Page Theft + Bandwidth Theft

[wsz]

Someone has stolen an older version of one of my pages (they must have taken it at least two or three months ago), and has placed it on space at http://www.chat.ru (an ISP? a free web space provider?), and added a porn site pop-up. They are just using that one page.

They didn't even bother to remove my copyright notice from the HTML source. They made a slight alteration to the code so that the navigation bar links point to the legitimate site, and also so that the background graphic is being pulled from from the legitimate site (i.e. from *my* server space.)

I have 700+ pages that use that background graphic, and while some of them use Dreamweaver templates that can be changed quickly, many of them don't use those templates (they are static HTML forum posts generated by a CGI script.) I suppose I could download the forum posts, do a find-and-replace, and then upload them, if absolutely necessary.

Is there any way to prevent the graphic from being pulled by any domain except mine? Perhaps something with .htaccess?

Does anyone have any experience with trying to have stolen pages removed from this particular provider? The .ru domain doesn't give me much confidance.

The page thief left a couple of ads for my legitimate sponsors on the page, and I am concerned that those sponsors will think the stolen version is mine.

I have alerted my host, and have complained to Chat.ru. Any other suggestions?

Thanks...


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[Graeme]

i will make you a FREE script were you call the image

image.cgi?image=bg.gif
and it will check to see if the request is coming from your site and if it is not it will display a big image saying DONT STEAL MY IMAGES !!

if you want me to do it email me webmaster@cgi-scripting.com

You would have to change the location of your images on your server though,



[This message has been edited by Graeme (edited 01-10-2001).]

[fatale]

I think there's an easier solution by using Apache's mod_rewrite ability. I've never tried it myself, so I wouldn't be confident giving you exact advice on how to do it. But I'm sure there are people on this board who can help you. http://geekvillage.com/ubb/smile.gif

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[wsz]

Update: Chat.ru responded promptly, and deleted the stolen page http://geekvillage.com/ubb/smile.gif

I think I will make it so the forum posts and the main content pages point to separate background graphic files with different names, so that if one of the non-forum pages gets stolen again, I can just change my templates without having to change the forum posts, too.

I suspect that the thief may have done search engine queries for various terms, and stolen high-ranking pages, then submitted their copies to the search engines in hope of also getting high positions, to draw traffic to their porn pop-up.

With regards to anti-hotlinking scripts - do they place much load on the server? I am currently using WebAdverts to rotate banners (three per page), and I am already concerned about potentially using excessive processing resouces and irritating the host, so I am hesitant to add more CGI calls. (My traffic and revenue aren't yet high enough to justify a dedicated server.)


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[Czar]

This Christmas, I ran a clipart site whose bandwidth (due to hotlinked images) blew me out of the water. The site isn't hosted on Apache, and I don't want to hide the images behind password-protection.

Is there an easy method to protect a server from referenced images without using mod_rewrite?

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[singloon]

Originally posted by Czar:
This Christmas, I ran a clipart site whose bandwidth (due to hotlinked images) blew me out of the water. The site isn't hosted on Apache, and I don't want to hide the images behind password-protection.

Is there an easy method to protect a server from referenced images without using mod_rewrite?

Czar, mod_rewrite is the easiest and best way to do it and it doesn't hide the image behind a password protection..

i use it to protect my forum's smilies from being hotlinked by the 100s of forums that try to hotlink my smilies

info on this is at http://faq.solutionscripts.com/misc/hot_linking.html



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[singloon]

doesn't help but look what i just found - http://www.hotlinking.com/


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Australian Neon Genesis Evangelion (http://www.eva2000.com/?geek)
film - writers - reviewers - reporters - designers (http://infilmbox.com/?geek)
FanBuy.com indevelopment (http://fanbuy.com/main.shtml?geek)