Overdrive ain't great.
This was posted earlier:
https://karawynn.substack.com/p/the-coming-enshittification-of-public-libraries
this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2023
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Privacy
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Thank you for linking this. I read through it all, and as an avid Libby user, what quite disheartened. I just checked to see if my library has any other ebook options, but they don’t.
Me too, I had no idea. Though I have been part of the old cranky crowd that resisted Libby as long as possible in favour of Overdrive.
Damn. We need a FOSS server but publishers probably would not agree. Not having to make and link a middleman account would be a bonus though. Client could probably be arranged for on some devices but even on Kobo which isn't really locked down I would not consider running unofficial software beginner friendly.
Thanks and TL;OS (too long only skimmed). May I ask how to summon a summary bot here?
Your ISP's knowledge base will have factors behind it. Do you use their provided router? If so, they can easily have more data about your internet usage than if you'd use your own. As far as modem's go, I don't think it can provide as much data compared to a router, but it's still worth the cost to obtain more control of your information.
Overdrive seems like data middle man to me, give LibriVox and/or The-Eye a try instead. Hopefully one or both have all the books without the privacy worry.
Noted with thanks. Btw how to change the modem w/o breaking fibre cables?
Ah, I've never had fibre so I'm not too sure. With coaxial cable it just requires whatever docsis cable modem is designed for the speeds provided.
I’m not familiar with The-Eye, is it the .eu domain site?
Yep, the .edu is the one
The place you borrow the book knows, for record keeping. But your ISP shouldn't if you are doing HTTPS
Why ISP doesn't know our activities when we use HTTPS?
The tldr is Encryption.
Http is known as plain text transport. Anyone looking at the traffic can see what is going on, can see your passwords, authentication tokens, credit card numbers, text of the web page.
HTTPS uses encryption, when you first access a page with HTTPS your application and the server set up a secure channel to transfer whatever you are doing and only your application and the web server have the secrets to decrypt the traffic.
Now ISP will know you accessed an IP that may be hosting the library website, but unless they are doing legal or illegal interception they will not know what book you are looking at or what file you download.
IPs are shard between many sites so just because the IP hosts the library, it may also host a cooking blog and/or a car yard website.
Thank you. Although it may be irrelevant, do we need a VPN to avoid interception (what is it?) even if there is HTTPS?
Allthough not a pro but vpns are mostly mandatory for p2p filesharing as in most countries, downloading can be a problem, but sharing will screw you big time.
So, a vpn secures (ideall) all traffic from your pc to the vpn host. You then use the vpn hosts isp and so on (in a country where your government cant ask for your data ideally).
I‘m not sure how it works for https exactly. What if you download a file, especially.
Have a good one.
vpn for normal consumers is a dumb pyramid scheme, you can make your privacy much better with less cost with other methods. VPNs are only good if you want to see something unavailable in your country