Removing DRM protection from Kindle for PC ebooks using unswindle

[any ANONYMOUS forum user]

Unswindle - free open source application, developed by "I love cabbages". It grabs a unique Kindle For PC key for every book using Windows debugging APIs. It then hands all of the actual hard work of actual decryption to darkreverser's MobiDeDRM.

Originally Posted by I Love Cabbages

Amazon actually put a bit effort behind the DRM obfuscation in their Kindle For PC application (K4PC). The Kindle proper and Kindle for iPhone/iPod app both use a single "device" encryption key for all DRMed content. K4PC uses the same encryption algorithms, but ups the ante with a per-book session key for the actual en/decryption. And they seem to have done a reasonable job on the obfuscation. Way to go Amazon! It's good enough that I got bored unwinding it all and just got lazy with the Windows debugging APIs instead.

Download the latest version of unswindle:
I Love Cabbages

or
Download unswindle v7

http://pastie.org/1030388
http://pastie.org/pastes/1293151

Download unswindle v6-rc1

http://pastie.org/761825

Download unswindle v5

http://pastie.org/755670

Download unswindle v4

http://pastie.org/753038

Download unswindle v3

http://pastie.org/749308

You'll also need a copy of darkreverser's mobidedrm.

Put those kids together (in the same directory) and run unswindle.pyw. It launches KindleForPC.exe. Pick the book you want to decrypt. Close KindleForPC. Pick your output file. And enjoy the sweet taste of freedom.

Script name in honor of rms and The Right to Read. Don't use this to steal, or I'm taking my toys and going home.

Updates. It came to my attention that unswindle version 1 did not work if KindleForPC was installed as a non-administrator and did not work on versions of Windows other than XP. Version 2 should fix these issues. Version 3 fixes an intermittent path-getting issue. Version 4 fixes an exception related to opening thread handles, detect Topaz format books, and detects that you have the proper version of Kindle For PC installed. Version 5 works with the new (20091222) version of the K4PC executable. Version 6 cleanly handles already DRM-free files.

Update 2009-12-22. Amazon has demonstrated that they (unlike Adobe) take their DRM seriously: they've already pushed out a new version of K4PC which breaks this particular script. As you can clearly see via their SHA-1 hashes:
fd386003520f7af7a15d77fcc2b859dd53e44bc1 KindleForPC-installer-20091217.exe

13a816a3abf7a71e7b6a55228099b03b1dc3789b KindleForPC-installer-20091222.exe

The application doesn't seem to auto-update, so if you can find a copy of the original installer you should be fine. Otherwise you'll have to hang tight. Newest unswindle version detects if you have the wrong K4PC executable installed.

Update 2009-12-22 (2). The K4PC update may not actually have been targeted at unswindle, as Amazon seems to have done nothing in particular to make the basic approach more difficult. In any case, unswindle was updated to handle the 20091222 version of the executable. We'll see if Amazon throws out another new build in short order, and I'll put some more elbow grease into figuring out the PID-generation algorithm.

See also:
ebook DRM removal tools archive