How to remove DRM protection from B&N (Barnes & Noble) EPUB ebooks

Barnes & Noble uses its own DRM scheme for some EPUB books. It's a variant of the Adobe ADEPT scheme, and all the Adobe SDK users will get access to it eventually. The problem is that many consumers can’t read B&N books on their ebook readers.

Circumventing Barnes & Noble DRM for EPUB

The basic idea behind the B&N EPUB scheme is the same as that used by the ill-fated eReader format B&N acquired:

step 1: generate an encryption key from the book-purchaser's name + credit card #

step 2: hope that they don't like giving that information out to strangers. They like to call this a form of "social DRM", although I believe a more appropriate term is "silly".

It would be very bad form for an application to keep user CC#s just sitting around on disk, so the Windows version of the Barnes & Noble Desktop Reader application (BDReader) just holds on to the generated key and not the source info. A wise decision, for which I congratulate them. It then stores this key in plain text in a sqlite3 database. An... interesting... decision, for which I thank them. Update: and then it turned out the key-generation algorithm was pretty easy too...

Software to remove DRM from B&N EPUB ebooks:
A Windows-only key-retrieval script: ignoblekey (version 2)

http://pastie.org/751573

An any-platform key-generation script: ignoblekeygen (version 1)

http://pastie.org/753985

And an any-platform book-decryption script: ignobleepub (version 1)

http://pastie.org/751366

You need the decryption script and one of either the key-retrieval or key-generation scripts. They produce the same output. The key-generator works on any platform. The Windows key-retrieval script can get access to your credit card (despite being an open-source script).



How to remove DRM protection from your B&N ADEPT EPUB files

1. Download
   • Download Barnes and Noble Desktop Reader
   • Download Python (use Python x32 on Windows x64)
   • Download PyCrypto (Compatible with your Python version)
   • Download DRM removal scripts: ignoblekeygen, ignobleepub
2. Install
   • Install B&N Desktop Reader
   • Install Python THEN PyCrypto
3. Download DRM protected EPUB books from B&N
   
4. Generate your B&N EPUB key
   1. Go to Barnes and noble website.
   2. Log in and click on "My account".
   3. On the right click "Manage credit cards".
      
      The name under the credit card # will be he name used with ignoblekeygen
      
   4. Open ignoblekeygen
   5. Paste that name into the field name.
      
   6. For credit card number use your full 16-digit card number that you have set as the Barnes and Noble default credit card (no spaces). The last few digit of this card are shown above name...
      
   7. Click generate and you should have your B&N EPUB key (bnepubkey.b64)
      
   8. If you get "Key cannot be null string" check over your name and cc settings.
5. Decrypt EPUB
   1. Open ignobleepub
      
   2. For key open your previously generated (bnepubkey.b64)
      
   3. For input file go to (My documents/My Barnes and Noble ebooks/My email/) and choose your DRM protected epub file.
      
   4. Choose an output name and add the .epub extension.
      
   5. Click Decrypt

See also:
ebook DRM removal tools archive