Digital Editions 4 Knocks All Open Files in Adobe

Adobe has once again shown an example of how to protect user data. One of the users of the Digital Editions 4 e-book reader decided to figure out why the program sends so much information to Adobe servers and what goes there.

It turned out that information was sent about all the books that opened in the program; list of pages read, in what order they were read and for how long. This and other information is transmitted to Adobe servers in clear text.

Thus, the information is available for viewing to anyone who can intercept the traffic between the user and the Adobe server.

That's not all. Digital Editions 4 scans your computer’s hard drive, searches for all e-books on it, and sends the list to Adobe too!

"To show that I am not exaggerating and not under the influence of drugs, I spread the evidence," writes hacker Nate Hoffelder, who discovered the vulnerability.

• ADE-4-datacollector
• Adobe Data

Adobe has sent an official response that refers to ToS.

Tests show that previous versions of Digital Editions behave normally (do not spy on users).

The Electronic Frontier Foundation issued a statement and expressed its disagreement with the interpretation of the situation by Adobe. EFF lawyers find it unacceptable to spy on users and send information over the Web in clear text. Moreover, they believe that a similar situation could be foreseen after the introduction of DRM protection for books.