Using Kindle Calendar WITHOUT Account
Can we use the Kindle Calendar app WITHOUT an account?
I have no reason or need to trust any of the standard cloud providers with a copy of my calendar and I don't see why it should be mandatory. But if I try to add an item to my calendar it tells me I can't do that:
"No Active Calendar Account - to create events, open the left panel and make sure an account is active"
The left panel helpfully offers to store it with Amazon or Google (because I've tied my gmail account to the Kindle as it is only use for communications with Amazon) and also allows me to nominate an alternaitve email address. I want/need none of the above. If it is not avoidable, is there an alternative calendar app which isn't so prescriptive?
I have no reason or need to trust any of the standard cloud providers with a copy of my calendar and I don't see why it should be mandatory. But if I try to add an item to my calendar it tells me I can't do that:
"No Active Calendar Account - to create events, open the left panel and make sure an account is active"
The left panel helpfully offers to store it with Amazon or Google (because I've tied my gmail account to the Kindle as it is only use for communications with Amazon) and also allows me to nominate an alternaitve email address. I want/need none of the above. If it is not avoidable, is there an alternative calendar app which isn't so prescriptive?
ASKER
Oh, and I should have mentioned: I've already crawled through all the settings and one, in particular, I assumed would let me do precisely what I'm asking: viz, under "Calender Settings" there's an option to "Sync Amazon Calender" which you can switch OFF - which I did. Hence my surprise and annoyance when, despite that, it still insists on tying the calender to an account.
Greetings David.
Thanks for taking an interest. My distrust of big tech is well into the paranoid scale, so we agree on that. That said, I love the Kindle for its main function - book storage and reading (I've become a big fan of Audible. Lets me read books while I'm doing other things. What's not to like!) But given how much other functionality they've packed into the tablet, I'm trying to find ways to use them without aiding and abetting their surveillance capitalism. It's challenging!
But even if I could be reasonably sure relevant data wasn't being copied to one of their insecure clouds, I certanly wouldn't trust my kindle to store anything but trivial data. So I couldn't possibly justify the effort of setting up my own calender server for kindle access because I can't trust the communication link.
Greetings David.
Thanks for taking an interest. My distrust of big tech is well into the paranoid scale, so we agree on that. That said, I love the Kindle for its main function - book storage and reading (I've become a big fan of Audible. Lets me read books while I'm doing other things. What's not to like!) But given how much other functionality they've packed into the tablet, I'm trying to find ways to use them without aiding and abetting their surveillance capitalism. It's challenging!
But even if I could be reasonably sure relevant data wasn't being copied to one of their insecure clouds, I certanly wouldn't trust my kindle to store anything but trivial data. So I couldn't possibly justify the effort of setting up my own calender server for kindle access because I can't trust the communication link.
Hi Mike,
If I'm reading your question correctly you want a calendar that is not connected to your Gmail account and that does not need syncing to an email address of some sort. There are some free calendar apps in the Amazon App store, but I feel you'd still be trusting anything you input into that app with the app developer.
Would creating a throwaway Gmail account and using that to activate the calendar account be an option?
If I'm reading your question correctly you want a calendar that is not connected to your Gmail account and that does not need syncing to an email address of some sort. There are some free calendar apps in the Amazon App store, but I feel you'd still be trusting anything you input into that app with the app developer.
Would creating a throwaway Gmail account and using that to activate the calendar account be an option?
ASKER
Greetings Martin
>>Would creating a throwaway Gmail account and using that to activate the calendar account be an option?
If the calender was mission critical, I wouldn't use a Kindle or any device which communicated, beyond my control, with anything else.
So breaking the link with my gmail account is not really the point. The point is that I'm already fully aware that I'm using an essentially deeply compromised and untrustworthy tool. I'm not even particularly happy that Amazon has a full record of my Kindle based library and literary tastes and, to some extent even knows when I've read whatever I've read and potentially actionable and revealing details such as what time of time I typically am to be found reading. I keep the damn thing offline almost permanently for just that reason, but I'm aware that whenever I do let it back online, for example to download a recent purchase, that they almost certainly take the opportunity to "sync" the device with my free Amazon cloud and thus catch up with anything I've been blocking them from.
I'm really probing for ways to use some of its functionality without further exposing myself to their surveillance capability. So even using throwawy email addresses doesn't really address the problem as we have assume that ALL communications between a Kindle and the outside world are accessible on demand by Amazon and thus, if subject to one of the illicit legal demands of the American state, sundry US spook agencies.
So the real challenge, is how to use functions like Calender, Notes etc, without ANYTHING leaving the Kindle. Even during a sync update.
I'm not expecting a favourable answer. Just probing to see if anyone has found potential solutions to the absence of verifiable Kindle privacy...
>>Would creating a throwaway Gmail account and using that to activate the calendar account be an option?
If the calender was mission critical, I wouldn't use a Kindle or any device which communicated, beyond my control, with anything else.
So breaking the link with my gmail account is not really the point. The point is that I'm already fully aware that I'm using an essentially deeply compromised and untrustworthy tool. I'm not even particularly happy that Amazon has a full record of my Kindle based library and literary tastes and, to some extent even knows when I've read whatever I've read and potentially actionable and revealing details such as what time of time I typically am to be found reading. I keep the damn thing offline almost permanently for just that reason, but I'm aware that whenever I do let it back online, for example to download a recent purchase, that they almost certainly take the opportunity to "sync" the device with my free Amazon cloud and thus catch up with anything I've been blocking them from.
I'm really probing for ways to use some of its functionality without further exposing myself to their surveillance capability. So even using throwawy email addresses doesn't really address the problem as we have assume that ALL communications between a Kindle and the outside world are accessible on demand by Amazon and thus, if subject to one of the illicit legal demands of the American state, sundry US spook agencies.
So the real challenge, is how to use functions like Calender, Notes etc, without ANYTHING leaving the Kindle. Even during a sync update.
I'm not expecting a favourable answer. Just probing to see if anyone has found potential solutions to the absence of verifiable Kindle privacy...
Ahhh I get it Mike. I don't know if this might provide any peace of mind, but under Settings -> Apps & Notifications -> Amazon App Settings -> Emails, Contact, and Calendar Settings -> Calendar Settings (phew, buried much?) there is an option to turn off Sync Amazon Calendar, which should disable any information that is in your calendar from being sync'd whenever you connect to get new books etc.
ASKER
Good try Marten, but you must have missed the intro to my second comment. I've already disabled it and it made no difference...
Are you telling me, perchance, that you too have disabled it and HAS worked for you?
Are you telling me, perchance, that you too have disabled it and HAS worked for you?
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ASKER
So unfortunately it does appear you need to tie the calendar events to an account, but you can turn off syncing and trust that Amazon will not sync any of that information.Yuh!
but as the rest of this thread reveals, the whole point is that I don't (and we, generally, shouldn't) trust Amazon to protect our data, even if we do trust them to supply reasonably efficient technology.
As I've said elsewhere, options, laws, "oversight" and "terms and conditions" which claim to prevent theft or other abuse of data are nothing more than "Security Theatre". What we seek and need are technical protections which make such abuse, preferably, completely impossible or, at the very least, immediately detectable (tamper evident)
I'll leave the question open for a couple more days, to see if anyone else can come up with more positive news on the technical protection front. If none appear, then I'll close the question and mark yours as the solution because you have definitively answered it, albeit with a resounding "NO"!
https://www.linux.com/training-tutorials/five-best-open-source-calendar-servers-linux/ provides a starting point for running your own calendar server.