Bandwidth/Image theft

[FiberGuy]

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

[regic]

Did you try searching for the filename in Google Images?

[BellisimaJ.]

Related blog post (how to prevent hotlinking):

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! Here’s how.

Full post: http://www.michaelaulia.com/blogs/2008/0...y-way.html

[FiberGuy]

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.

[bargainbloodhound]

I'm not sure if there is a setting in cpanel that I can alter to change this.

There isn't one.

[FiberGuy]

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