[Excelangue] just posted a guide to using the free 3G connection in your Amazon Kindle to browse the Internet on your computer.
The hack requires a Kindle Keyboard 3G and the free worldwide Internet access that comes along with the purchase price. After jailbreaking the Kindle and applying a USB network hack, [Excelangue] managed to connect his laptop to the Internet through his computer. The process of tethering the Kindle’s 3G is remarkably easy, but we expect a one-click solution will pop up on the web sometime this week.
Of course we have to note here that tethering a Kindle is against the Amazon terms & conditions, and the data going through your Kindle is tied to a unique ID. If you do this, Amazon knows who you are and is more than likely willing to brick your device. [Excelangue] is looking into tethering to the Kindle over WiFi so Android and iOS devices can get in on the action, but he’s still in the process of experimenting with his build.
I really wish this article had never been posted. Kindle users enjoy free 3G access for our Kindles and I would really hate for Amazon to have a reason to take it away from us.
-Eric
They can’t. They advertised a Free 3G Kindle and you paid for it. They can’t just take it away, that would be illegal.
Not true, its breaking the contract/Terms and conditions.
This is a VERY bad idea! All of us kindle developers at mobileread.com are very much AGAINST this sort of information being distributed in public forums such as hackaday.
Amazon must pay the cellphone carriers for 3G traffic. I have seen information that said they paid 12-cents/MB for Sprint 3G used by the Kindle DX and earlier. The newer Kindles like the Kindle 3G mentioned here use AT&T, but it probably has a similar cost.
It is very nice of amazon to provide this EXPERIMENTAL service to us at no additional cost to us. When used on a kindle, it does not generate a lot of traffic because the web browser built into the kindle does not support downloading zip files, and does not do streaming media.
If we tether to an external computer, there is a large amount of extra traffic. Many programs “phone home” to see if they have new versions available. Antivirus programs download updates. Even Windows Update may download many large files when updates are available. In addition, your computer will generate a lot of unrelated traffic for internet protocols other than just web browsing.
To get 3G service, you must register with amazon. They know who you are and where you live. Your 3G access also gives your geographical postion to them. In addition, the kindle 3G modem uses a SIM card, and AT&T tracks EVERYTHING that card identity does, and the AT&T website provides a lot of configuration for NORMAL users about what limits (traffic, packet counts, and even power up events) trigger an alarm to notify the owner. Commercial AT&T customers such as amazon have much greater control over what 3G events generate alert messages to them.
If you have an amazon account, you probably have a credit card register to that account for amazon purchases. The kindle Terms of Service that you agree to when you register your kindle allow amazon to charge you 15-cents/MB for some types of traffic, such as emailing documents to your kindle from some locations. I am sure that they could charge you 15-cents/MB if they were FORGIVING to your for violating your contract. They could (and do) terminate your account and ALL FUTURE ACCOUNTS that you sign up for, which makes all your ebook purchases no longer readable.
The really BAD thing about 3G tethering, and we us kindle developers are so against it, is that this much publicity for this bad practice of stealing 3G bandwidth from amazon (which can cost them a LOT of money) may cause them to remove 3G service for ALL OF US!
I have been a long-time hackaday reader and poster. I did the SD Floppy post that went viral an hackaday back in 2006. I am very upset that links are provided here to a web page that encourages people to STEAL 3G service from amazon, to the detriment of us all!
Please remove those links! Thank you.
So the gist of your long post is “buy an old one on ebay”?
/missing the point on purpose, loves his Hitch-Hikers Guide to the…. er Kindle.
I have purchase old Kindle 3G units on ebay specifically because they DO have unlimited free 3G. I also have a number of wifi-only units. I will be unhappy when this post makes amazon restrict access for these devices. The web browser in new kindles is restricted to internet access to only amazon and wikipedia (probably because unlimited 3G is not cheap for them and they wanted to lower the price of new kindle models).
I like the fact that 3G works in a moving vehicle (unlike wifi). Please do not make it go away with your selfishness and thievery…
No, please don’t. Thanks.
Wentworth is full of shit. Your originally purchased DRM’d AZW files are always readable, even if your account is terminated, either by choice or otherwise. I challenge him to state 1 example where his statements can be proven.
Here is one thread (of many) that describes how purchase DRM books are no longer readable:
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=169602
Your DRM is tied to your account. Account termination makes purchase books unreadable unless you removed the DRM (a violation of the TOS) with various tools used for that purpose.
Where is the evidence to support YOUR claims. Now it is time for you to take back the “full of shit” claim and eat your works (and that shit you so freely dish out).
Sandy Vagina says:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
February 27, 2012 at 3:21 pm
Here is one thread (of many) that describes how purchase DRM books are no longer readable:
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=169602
Your DRM is tied to your account. Account termination makes purchase books unreadable unless you removed the DRM (a violation of the TOS) with various tools used for that purpose.
Where is the evidence to support YOUR claims. Now it is time for you to take back the “full of shit” claim and eat your works (and that shit you so freely dish out).
Did you crack the DRM on those books you say you can read after your account was terminated by amazon?
It actually works and is so easy! I’m working on spreading the word of this awesome hack!!
Yea, me too. Someone should really put together an Instructable and post this article to Reddit.
LOL censor all the infos! Up yours fascist!
Also all information copied, saved, and redistributed elsewhere.
Agree with Rob, this is just going to screw over those of us who have enjoyed being able to use our Kindles for occasional emergency web browsing. Amazon will just turn off the ability to access anything but Amazon.
agreed with Rob, this is MUCH different than phone tethering from an ethics perspective. IMO, when you tether your phone, you’re not really hurting the carrier – who cares if you view that HD video on your phone or on your laptop, data is data.
This is NOT the case with the kindle (for obvious reasons), and if enough people do this they will kill off the free access altogether. 🙁
Kindle Hitchhiker’s guide:
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/kindle.png
😉
Very cool hack!
NOT a cool hack. Amazon is PAYING the cellphone carriers for us to have free 3G in hopes that we will buy more ebooks from them. If this becomes unprofitable due to hackaday publishing these “How to Steal” links, a LOT of people will be VERY angry with hackaday.com. There WILL be a flood of VERY angry visitors to this site!
AS I SAID: Very cool hack!
This is the cost of making such a crappy product. I don’t understand why anyone would develop for that platform.
So, what “crappy platform” do YOU prefer developing for (if you ARE a developer instead of just a USER)? The kindles have eInk displays and VERY LONG battery life. You failed to mention why you think kindles are crappy, or what in your opinions is not crappy. The Kindle 4 Mini is only $79. How many iPads can you buy for $79?
Please remove those links from hackaday (and remove this page altogether)… I don’t want Amazon to cancel this service that I use for emergency…
Also @Bradley: If you think it’s a crappy product, simply don’t buy it, let US crap collectors buy craps, ok? If not, abide by the rules… let’s not be stupid selfish.
I agree with Rob. This is bad news. I’d be fine with amazon removing 3G capabilities from devices with certain sim chips that are abusing the ToS. Bricking seems a little extreme.
You guys need to calm down. The TOS are a private contract, not the law. The worst thing that can happen is your account being blocked. If they try to bill you for data, just fight it, and you’ll probably win. “Free 3G” plastered everywhere on Amazon outweighs the fine print when you are in small claims court. Is this ethical? Probably not, but who am I to judge. I’ve gotten root access on every device I’ve ever owned, and that was against the TOS. I’ve cost companies lots of money by buying heavily subsidized equipment with no intention to buy the extras that they make their money on. I’m sure most people here have done the same.
Those not wanting this hack publicized are ignorant to how the world works. If they want to be mad, they should be mad at Amazon for making their system protections so weak. I have no obligation to Amazon or the Kindle community. If Amazon ends up discontinuing the 3G service it will be because they failed to design it correctly.
And I’m sure it would not be hard to create a special application or browser that mimics the kindle browser when using the 3G and blocks all other traffic from your computer. That could mask the fact that you are tethering and let you check your email or surf the web with an alternate interface than the kindle. Would that be so bad?
We know the “3G Tethering” sites have been there a long time, and we know that as long as you have to LOOK for the information, it is not going to make amazon turn off this service.
But publishing it blatantly like this in such a public place as hackaday is just BEGGING amazon to turn off this service for all of us (by restricting it to amazon and wikipedia, like in the new Kindle 4 Mini and Kindle 5 Touch.
That will make the older Kindles like the Kindle 3G a LOT less useful, especially for those of us depend on affordable 3G access with a useable web browser that works in a moving vehicle.
Publicity draws unwanted attention, perhaps enough to cost amazon enough extra money in 3G fees that they will restrict access on ALL the kindles.
We who use this service in respectable ways will be very unhappy if this service gets locked down, and we are very unhappy now that you are putting it at great risk.
Again, you should be angry at Amazon, not hack-a-day. HAD can’t do anything to your old Kindles. Only Amazon can. If they made their 3G interface vulnerable to abuse, then Amazon should fix it. If they choose to punish everyone instead, that is still not anyone’s fault besides Amazon’s. This is their mess.
You may think this info is unwanted, but there are tons of people that want this info. Who are you to decide what they are allowed to learn?
What’s the difference between “publishing” the info here or somewhere else? It’s still on the internet. It it gets out of hand they’ll just kill the sim card. Personally I’d rather tether my phone, it gets a much faster connection.
Here a technique is described, if you use it for illegal purposes or for damage a company is another thing. We are hackers, information must be shared. The responsability is upon who use that information. Your ethical or political or moral point of views are out of topic.
Okay, I dare you to get out your can of spray paint and graffiti this URL on the White House, where it is sure to get national attention, if you feel it NEEDS publicity. ;-(
This is not news anyway. This information has been public for many years, even on the old Kindle 2. Some newbie just stumbled over old information and mixed it with some new hacks from mobileread.com and stuck it in his web page. No need to put it on billboards all over town (i.e. hackaday.com)…
Obviously it IS news to the HAD community since there hasn’t already been a HAD article about it. In fact, if it wasn’t news to he HAD community, then your demand that it be taken down would be pointless, wouldn’t it?
So if it’s been out there so long anyways, what exactly is your complaint? Now it’s easier for a total newbie to find? Now you don’t need some cryptic search-fu query to find the information?
Back in my day, if you didn’t want people to find information, you made it hard to read and harder to find. Private BBS, no listed phone numbers and you had to get refered in by a regular. Later it was unlisted IRC channels. L33t $p33k grew out of that; so if a newbie stumbled across something they either proved themselves to get access to it, or proved their wit by reading it. Now you, instead, just threaten to test the spam filter of the comment section? I see the guardians of knowledge have gotten slack; and lost the path of Bob at the same time.
Thanks for posting this, hack-a-day. Time for me to buy a Kindle. Not for teathering, I have unlimited 3G on my phone. Just because this post and comments informed me that the new Kindles were finally down under $100.
The reason that amazon can even afford the cost of 3G service that they give away for free, is that the built-in web browser is not that easy to use, and therefore does not generate much web traffic. Also, it only allows downloading limited content such as ebooks.
Tethering this service to a device with a much easier-to-use web browser will make it consume MUCH more 3G traffic just because it is easier to use. Then of course there is all that extra traffic normal computers generate behind the scenes that you may not even be aware of. Other web browsers make multiple connections to the webserver to download images in parallel, which the kindle uses only one connection. And a lot of non-browser programs phone home using HTTP traffic (like a web browser, but hidden). And all the non-web traffic attempts hitting the amazon proxy are sure to get their attention as well.
The idea of making a non-Kindle web browser that acts like a kindle is fine, but no matter how good that is, the change in internet traffic consumption will still be noticed (and will trigger alarms at AT&T). And who will bother with a complex project like that when the linked website shows a simple configuration to the Mozilla browser after snooping the hidden traffic or using a jailbreak to view an otherwise inaccesible browser cookie? Certainly not all the “script kiddies” who want free 3G internet…
On the subject of “phoning home”, well, unless you’ve configured the programs to proxy through the SSH tunnel (like FireFox in the guide), they won’t be able to use the tethering.
The alarms don’t “go off at AT&T” – they are sent directly to Amazon in real time.
Works like this:
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1971876&postcount=1
I do not understand why people are getting so upset over this. The worse that is going to happen is those who ‘abuse’ the 3G will have to pay (if the above post on the 15cents/MB is correct) and then probably have their accounts terminated. It’s that simple. There is no way Amazon would kill a HUGE selling point of their devices because a small percentage of people broke the TOS. This is corporate contracts 101… the only way they can ‘protect’ themselves is with the user agreement and they have done so. Check out http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200506200&#wireless and you will see that their terms are definite but very ‘broad’… Thus giving them much leverage to show that you broke the terms and hence own them X dollars for the data that you essentially stole…
Stop the ‘fear’ mongering… Information is information. I’m not going to use it because I like my 3G service on the kindle, but if someone else does do not be surprised if they get a notice to appear in court (if its even financially worth them pursuing so many small fish)…
I’m no fear monger, and couldn’t care less about this topic, but I would like to remind you of the “Sony PS3 Linux Support” that was removed a few years back (or less, maybe). They’ll do whatever they want.
the Sony PS3 Linux Support was something that only a very small percentage of the population used. It was NOT a core feature of the system and was put forth because some techie at Sony knew the linux fan wagon would love it.
This is a different situation, Amazon’s Free 3G is a MAJOR feature of most of their kindles (http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200203720). It’s not some niche group using a small feature, its a large group using one of the best advertised features. And most of that group will never jailbrake their kindle (let alone tether the 3G).
It’s much easier (and business sound) to just handle the people who abuse this feature than it would be to remove it… It just will not happen.
I agree that people shouldn’t go out and use this to abuse Amazon’s free gift, but at the same time it is well within Hackaday’s right to post such a article informing us readers. It is then up to the reader’s morals on how to act on that information. I feel that some people are a little personally invested in this topic which is fine, but it is important to be rational and not resort to taking things personally. Also last I checked Hackaday is a privately owned site and not a “billboard”. In my case I would be a little annoyed if a reader told me what I could or could not put on my site.
A reasoned plea that hackaday should remove the link is not the same as blatantly “telling” hackaday owners that they must remove them. On mobileread, we leave up the threads and the posts, but remove specific details and links to offsite details that we cannot control.
Amazon is a very user-friendly company. We do not wish to make them become unfriendly.
I hope amazon has not degenerated into a script-kiddie hangout. Ethics are not welcome here anymore, it would appear from the comments left here.
Just because someone’s ethics are different than yours doesn’t mean that they lack ethics altogether. Rather, instead of people losing ethics, I believe that today people are losing empathy, willingness to listen to other views, and not force their own values on them (I am generalizing, not personally attacking anyone). It is very easy to state your own opinion, but difficult to clearly understand and hear out another’s (especially when it contradicts your own).
With that out of the way, I think the issue here is what level of “censorship” is acceptable and should be enforced on blogs and websites like hackaday.
In the end I am most comfortable with the following: the internet should not be limited or censored for fear of me misusing the information. It is my responsibility to make sure I properly use that information. Despite this, I can see how in some cases this could be harmful rather than helpful, but I would rather have this freedom than not.
Where was your outcry when the findings of “I IZ RUTE!” were published for everything from Android phones to PS3s? What about the articles on how to crack WEP, WPA, and WPA2? all of these things can be used by nefarious people to do damage, but that doesn’t mean that we should censor the information. Without the publication, we would still be using WEP, and those people with the inside knowledge would continue to exploit the vulnerabilities.
Publishing begets progress, no matter what the subject.
I agree with Mark. If Amazon would put more secure devices on the market, no one would get sand in their vagina.
I applaud HaD, this article is very relevant to hacking and belongs in a community like this.
Since amazon can track the people who do this, warranty voided and service is cut. Problem solved.
“s/amazon/hackaday/” in that previous post…
My points are still held valid. I accept your reasoning, but that doesn’t change my opinion. Amazon is at fault, no one else.
Back when hackaday was founded, hacking was generally considered to be a good thing. Hacking meant and exploring and creating interesting, novel, and useful things.
Hackers looked down on CRACKERS, who where not considered as “hackers” by the hacker community, but just destructive little shits who write viruses and crack games and trade passwords to porn sites and steal internet service from neighbors.
If hackaday readers think that CRACKING posts like this one are what hackaday is all about, then this website really should be renamed CRACKADAY.COM.
A message to all you CRACKERS, may your moms kick you out of her basement (even if you are 30 and can’t find a job)!
I guess all the jail breaking and rooting need to be removed as well? Since, well, in your argument it is cracking.
In the kindle community, a jailbreak is not cracking. It is just inserting a developer key so that new features can be added, including a root shell. This allows us to enhance the value of our kindles, not remove value by making it necessary for amazon to remove the free unrestricted 3G service when it gets too expensive for them because of the crackers stealing service.
Gaining root access to your own device is not a bad thing. Using the secret key you insert into the x-fsn header you obtained by sniffing packets or using root access to view private browser cookies is bad.
Look, all I am saying is to follow the Golden Rule (treat amazon nice because they treat us nice, in this case). There are people who want to use tethering for streaming media so they can listen to their “tunez” on the go, for crying out loud. That will cost amazon a significant fraction of a dollar for every song every cracker listens to over 3G. What’s wrong with just putting your music on the kindle’s USB Drive? It is plenty large enough…
Despite all our warnings, we get a ton of noobs wanting us to help then steal service from amazon. Geez… It looks like the little cracker kiddies are winning, and we might as well kiss free 3G goodbye…
The only moral “rule” I push is the golden rule. Treat others as you wish to be treated. Amazon is good to us. We should be good to them in return.
I cannot understand those of you with your “gimme your stuff what I want or I will hurt you more bad” attitude. I mean really now, are you the script kiddie crackers seeking “respect” from other script kiddies, or are you just lowly muggers (of corporations, in this case)?
The golden rule is the only thing that keeps us civilized regardless of our culture or ethnicity. If you do not want “other peoples’ rules” (not even the golden rule) that makes you nothing more than an uncivilized anarchist.
We should respect amazon for giving us free 3G and not make it too expensive for them to continue. If you do not agree, you are an animal.
@Rob Wentworth
Holy sh!t Rob, you keep going on about Amazon and the Golden Rule, but if you really did root your Kindle and poke around a bit and are not a sockpuppet for Amazon PR then you would know the huge box-o-spyware tucked inside each and every Kindle.
Besides bootleg copies of 1984 suddenly going down the memory hole, Amazon tracks and records everything, and I mean everything you do on your Kindle. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/e-book-privacy
Somehow I feel misled by the ToS….
Take this post down or I’ll take hackaday.com website down by my cracking team.
Comment approved by moderator Feb 27, 2012 @ 16:41lol. Kinda hypercritical isn’t it?
*sunglasses*
Okay, if common sense and reason cannot prevail here, it is time to get out the big stick.
If you still think this is a good idea, you had better read this:
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1971876
The “big stick” is showing that Amazon/AT&T has the ability to track its users?
Next you’re going to tell me that Google knows my interests. Hah!
OH NOES! AMAZON MIGHT REMOVE MY SERVICES BECAUSE OTHERS ARE DOING STUFF.
Well… you deserve it for giving someone money to control it for you.
Go out and buy real books without the drm that amazon or anyone else can’t take from you.
It was sure nice of Amazon to provide the 3G out of the kindness of their hearts, not to try to sell their product. Seriously, information should not be censored for any reason, and certainly not because it might slightly inconvenience some.
WTF? Much ado about nothing in the comment section.
A couple of things come to mind:
1) What an interesting hack. I think I might investigate this one just out of interest but I doubt I’ll use it otherwise because I get 3G or wifi pretty much anywhere I go these days.
2) The fearful Kindle developers should realize that very few people are capable or really interested in following through on this hack. Sure, some will give it a go but not enough to support the hysterics that are being conveyed in the comments. You’re acting as though HAD is poking sticks at a primitive god that will seek out and punish all of the villagers. It’s highly entertaining but also just a bit sad.
If you want to really get frightened, you should subscribe to 2600.
Why is everyone acting like this is the first bit of news posted about this? People have been doing this for a LONG time and there are MANY tutorials out there on how to do it.
I’ve been tethered to my kindle for 6 months, using it as my main internet connection. With browsing and utorrent I’ve racked up over 46GB. No disconnection here!
You’re an asshat. Assuming you’re not lying, Amazon has paid over $7k for your bandwidth. Personally, I’m hoping that you’re lying.
Amazon’s a pretty decent company. Some of their policies are terrible, but overall, they are a good company. This is one of their policies that makes sense – this is a not-terrible policy.
As mentioned above, you’re a script kiddie. A cracker. Stop it.
Uh Oh, HackADay.com posting a Hack? OH NO! And besides, when are you “kids” going to learn that when something is posted on the Web, it STAYS THERE. A quick search, and you’ll find all kinds of hits on it, HackADay is just a tunnel link any other site
Great, now that the cats out of the bag, the botnet I’ve been commanding over the tethered 3g whispernet connection of my kindle will be no more.
:-\
Please take this down. Us k3 users enjoy the ability to check email in a pinch or wikipedia something for free due to amazon’s good grace. They already took this out of the kindle touch, and it’s only because they’re nice they haven’t done so with the 3G.
This is bad for the community.
Add me to the list of those who wish this hadn’t been published. The Libertarian in me says the information wants to be free, so I won’t go so far as to say “censor it”. But, it would royally piss me off if the Kindle I bought for my girlfriend last year suddenly lost the 3G access I paid extra for.
Yes, it’s a cool hack and as with many things here I’m impressed. But I’m disgusted all the same from the ethical side of it.
+1
Some may not understand what they do could screw the larger community. All Amazon needs is just one excuse to shut this wonderful feature down.
That’s the reason most of us fear/unhappy about this posting.
Like most people here, I’m rather unimpressed. This is going to screw a lot of people over if/when Amazon kills off the ‘free’ 3G service.
I paid extra for the damn thing and was the reason I didn’t get a newer model.
Hopefully it’s not a repeat of the OtherOS situation on the PS3. 🙁
The drama! Oh God, THE DRAMA!
I was always courious if this was possible. I had no idea that Ammazon pays 12cents a MB. But if they can block users by their ID I dont see what the harm is. Its not like you can root the Kindle and get free 3G from ATT or whoever.
The harm is that stuff like this made amazon already restrict 3G for everybody who buys a new kindle model, so they could afford to sell kindles to us for even less money without losing their shirts over 3G expenses. Kindles start at $79, after all…
I agree you shoudnt do this but i do not think hackaday should scrap this post. If they do, it gives Sony and other companies the right to demand HaD remove posts about modding their hardware and software as well. As for the people complaining about their free web browsing, you could always try paying for your mobile web browsing like others.
The kindle 3g isn’t really free, when used as intended, you use it to download ebooks that you paid for. in the price of that book, they included the price of the 3g-traffic the download takes, plus a little extra for the 3g-traffic the average kindle user uses on wikipedia.
It’s that average that will be wrong now, if too many uses this hack, leading to either higher prices or a termination of the service.
I doubt it will go that far, since it seems to me that 3g is too slow for many purposes, and having a kindle plugged into your pc seems a bother
Umm… did you read the comment from HackJack above? He said has has use 46 GIGABYTES of free 3G traffic for TORRENTS — if he can be believed — does he have enough smarts to proxy torrent traffic though amazon’s proxy. Perhaps a few like him will not kill unrestricted free 3G for everybody, but many more will…
People like this who giggle while they shit on somebody else’s dinner plate really disgust me.
The original site with the hack seems to be offline at the moment.
The information does not need to go away altogether. Somebody might actually NEED it enough to do the research and find it themselves.
What is bad is making it so public in a place like hackaday that attracts malevolent script-kiddies like swarms of flies.
I don’t get why all you people are worrying.
Very few people are going to use this hack, and I’m sure Amazon has measures in place to take care of people who abuse their 3G traffic. If they didn’t, people would already be buying up Kindles and just pulling their SIM cards and putting them in iPhones.
Yeah, I’ve got no idea why they’re so pissy about it either. It’s amusing because I think some of the other people posting are antagonizing them with stories about running torrents using the “free” 3G and making them even more hysterical.
Amazon aren’t idiots… If they decide that someone is abusing their service they will shut that person down. It’s not like they can’t identify which machines are on their network.
GOSH! This is NOT NEW NEWS. I bet everyone knows how to jailbreak their Kindle 3G knows about it. But we enjoy the free 3G feature (thankfully) that comes with our Kindle and we decided to play by the rule. Because just a few bad apples, Amazon could take this away and turn our Kindle 3G into just the plain wifi version.
My Kindle 3G has served me well especially when I was in Japan during the big earthquake. It is pretty much my only form of communication to the rest of the world.
The problem is, some smart folks will bypass Amazon proxy server for free traffic. This maybe a short term solution to avoid detection. However when Amazon all of the sudden receive the bill from their 3G provider worldwide, then they realize they have a big problem. They could simply stop all 3G service by terminating the contracts with provider. Which is easier than trying to pinpoint which SIM card user is abusing it. (or perhaps Amazon just need a good excuse to shut down the free 3G, who knows.)
I paid extra when Kindle 3G comes out because of the feature, and I would be upset to lose it.
PLEASE DO NOT TRY/ABUSE/SPREAD the tethering feature.
Amazon will shut down the service because they want to shut down the service and when they want to shut down the service. It will have nothing to do with a few bad apples and everything to do with marketing and finance.
If anyone thinks they can’t identify exactly who’s abusing the service then they haven’t been paying attention to networking and how unique a sim card is. It would be trivial to write a script to identify high traffic clients and then monitor their habits. Find the bad apples and turn out the lights.
Is ignorance a defense?
Mark Allen Ludwig
we think it’s not .
Here’s a different point of view – and one that seems much more in keeping with typical HaD hacks. Think of a WiFi-capable device that just needs a little bandwidth to enable remote control – a few bytes/day perhaps – how about a thermostat you can email to get the heating to come on early (as a simple example). This won’t cost Amazon as much in a month as viewing 1 page on Wikipedia, and is a niche hack. Trying to tether a laptop to watch youtube all day is a different matter, and irresponsible, though given that this is a major feature of the kindle, and given the per-device and per-account data they have I (optimistically) think that enforcement action will be taken only on the big (ab-)users.
I’ve just successfully hacked my brand new Kindle 4 – hardwarewise: I’ve castrated the damned thing by making it physically unable to call home.
No Big Brother peeking over my shoulder and keeping records of what I read and when and why, no risk that a book gets deleted because He doesn’t see it fit for me, no ads or other unwanted stuff running before my eyes while I’m enjoying a good book.
No legal problem either: I have no contract or obligations with Amazon. Someone just purchased a piece of hardware as a present for me and what I do with it is my own business.
Still after such a blunt and shameless attempt by them to control and steer my reading habits, I don’t think I’ll ever purchase even a pin by Amazon, as a matter of principle.
If you ask me, they’re sawing the branch they are sitting on.