Jeffrey I. Schiller
Networking, Security and Cavies

Another Reason to dis-like DRM

I recently (like as in two days ago) updated my Galaxy Nexus phone to Android 4.2. Its pretty cool, but that's not the purpose of this post.

On my phone I have apps both from the Google Play Store and from the Amazon App Store. Unfortunately the Amazon App Store application seems to have a problem with 4.2. In particular it requires me to login to my amazon account every time I use it. It used to remember my login credentials. This would not normally be a problem by itself, just an annoyance. However every application I have that I purchased from the Amazon App Store checks in with the App Store quite frequently. When they do, the Amazon App Store insists that I login to the store before I can use the app. This goes beyond annoyance.

One of the apps I have from the Amazon App Store is Amazon's two-factor authentication app which I need in order to use my Amazon Web Services (AWS) account. Fortunately this isn't a requirement for using normal Amazon services, such as the App Store, or I would be in a more serious pickle!

Now this isn't a new story. There are plenty of stories about media being purchased by people who then loose access to it when the organization they purchased the media from went out of business, shutting down the DRM servers, or in some cases they just changed the DRM. But I assumed, apparently incorrectly, that Amazon was a big enough outfit that I wouldn't have to worry about this sort of nonsense.

Now I am sure they will fix their Store App and all will again be well. But so far its been 48 hours, and that is 48 hours too many!