Re: Anyone use this list

From: Josh Battles (josh@omg-stfu.com)
Date: Sat Aug 07 2004 - 00:11:48 EDT


jon@dakota-truck.net wrote:
> FWIW, if the link is clicked on in the archives, bad things
> happen too. ;-) I'm guessing it is the "referrer" attribute of
> the HTTP request which is causing your server to swap images.
> I don't really have a suggestion about how to make it work the
> way you want it to since I don't have a lot of experience with
> .htaccess beyond fairly simple password stuff, but just in case
> it helps, I'm guessing it is triggering on a non-blank referrer.

Actually, what I did is give it a list of "approved" sites that I allow
hotlinking from. I added the twistedbits.net address to it, but I don't
think dakota-truck.net is in there. I'll add that in and see what I can
do with hotmail.

> I wonder if there might be a way to configure the .htaccess
> setup such that it wouldn't do the switch if a certain attribute
> appeared after the URL, such that you could possibly append "OK"
> or some other text string at the end when posting links to images.
> For example: "http://www.yoursite.com/goggles.gif?OK" Of course,
> even if you do get this to work, people who know about it could
> still link to your images by using the proper URL; though most
> people probably wouldn't figure there would be such a mechanism
> in place so it would work for the most part.

I'm sure there is some way to do this, but I don't really think I want
to put forth all that effort. I'll probably just move the files into
another directory when I post them on the DML. The links will be dead
in the archives, but you won't see the gaping an0s anymore.

> Or, this second method which I am about 99% sure would work
> for ya and would still prevent inline linking is to write a
> simple CGI script to build an HTML page on the fly and
> display the picture inline. Because the referrer would be your
> own site, there shouldn't be any problem with the switched
> image. The URL you would give out would look something like:
> http://www.yoursite.com/displaypic.cgi?goggles.gif This way
> prevents image stealing since what is returned isn't image data
> but an HTML page. I have actually done this and it is pretty
> simple. Check out http://www.dragtruk.com - when you are looking
> at an entry and click on a picture, notice that the URL isn't
> directly to the image itself, it builds a page around it and
> inlines the image. I mainly did that to make the site pretty -
> so that clicking on an image wouldn't just throw the stark
> image up there, it would have the same look and feel as the
> rest of the site. But, it may work for your purposes also,
> you don't need all the borders, etc. just an HTML page with
> an <IMG> tag in it.

That sounds too much like actual work. That route would kinda put a
kibash on the inline image posting I do on the "trusted" web forums that
I use those images for 99% of the time.

> This is actually done with a pretty simple CSH script, if you
> would like a copy just let me know; you may be able to use it
> as the basis for something that would work with your site. It
> requires CSH, awk, sed and assumes a working "cat" command.

MY EYES!!!!! That's too much effort for me. As we all know, I'm lazy
by nature when it comes to actual work.

- Josh



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