DPChallenge: A Digital Photography Contest You are not logged in. (log in or register
 

DPChallenge Forums >> General Discussion >> How to deal with bandwidth thief?
Pages:  
Showing posts 1 - 25 of 55, (reverse)
AuthorThread
07/05/2005 09:17:12 AM · #1
So, i find overnight i have 91 hits to an otherwise unvisited image on my gallery... this is the image: /~rain/gallery/albums/still-life/flower_inverse_desktop.sized.jpg

And this is the thief:
//profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=1704894&Mytoken=20050704060517

Now, a cursory glance over the page doesn't reveal any means of contacting the individual short of having to join up and send a site message (although i can't really tell with all the pink, bit painful).

So, i'm thinking of replacing the image with something photoshopped that would encourage her to remove it forthwith... with the caption "bandwidth thief" in bright pink, of course :) Any suggestions?
07/05/2005 09:21:07 AM · #2
I wrote a simple CGI script that serves up every image and checks the page it's loaded in.

Here's an example:

//www.calcaria.net/tmp.html

Which contains this image:

//www.calcaria.net/cgi-bin/calasset.cgi?z=result.gif

Here's the script:

//www.calcaria.net/showasset.txt

(Calling a small app I wrote to strip the URI data.)
07/05/2005 09:24:11 AM · #3
The top link takes me to weather.com. Anyway this reminded me oif that story of the guy on ebay that stole images to sell his stuff on ebay. Someone had coded when the image was right clicked and saved as(stolen) it saved images of adult toys with a statement below stating "steal an image and this is what happens" What ever happend to that kind of coding.
07/05/2005 09:24:57 AM · #4
I've found that if you replace the image with an extra large, very disgusting image, it gets changed rather quickly. :)
07/05/2005 09:26:49 AM · #5
Originally posted by rex:

saved images of adult toys with a statement below stating "steal an image and this is what happens" What ever happend to that kind of coding.

That's what my script does above; minus the adult toys.
07/05/2005 10:33:01 AM · #6
I'm a member of Myspace.com. It's free to sign up.

She is probably clueless about the trouble she is causing you. I'd sign up and contact her.
07/05/2005 10:51:02 AM · #7
Originally posted by riot:

So, i find overnight i have 91 hits to an otherwise unvisited image on my gallery...

So, i'm thinking of replacing the image with something photoshopped that would encourage her to remove it forthwith... with the caption "bandwidth thief" in bright pink, of course :) Any suggestions?


I believe you're talking about a different kind of stealing. She didn't right click and save the image then use it... she just linked to it, so it shows up in her website.

I agree with your idea of substituting the image to top that usage, but then add in some javascript code to disable the right click so no one can get the properties (url) of the image itself to use it. An example is available
here.
07/05/2005 10:56:10 AM · #8
I had a similar situation where someone copied one of my images, put it on a free photo site, then linked to the photo site in a blog.

Image being used without permission...

It was amazing how fast the photo was removed by the free photo site after I contacted them. They pulled not only mine, but all images the blogger had posted.

You might want to take a look at the myspace.com TOS - linked below. I think you would get a similar response. Item #6 would be of interest to you.

Terms of Service
07/05/2005 11:07:13 AM · #9
Originally posted by chesire:

I believe you're talking about a different kind of stealing. She didn't right click and save the image then use it... she just linked to it, so it shows up in her website.


I'm not bothered about her downloading my image and even using it on her site so much as the fact it's hotlinked, which means it's MY bandwidth that goes to serve the readers of her site.

Either way, her site now has a slight facelift that's bound to get her attention pretty fast :)
07/05/2005 11:09:49 AM · #10
If you are on a Unix system, and have the ability to modify your .htaccess file, you can make it so that only your site can pull down your pictures.

I host my site on www.powweb.com and here is a tutorial on how they suggest you use your .htaccess file to stop image leeching.

//help.powweb.com/tutorials/htaccess/antileech.php
07/05/2005 11:12:09 AM · #11
Originally posted by riot:


Either way, her site now has a slight facelift that's bound to get her attention pretty fast :)


Well done.... That will get her attention.

[/url]
07/05/2005 11:12:12 AM · #12
I'll say! ;^)

Originally posted by riot:

Either way, her site now has a slight facelift that's bound to get her attention pretty fast :)

07/05/2005 11:13:06 AM · #13
Originally posted by riot:

Either way, her site now has a slight facelift that's bound to get her attention pretty fast :)

Hehehe, diplomatic. ;-)
07/05/2005 11:18:25 AM · #14
OMG riot! That is so hilarious! And yes, i am sure that shall get her attention.
07/05/2005 11:20:13 AM · #15
Originally posted by mkieff:

If you are on a Unix system, and have the ability to modify your .htaccess file, you can make it so that only your site can pull down your pictures.

That's an interesting way of dealing with it too.

I'm not sure if it works if you do a site RSS though, because your site is then pulled through a feed. I'll have to experiment.

I've also been having trouble with bandwidth thieves. Not large ones yet, but several hundred hits on a couple of large images I had on my blog.

My solution was to simply go and change the file name slightly so it breaks their link, but I get to keep the file on my site.

Thanks Paulmdx, I'll give the CGI a try to see if that still works with RSS feeds.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions (I know I'm not the OP, but I appreciate the info).
07/05/2005 11:25:40 AM · #16
Originally posted by beckettboots:

Thanks Paulmdx, I'll give the CGI a try to see if that still works with RSS feeds.

You'll need my geturi utility too.

//www.calcaria.net/geturi.cpp

or pre-built for Linux, kernel 2.4 (FOR SPARC):
//www.calcaria.net/geturi

Disclaimer: It's god-awful C++ written a long time ago.

Message edited by author 2005-07-05 11:44:42.
07/05/2005 12:44:03 PM · #17
Lol! Great. I love the new version of the image. :)

If you're using Apache, the BEST way to do this is to just configure apache to only serve up images where the referrer is your own web site.

See //www.webmasterstop.com/62.html
07/05/2005 12:44:26 PM · #18
Oh yeah, and if you're not using Apache, you should be.
07/05/2005 01:48:11 PM · #19
cthulhu > apache :P

But yeah, i'm not really interested in blocking *all* outside linking, i could do it fine if i needed it. It's easy enough to watch my referrals to spot odd ones out like this, and far more fun to do this than to block them outright :D
07/05/2005 02:12:33 PM · #20
hahaha that was fantastic !!
07/05/2005 02:17:21 PM · #21
Love it! I'm curious if she will try to contact you or just change the image....keep us updated!

lol

07/05/2005 03:10:03 PM · #22
Originally posted by colyla:

Love it! I'm curious if she will try to contact you or just change the image....keep us updated!

lol


Hey who knows, she might like it and decide to keep it :P
07/05/2005 03:52:41 PM · #23
I just want to interject here that what many of us would consider 'outright stealing' and 'thievery', many people have no idea that it may be possibly wrong to do something like this. Although I'm not trying to defend her, I think "I'm a dirty bandwidth thief" may be a little extreme when a simple e-mail might do the trick.

Not that I don't find it funny ;)
07/05/2005 04:19:36 PM · #24
Originally posted by brianlh:

I just want to interject here that what many of us would consider 'outright stealing' and 'thievery', many people have no idea that it may be possibly wrong to do something like this. Although I'm not trying to defend her, I think "I'm a dirty bandwidth thief" may be a little extreme when a simple e-mail might do the trick.

Not that I don't find it funny ;)


Well i would have emailed if there was a simple way to do so, but i'm not joining that site to do it... and besides, i rather have a taste for revenge :)
07/05/2005 04:26:56 PM · #25
Ah, that's right - sorry.. by the time that I read through all of the messages, I guess I had forgotten about that little fact :X

Either way, I'm sure someone will notify her (or maybe everyone will be afraid to, and she'll have to find out herself!) sooner or later.

FWIW - I surfed to your site and found the shot - and I think I'll hotlink it now. ;) jk
Pages:  
Current Server Time: 03/28/2024 06:12:31 PM

Please log in or register to post to the forums.


Home - Challenges - Community - League - Photos - Cameras - Lenses - Learn - Prints! - Help - Terms of Use - Privacy - Top ^
DPChallenge, and website content and design, Copyright © 2001-2024 Challenging Technologies, LLC.
All digital photo copyrights belong to the photographers and may not be used without permission.
Current Server Time: 03/28/2024 06:12:31 PM EDT.