contribute residual computing, storage, and bandwidth resources in our computing devices to build a globally-distributed virtual datacenter, that can not only run Open Office but also many other FOSS tools?" "CP2P [Collaborative Peer to Peer] system is the heart of such a community-based, cloud computing system that interconnects underutilized computing resources from homes/businesses." According to Bandara, there are some problems with the current cloud model that could be solved by moving to a decentralized model. "P2P clouds will be able to target issues such as centralized data, privacy, proprietary applications, and cascading failures in commercial clouds. CP2P enables a set of community members to contribute their storage and bandwidth to store (encrypted) user files, and a second set of members may contribute their computing power for backend processing, while a third group of resources may enforce security and privacy." For the many people who are now faced with having their data destroyed by what is a foreign government to a portion of them, a decentralized solution may not seem like a bad idea. Researched is also being carried out to find ways of improving the way data is transferred over mobile devices to allow for a powerful means of decentralized mobile communications. "Mobile Social Networks – Value of social networks can be enhanced by allowing users to share diverse resources available in their mobile devices. For example, a person with a basic mobile phone could connect to a friend’s smart phone with GPS capability to locate a nearby ATM. In another example, a group sharing their holiday experiences in a coffee shop could use one of the member’s projection phone to show pictures from others’ mobiles/tablets or stream videos from their home servers." "Moreover, in large social gathering such as carnivals, sports events, or political rallies users’ mobile devices can be used to share hot deals, comments, videos, or vote for a certain resolution without relying on a network infrastructure. CP2P is useful in these applications to aggregate and connect groups of mobile resources based on their users’ social relationships." Already, weather monitoring networks which have found decentralized CP2P technology to be most appropriate have been created. "DCAS – CASA is an emerging dense network of weather radars that collaborate in real time to detect hazardous atmospheric conditions such as tornados and thunderstorms. CP2P-based data fusion provides an attractive implementation choice for CASA real-time radar data fusion, where data is constantly being generated, processed, and pushed and pulled among groups of heterogeneous radars, storage, and processing nodes. The group of radars, processing, and storage elements involved in tracking a particular weather event continues to change as the weather event migrates in both time and space. Moreover, certain rare but severe weather events require specific metrological algorithms and more computation, storage, and bandwidth resources to track and forecast/nowcast about the behavior of those weather events." Fortunately, a CP2P model allows a community to offer up its resources in order to meet these needs and receive early warnings of severe weather patterns such as tornadoes. "A CP2P system can exploit the temporal and spatial diversity of weather events to dynamically aggregate underutilized resources from anywhere in the system to enhance the resource utilization and reduce cost. Similarly, crowd sourced, community-based weather monitoring systems such as weatherunderground.com can benefit from CP2P. Armature methodologists may provide data from their home-based weather stations, while another set of community members may provide computing power to process those data to predict weather, and a third group may provide bandwidth and storage to enable public access those weather predictions." Bandara explains that CP2P is a common solution for multiple applications. "P2P clouds, mobile social networks, and DCAS depend on some form of resource collaboration and strong social networks. These resources are characterized by multiple static and dynamic attributes, e.g., CPU speed, free CPU, memory, bandwidth, operating system, and a list of installed applications/middleware. These multi-attribute resources need to be combined in a timely manner to meet the performance and quality of service requirements of CP2P applications. Yet, it's nontrivial to discover, aggregate, and utilize heterogeneous and dynamic resources that are distributed." "Moreover, characteristics and preferences of user communities need to be understood to better utilize resources provided by users while ensuring their incentives, security, and privacy preferences are not violated. Our goal at Computer Networking Research Laboratory (CNRL) of the Colorado State University, USA is to recognize these foreseen challenges, formalize the problems, understand the resource, user, and community characteristics, and develop fundamental building blocks that other developers, industry, and researchers can build upon." CNRL has been steadily making progress with the development of CP2P and is currently researching ways to create better decentralized search strategies. "To date, we have shown that BitTorrent communities are not isolated, proposed a community-aware caching solution for DHT-based solutions such as BitTorrent, analyzed the characteristics of resources and queries from real-world systems, developed a tool to generate synthetics traces of resources and queries for large-scale performance study of CP2P solutions, analyzed performance of existing resource discovery schemes and illustrated why they fail under real workloads, and developed a solution for large-scale and multi-attribute resource discovery." CP2P researchers are currently reaching out to the BitTorrent community for feedback about how search is commonly performed today. The anonymous, eight question survey (http://www.cnrl.colostate.edu/Projects/CP2P/BTSurvey/) has been extend until April 8th. "Our current survey focuses on user access of multiple BitTorrent search engines/sites with the objective of developing better community-based search strategies. Lots of work needs to be done to realize the full potential of CP2P, and we invite other developers, industry, and researchers to contribute to this vast and emerging field."

Green Pirate recently spoke with Dilum Bandara of Colorado State University’s Computer Networking Research Laboratory (CNRL) where research is being done to discover new ways in which the power of P2P technology can be leveraged to improve many existing technologies. This one is for futurist nerds, anonymous ciphernauts and anyone else who loves seeing distributed P2P technologies implemented in new ways. CNRL is currently seeking feedback from BitTorrent users as well as developers, researchers and those in various industries which may benefit from CP2P.

“How cool would it be if Open Office is online like Google Docs? Though open-source community behind Open Office will be eager to develop an online version, no one is willing to invest in a large datacenter. What if each of us can contribute residual computing, storage, and bandwidth resources in our computing devices to build a globally-distributed virtual datacenter, that can not only run Open Office but also many other FOSS tools?”

“CP2P [Collaborative Peer to Peer] system is the heart of such a community-based, cloud computing system that interconnects underutilized computing resources from homes/businesses.”

According to Bandara, there are some problems with the current cloud model that could be solved by moving to a decentralized model.

“P2P clouds will be able to target issues such as centralized data, privacy, proprietary applications, and cascading failures in commercial clouds. CP2P enables a set of community members to contribute their storage and bandwidth to store (encrypted) user files, and a second set of members may contribute their computing power for backend processing, while a third group of resources may enforce security and privacy.”

For the many people who are now faced with having their data destroyed by what is a foreign government to a portion of them, a decentralized solution may not seem like a bad idea.

Researched is also being carried out to find ways of improving the way data is transferred over mobile devices to allow for a powerful means of decentralized mobile communications.

“Mobile Social Networks – Value of social networks can be enhanced by allowing users to share diverse resources available in their mobile devices. For example, a person with a basic mobile phone could connect to a friend’s smart phone with GPS capability to locate a nearby ATM. In another example, a group sharing their holiday experiences in a coffee shop could use one of the member’s projection phone to show pictures from others’ mobiles/tablets or stream videos from their home servers.”

“Moreover, in large social gathering such as carnivals, sports events, or political rallies users’ mobile devices can be used to share hot deals, comments, videos, or vote for a certain resolution without relying on a network infrastructure. CP2P is useful in these applications to aggregate and connect groups of mobile resources based on their users’ social relationships.”

Already, weather monitoring networks which have found decentralized CP2P technology to be most appropriate have been created.

“DCAS – CASA is an emerging dense network of weather radars that collaborate in real time to detect hazardous atmospheric conditions such as tornados and thunderstorms. CP2P-based data fusion provides an attractive implementation choice for CASA real-time radar data fusion, where data is constantly being generated, processed, and pushed and pulled among groups of heterogeneous radars, storage, and processing nodes. The group of radars, processing, and storage elements involved in tracking a particular weather event continues to change as the weather event migrates in both time and space. Moreover, certain rare but severe weather events require specific metrological algorithms and more computation, storage, and bandwidth resources to track and forecast/nowcast about the behavior of those weather events.”

Fortunately, a CP2P model allows a community to offer up its resources in order to meet these needs and receive early warnings of severe weather patterns such as tornadoes.

“A CP2P system can exploit the temporal and spatial diversity of weather events to dynamically aggregate underutilized resources from anywhere in the system to enhance the resource utilization and reduce cost. Similarly, crowd sourced, community-based weather monitoring systems such as weatherunderground.com can benefit from CP2P. Armature methodologists may provide data from their home-based weather stations, while another set of community members may provide computing power to process those data to predict weather, and a third group may provide bandwidth and storage to enable public access those weather predictions.”

Bandara explains that CP2P is a common solution for multiple applications.

“P2P clouds, mobile social networks, and DCAS depend on some form of resource collaboration and strong social networks. These resources are characterized by multiple static and dynamic attributes, e.g., CPU speed, free CPU, memory, bandwidth, operating system, and a list of installed applications/middleware. These multi-attribute resources need to be combined in a timely manner to meet the performance and quality of service requirements of CP2P applications. Yet, it’s nontrivial to discover, aggregate, and utilize heterogeneous and dynamic resources that are distributed.”

“Moreover, characteristics and preferences of user communities need to be understood to better utilize resources provided by users while ensuring their incentives, security, and privacy preferences are not violated. Our goal at Computer Networking Research Laboratory (CNRL) of the Colorado State University, USA is to recognize these foreseen challenges, formalize the problems, understand the resource, user, and community characteristics, and develop fundamental building blocks that other developers, industry, and researchers can build upon.”

CNRL has been steadily making progress with the development of CP2P and is currently researching ways to create better decentralized search strategies.

“To date, we have shown that BitTorrent communities are not isolated, proposed a community-aware caching solution for DHT-based solutions such as BitTorrent, analyzed the characteristics of resources and queries from real-world systems, developed a tool to generate synthetics traces of resources and queries for large-scale performance study of CP2P solutions, analyzed performance of existing resource discovery schemes and illustrated why they fail under real workloads, and developed a solution for large-scale and multi-attribute resource discovery.”

CP2P researchers are currently reaching out to the BitTorrent community for feedback about how search is commonly performed today. The anonymous, eight question survey (http://www.cnrl.colostate.edu/Projects/CP2P/BTSurvey/) has been extend until April 8th.

“Our current survey focuses on user access of multiple BitTorrent search engines/sites with the objective of developing better community-based search strategies. Lots of work needs to be done to realize the full potential of CP2P, and we invite other developers, industry, and researchers to contribute to this vast and emerging field.”

Due to the overwhelming expectation of April Fool's day pranks today, the famous day of shenanigans has been postponed until May 1st when most people will have forgotten about it entirely. The only exceptions will be in Denmark and Sweden where people will actually celebrate the day of trollery today instead of the usual May 1. April April din dumma sill, jag kan lura dig vart jag vill!

Due to the overwhelming expectation of April Fool’s day pranks today, the famous day of shenanigans has been postponed until May 1st when most people will have forgotten about it entirely. The only exceptions will be in Denmark and Sweden where people will actually celebrate the day of trollery today instead of the usual May 1. April April din dumma sill, jag kan lura dig vart jag vill!

Using WINE in linux, you can turn that DRM laden .acsm file into a readable .epub for your Nook or other device, whether Adobe likes it or not! You are here because you either bought an ebook or borrowed one from your local library only to be left with a useless .acsm file. You run a free, open source operating system that is not supported by Adobe and all those other tutorials on the internet insist that you succumb to using Windows proprietary software. Never! Still, you are left wondering, "What is this .acsm file and where the hell is my book?" (If you are sufficiently annoyed and ready to begin, then skip to the tutorial below.) The bad news: A .acsm file is not a book. It is similar to a .torrent file. In other words, .acsm is a filetype that tells Adobe Digital Editions to download the actual book file, which will be a .epub. Said .epub will contain DRM (Digital Rights Management) that will cause it to self destruct and prevent copying to or reading it on any device which Adobe fails to authorize. If you are running Adobe Digital Editions via WINE on linux, then it will certainly fail to detect and authorize your device. It will also fail to recognize the .acsm file because you're running it from a nigh-emulator and one does not simply-double click a file and have it opened by the associated program into Mordor! Or, you know... whatever epic tale it is you're trying to read. The worse news: This means you will either have to say goodbye to the money you just wasted on a useless file or go through way more effort than is reasonable just to read a document. The good news: You can, in fact, access the book you paid for and transfer it to other devices. The first time is the most tedious. After that you will be better prepared to strip that nasty DRM from ebooks you buy in the future. That is, assuming you ever spend another dime on an ebook after this. Note: From here on out, Adobe Digital Editions is referred to as ADEs, pronounced "AIDS". Because, like the disease, it is a terrible plague that the world would be much better off without. Unlike the disease, DRM is not as easy to protect yourself against and affects a lot more people by infecting otherwise healthy content. There is no safe way to use DRM. For the first time ever, abstinence really is the answer. Begin Tutorial Acquire and Prepare Your Tools Download Digital Editions Stand-Alone Installer: You will have to go here and make and create an account with Adobe or login if you have a current account. Wow... even this step is more tedious than it should be. Install ADEs with WINE: Right click on the .exe you just downloaded (should be something like digitaleditions_172.exe) and select Properties tab. Check the box next to "make the file executable" and click ok. The installation process should begin. Don't bother opening ADEs yet / close it if it launches. Download python-2.6.2.msi Install python-2.6.2.msi Must be installed using WINE regardless of whether you have python installed on your linux distro. Notice it is a .msi which will download and install the files, but you must enter the following command in your terminal to run a .msi in WINE (Yes, I RTFM). Don't forget to cd to the directory your .msi is located: msiexec /i python-2.6.2.msi Download and Install PyCrypto Download pycrypto-2.1.0.win32-py2.6.exe. Right-click -> Properties tab -> check box to make executable. Right-click and run with WINE to install. Create a New Directory and Download Inept Scripts Make sure you can view hidden directories by pressing ctrl + H. Create a directory called "inept" in your /home/user/.wine/drive_c/ directory (so WINE can find it when you run it later). To download the two scripts, Right-click each link and Save link as... Remove ".txt" from the file names and save to the ~/.wine/drive_c/inept/ dir you just created: ineptkey.pyw and ineptepub.pyw Take a Break I'm not kidding here. Just getting prepared has been a lot of work. I recommend you walk around for a few minutes, breathe, relax. There is plenty waiting for you when you get back. Even Sherlock Holmes was at his best while puffing his pipe or playing his violin. Administer the Cure for ADEs Place booktitle.acsm under your WINE Directory Move your .acsm file to some place on your faux C: directory, probably located at /home/user/.wine/drive_c/ Run ADEs in WINE via Command Line cd to the Adobe directory which contains digitaleditions.exe. For me it accessed with: cd ~/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/Adobe/Adobe\ Digital\ Editions/ Run ADEs on the .acsm file from terminal and it should automatically download the epub. ADEs is supposed to be a Windows program. You must enter the file path to the directory where you just placed the .acsm file using Windows syntax. Notice that every time a "\" or " " empty space appears in the file path, it is preceded by a "\". See here for details. Example: wine digitaleditions.exe C:\\acsm\ folder\\filename.acsm Get Your Readable epub With DRM This should download a DRM laden epub and open it in the ADEs library. The actual epub is stored at: /home/user/.wine/drive_c/users/user/My Documents/My Digital Editions For our faux Windows purposes, remember this Windows version of the same file path. You will need it soon.: Z:\home\user\My Digital Editions Run Ineptkey Script cd to your python.exe directory: cd ~/.wine/drive_c/Python26 Run inpetkey.pyw using your WINE version of python (will not work if you run the local, linux version of python!): wine python.exe C:\\inept\\ineptkey.pyw You should get a message confirming that adeptkey.der was created. It should be in the same folder as ineptkey.pyw, so confirm it exists: ls ~/.wine/drive_c/inept Run Ineptepub.exe Run ineptepub.exe via python.exe via WINE: wine python.exe C:\\inept\\ineptepub.pyw The following prompt should pop up with key file, input and output fields: Key File: Navigate to adeptkey.der (in this case it is in ~/.wine/Drive_c/inept/). If you can't browse to the hidden .wine directory in this Windows program, then move adeptkey.der to a directory that is not hidden and try again. Input Path: Browse and select the folder that ADEs has saved the DRM infected epub file(s) to. All files in the folder you choose will be decrypted. Z:\home\user\My Digital Editions Output Path: Choose any folder to create the new, DRM free .epub file in! Click "Decrypt whole directory" and confirm that your new, DRM free booktitle.epub file(s) has(have) been created. You are now free to copy the file, transfer it to another device, keep it for as long as you want or convert it into another format. Enjoy finally being able to read the ebook(s) you paid for! Further advice about purchasing DRM hindered documents: If you do not want to go through all this trouble then the only alternative for ebooks that are not released in open format is to download the same book for free through one of the many pirate sites on the internets. I probably can not legally advocate doing that, but as I said, this is currently the only alternative that I am aware of. It may in fact be the only way to acquire content without being forced to buy proprietary software. It may even be considered illegal to remove DRM, whereas it appears to be within fair use rights under DMCA in the USA to download an ebook as long as you don't distribute more than $1,000 retail value within a six month period. Granted, I'm not a lawyer, but it appears that it is legal to download a pirated copy of an ebook and share a limited amount, yet it is illegal to remove the DRM that prevents you from sharing. I recommend checking with a legal expert if you are concerned. If you come to find as myself and Harvard Professor Charlie Nesson did, that downloading does not appear to be illegal, the download your books for free and send donations directly to authors you wish to support. This whole experience has taught me that companies which use non-free, non-standard document formats are not only unnecessary, but they are also a nuisance to society (you and me). I highly recommend that people stop purchasing ebooks that have DRM. Ask your library to only accept documents that are in an open format. Download and share to the maximum extent of the law. Inept scripts from http://www.softsay.com/ via this tutorial. This post is mirrored at kat.ph

Using WINE in linux, you can turn that DRM laden .acsm file into a readable .epub for your Nook or other device, whether Adobe likes it or not!

You are here because you either bought an ebook or borrowed one from your local library only to be left with a useless .acsm file. You run a free, open source operating system that is not supported by Adobe and all those other tutorials on the internet insist that you succumb to using Windows proprietary software. Never!

Still, you are left wondering, “What is this .acsm file and where the hell is my book?” (If you are sufficiently annoyed and ready to begin, then skip to the tutorial below.)

The bad news: A .acsm file is not a book. It is similar to a .torrent file. In other words, .acsm is a filetype that tells Adobe Digital Editions to download the actual book file, which will be a .epub. Said .epub will contain DRM (Digital Rights Management) that will cause it to self destruct and prevent copying to or reading it on any device which Adobe fails to authorize. If you are running Adobe Digital Editions via WINE on linux, then it will certainly fail to detect and authorize your device. It will also fail to recognize the .acsm file because you’re running it from a nigh-emulator and one does not simply-double click a file and have it opened by the associated program into Mordor! Or, you know… whatever epic tale it is you’re trying to read.

The worse news: This means you will either have to say goodbye to the money you just wasted on a useless file or go through way more effort than is reasonable just to read a document.

The good news: You can, in fact, access the book you paid for and transfer it to other devices. The first time is the most tedious. After that you will be better prepared to strip that nasty DRM from ebooks you buy in the future. That is, assuming you ever spend another dime on an ebook after this.

Note: From here on out, Adobe Digital Editions is referred to as ADEs, pronounced “AIDS”. Because, like the disease, it is a terrible plague that the world would be much better off without. Unlike the disease, DRM is not as easy to protect yourself against and affects a lot more people by infecting otherwise healthy content. There is no safe way to use DRM. For the first time ever, abstinence really is the answer.

Download Digital Editions Stand-Alone Installer:

You will have to go here and make and create an account with Adobe or login if you have a current account. Wow… even this step is more tedious than it should be.

Install ADEs with WINE:

Right click on the .exe you just downloaded (should be something like digitaleditions_172.exe) and select Properties tab. Check the box next to “make the file executable” and click ok. The installation process should begin. Don’t bother opening ADEs yet / close it if it launches.

Download python-2.6.2.msi

Install python-2.6.2.msi

Must be installed using WINE regardless of whether you have python installed on your linux distro. Notice it is a .msi which will download and install the files, but you must enter the following command in your terminal to run a .msi in WINE (Yes, I RTFM). Don’t forget to cd to the directory your .msi is located:
msiexec /i python-2.6.2.msi

Download and Install PyCrypto

Download pycrypto-2.1.0.win32-py2.6.exe. Right-click -> Properties tab -> check box to make executable. Right-click and run with WINE to install.

Create a New Directory and Download Inept Scripts

Make sure you can view hidden directories by pressing ctrl + H.

Create a directory called “inept” in your /home/user/.wine/drive_c/ directory (so WINE can find it when you run it later).

To download the two scripts, Right-click each link and Save link as… Remove “.txt” from the file names and save to the ~/.wine/drive_c/inept/ dir you just created: ineptkey.pyw and ineptepub.pyw

Take a Break

I’m not kidding here. Just getting prepared has been a lot of work. I recommend you walk around for a few minutes, breathe, relax. There is plenty waiting for you when you get back. Even Sherlock Holmes was at his best while puffing his pipe or playing his violin.

Place booktitle.acsm under your WINE Directory

Move your .acsm file to some place on your faux C: directory, probably located at /home/user/.wine/drive_c/

Run ADEs in WINE via Command Line

cd to the Adobe directory which contains digitaleditions.exe.

For me it accessed with:
cd ~/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/Adobe/Adobe\ Digital\ Editions/

Run ADEs on the .acsm file from terminal and it should automatically download the epub. ADEs is supposed to be a Windows program. You must enter the file path to the directory where you just placed the .acsm file using Windows syntax. Notice that every time a “\” or ” ” empty space appears in the file path, it is preceded by a “\”. See here for details.

Example:
wine digitaleditions.exe C:\\acsm\ folder\\filename.acsm

Get Your Readable epub With DRM

This should download a DRM laden epub and open it in the ADEs library. The actual epub is stored at:
/home/user/.wine/drive_c/users/user/My Documents/My Digital Editions

For our faux Windows purposes, remember this Windows version of the same file path. You will need it soon.:
Z:\home\user\My Digital Editions

Run Ineptkey Script

cd to your python.exe directory:

cd ~/.wine/drive_c/Python26

Run inpetkey.pyw using your WINE version of python (will not work if you run the local, linux version of python!):
wine python.exe C:\\inept\\ineptkey.pyw

You should get a message confirming that adeptkey.der was created. It should be in the same folder as ineptkey.pyw, so confirm it exists:
ls ~/.wine/drive_c/inept

Run Ineptepub.exe

Run ineptepub.exe via python.exe via WINE:
wine python.exe C:\\inept\\ineptepub.pyw

The following prompt should pop up with key file, input and output fields:

Key File: Navigate to adeptkey.der (in this case it is in ~/.wine/Drive_c/inept/). If you can’t browse to the hidden .wine directory in this Windows program, then move adeptkey.der to a directory that is not hidden and try again.

Input Path: Browse and select the folder that ADEs has saved the DRM infected epub file(s) to. All files in the folder you choose will be decrypted. Z:\home\user\My Digital Editions

Output Path: Choose any folder to create the new, DRM free .epub file in! Click “Decrypt whole directory” and confirm that your new, DRM free booktitle.epub file(s) has(have) been created. You are now free to copy the file, transfer it to another device, keep it for as long as you want or convert it into another format.

Enjoy finally being able to read the ebook(s) you paid for!

Further advice about purchasing DRM hindered documents:

If you do not want to go through all this trouble then the only alternative for ebooks that are not released in open format is to download the same book for free through one of the many pirate sites on the internets. I probably can not legally advocate doing that, but as I said, this is currently the only alternative that I am aware of. It may in fact be the only way to acquire content without being forced to buy proprietary software.

It may even be considered illegal to remove DRM, whereas it appears to be within fair use rights under DMCA in the USA to download an ebook as long as you don’t distribute more than $1,000 retail value within a six month period.

Granted, I’m not a lawyer, but it appears that it is legal to download a pirated copy of an ebook and share a limited amount, yet it is illegal to remove the DRM that prevents you from sharing. I recommend checking with a legal expert if you are concerned.

If you come to find as myself and Harvard Professor Charlie Nesson did, that downloading does not appear to be illegal, the download your books for free and send donations directly to authors you wish to support. This whole experience has taught me that companies which use non-free, non-standard document formats are not only unnecessary, but they are also a nuisance to society (you and me). I highly recommend that people stop purchasing ebooks that have DRM. Ask your library to only accept documents that are in an open format. Download and share to the maximum extent of the law.

Inept scripts from http://www.softsay.com/ via this tutorial.

This post is mirrored at kat.ph