DIY Kindle scanner

In college (HBO) I did a project with a few classmates where we had to build a machine that could let a ball float at a certain height. We used different electronics to measure how high the ball was floating in the tube, but never did it really work. Then we discovered Lego Mindstormers, a great set of tools. Lego mindstormers has a lot of great tools which we normally use in school to build some robot. This time we used the camera to register the height of the ball. This worked really well especially because you can hook it up directly to the computer. With the information we got from the camera we could adjust the speed of the fan to make sure the ball was at the right height.

Why i'm telling this story you might ask, well today I came across a project where they also use Lego Mindstormers. This time it's not to regulate the height of a ball but to copy a DRM protected E-book from amazon. See the video below.


The first time I laughed I thought who has so much spare time to build such a thing just to crack the DRM on a E-book. But then I realized that it is not built for fun it's there to make a statement. That statement is that Amazon told a few years ago that when someone buys a book they are also buying the rights to Resell, loan out or give away the book. Then a few years with the introduction of the Kindle they changed that rule.

DRM you say? For more info on DRM and what the positive/negative side is you can read Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management)

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