Not sure if this is the best forum for this but...
I periodically check server logs and skim through the "hits" section to find excessive access from a single site, indicating an image being kifed.
Myspace users are easily the biggest image thieves out there, but how does one resolve an address like:
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm
Now don't get me wrong, I have the opinion that most users simply are ignorant of bandwidth theft/image theft. So, I'm never really malicious to the offender when I find them - but I do replace the image with one that is stamped with our company name. At least this way we get some kind of credit for it, plus a "free" advertisement of sorts.
Will I have to register at myspce to find the violators?
Ideas welcome!
Cheers
Did you try searching for the filename in Google Images?
Related blog post (how to prevent hotlinking):
Quote:Prevent someone from stealing your bandwith, the easy way
Posted
on April 28, 2008
If you have been following my blog, I made a post about how to prevent someone from hot-linking your blog/site images manually by using a file called [dot]htaccess. Although the solution is good, it may scare people who are not so tech-savvy and prefer not to meddle around with codes.
Well if you are under a hosting plan and your hosting provider uses cPanel (your site control panel), you may be lucky as there is a Hotlink Protection option located on it! Heres how.
Full post: http://www.michaelaulia.com/blogs/2008/0...y-way.html
Thanks for the tip, Regic - I'll try that.
Bell - I should have been more clear. I don't want to stop them, I want to
find them!
My site does use cpanel and has the hotlink protection feature.
I just noticed something last night. When I check the raw server logs (a pain, because the file is so huge), the full address of the referral is displayed. ( IE
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fus...iewprofile&friendid=1234567 ), but cpanel seems to truncate the address after the "?" operator. I'm not sure if there is a setting in cpanel that I can alter to change this.
Tanx, bbh - I didn't think so.
The good that came out of this is that I did manage to find a pretty good text editor that handles very large files... it makes viewing the raw logs much more easy going.
http://www.vim.org