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How To Block Hotlinkers
otlinking or bandwidth
theft is direct linking to One sure sign of hotlinking is
a website’s file including the appearance of strange web
images, video and others on the sites in one’s referrer logs.
external website. It has become When sites that wouldn’t normally
prevalent in the many forums and be interested in one site are the
message boards on the web that ones that are appearing, then
allow users to insert images. The something is definitely up. When
user resorts to hotlinking those the offending sites are visited,
when creating the tag as it is photos owned by the other site
not possible to keep on the host are sure to be posted there. They
site. do not make copies of the photo
but rather link directly to the
The Harm Caused by Hotlinking photo hosted on the website.
Higher than normal bandwidth
When an tag is used to display a consumption is another sign. The
JPEG image found on someone log analysis tools might even
else’s webpage so that it will show a higher number of hits for
appear on one’s own site, an image than for the page that
journal, weblog or forum posting, displays it.
hotlinking is taking place. Other
people might find it flattering Blocking Hotlinking
to know that someone would be
interested in a photo they have The only fool-proof way to stop
taken. This practice, however, hotlinking is to turn-off one’s
consumes bandwidth and slows down website. This is rather extreme
the web server. When done and does not present a viable
excessively, the unknowing victim option to site owners. The best
ends up footing an extra bill bet lies on creating an .htaccess
from his/her hosting provider. file. Although there are many
variations that exist on the separate version of the
specific regular expressions that redirected image in each format
can be written, they all that one uses on a site such as
accomplish the same thing. One one for gif format, one in jpeg
can either throw the client a format, one on jpg format and so
"forbidden" which means that the on. Each hot linked image is then
image is not there or the client redirected to the matching file
gets to be redirected to another type.
image which is usually something
suitably offensive. Using the If one is feeling a little bit
Rewrite Rule to forbid display of mischievous, other interesting
image is a simple rule which images can be served to people
effectively blocks the display on hotlinking to one’s images. If
remote sites. Redirecting the offender site is into
requests for images from remote selling, for example, an image
web pages to an image of choice that says “Free Shipping
on one’s website is taking this Worldwide” would surely
rule a step further. A good discourage the offender as the
example of this is an image which very reason for hotlinking is to
says “This image is stolen”. A make money, even in an
person who tries to link directly unacceptable manner. No company
to the original images of a site can survive, much less earn with
is inadvertently serving the a guarantee such as shipping for
redirected image to his/her free worldwide.
pages.
Some people recommend the white
Redirecting a browser from one list approach. This is basically
file type to another is blocking all referrers except for
essentially not a good idea. The those sites that are specifically
best approach is to make a allowed to do so. Again, this
approach borders on the extreme twist to include one’s URL on the
as it blocks all requests, image. It wouldn’t hurt to get
legitimate or otherwise. some free advertising in the
Accidentally blocking legitimate process.
requests from search engines,
feed readers and others would be This is how to disable hot
very disadvantageous to the site. linking of certain file types on
one’s site through .htaccess by
The black approach is a better simply adding the code below to
option as it intends to block one’s .htaccess file. Uploading
some specific sites that are the file either to the root
considered the worst offenders. A directory or a particular
website owner has to find out if subdirectory is necessary to
his/her website is on an Apache localize the effect to just one
Server and if the use of section of the site.
.htaccess is allowed by them. A
simple email to the web space RewriteEngine on
provider will provide a swift RewriteCond%{HTTP_REFERER}!^$
answer. The .htaccess file should RewriteCond%{HTTP_
go into a website’s root REFERER}!^http://(www\.)?mydomain
directory on one’s web server. .com/.*$[NC]
RewriteRule\.(gif/jpg/js/css)$-[F
Verification that everything is ]
working properly on one’s site The “my has to be done. Mod-rewrite is href="http://domain.com"
very powerful but it only needs title="http://domain.com"
one typo for hell to break loose. target="_blank">The block listed sites should be color="#001000"
checked out if the stop image is size="-2">http://domain.combeing shown. It might be a nice >” is to be replaced by one’s
own. The above code creates a decent browser and it’s all
failed request when hot linking there. Using JavaScript to write
of the specified file types images into a page does not offer
occurs. A broken image is shown sufficient protection as
in case of the image. hotlinkers can easily link to
images once they know the origin
To block traffic from a single URL.
referrer:
RewriteEngine on FileProt is a protection script
#Options+Follow-Symlinks that is simple to set up and use.
RewriteCond%{HTTP_REFERER}badsite It does not allow anyone coming
\.com[NC] from unauthorized places access
RewriteRule.*-[F] to certain files in one’s web
server. This allows for the
To block traffic from multiple specification not only of
referrers: unauthorized domains but pages in
RewriteEngine on one’s domain as well. It can be
#Options+Follow-Symlinks specified to allow file or image
RewriteCond%{HTTP_REFERER}badsite download from certain pages in
\.com[NC.OR] one’s domain. Hotlinkers and
RewriteCond%{HTTP_REFERER}another bandwidth leeches are completely
badsite\.com blocked but this script is not
RewriteRule.*-[F] intended for super high-traffic
sites.
JavaScript can be used to prevent
right-clicking an image when Download Tracker is a CGI script
already in a browser. This is a that manages downloads from one’s
very weak defense though as web page. Options include
people just need to switch requests for email address and
JavaScript off and/or use a anti-leech system. It is
multi-platform compatible and has
a back-end control panel.
About the Author:
http://www.theinternetone.net
Read more articles by: Danny Wirken
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