Photo theft and bulk downloaders

cycleman

I've been reading some of the discussions about image theft in DGRIN, very unnerving. :cry I have right click protection but apparently that may not be enough. watermarking might be necessary, but the great majority of photo websites here and elsewhere that I've seen don't use watermarks.

a couple of questions:
there are web bulk image download programs out there. can these be used to snatch images off a right click protected site?

is a Flash site better protected than an html site? (I've kinda assumed that they are) and if so can you do that in SM?

and is there a way to find out if your image is somewhere else on the web besides your website(s)? can you somehow search for your own image?

thanks for the input. :barb

dick louderman

aktse

I’m sorry to break the news to you, but if you are that concerned about unauthorized use of your photo, do not put it on any public website – smugmug, flickr, zenfolio, your own hosting, flash, non-flash, etc.

If you can see it on the WWW, anyone can grab it (save it, screen capture, etc). And in the days of facebook, myspace, etc., a screen grab is enough for most individuals.

Right-click protection, flash sites, etc. just provide a false sense of security and makes this a bit more difficult, but not impossible to capture.

And yes, someone can easily write a script to grab images off the web.

In order to make things more difficult, right-click protect them, google protect them, turn off external links, limit the viewing size and watermark them with something that makes them a bit undesirable… Not everyone uses watermarks. Some individuals have learned to live with other people using their lower resolution images in unauthorized places; they have realized the value of sharing images over locking everything down.

But each individual have their own opinions on this and there isn’t a right/wrong answer; it’s all boils down to what you’re comfortable with….

As for searching for images, tin-eye (I think that’s the web site) is trying to index the photos on the web, but it doesn’t have everything.

Andy

Hiya Dick, Long time no talk

Unnerving? If it's on the web, it can be gotten.

Watermark, block originals (and other large sizes if you wish), block external links, and use right click protection.

http://www.smugmug.com/help/image-protection
http://www.smugmug.com/help/custom-watermark-protection

Holler with any questions!

Nikolai

cycleman wrote:

a couple of questions:
there are web bulk image download programs out there. can these be used to snatch images off a right click protected site?

Technically speaking, right-click protections means pretty much nothing .
If you can see an image in your browser as a result of an IMG tag, it means the image already resides on the viewer's HDD in the browser's cache. It doesn't take more than a high school student to create a snatcher for the files that are wide in the open, i.e.

• originals are enabled/allowed
• images are not watermarked
• galleries are listed/public
• gallery are not protected by the password

And what Andy said:-)
HTH

RustingInPeace

TinEye
try tineye to searc for your pics

NikonsandVstroms

Using a flash set up will make it so they can't do a mass download, the only file uploaded onto the site is SWF. While on an HTML file, the actual image files are on the server even if not directly visible.

People can still do a print screen, and nothing will stop that, but that's fairly labor-intensive in comparison.

cycleman

thanks for the info!
hi, Andy, good to hear from you!!!

I looked at your site, still terrific, super pics! I noticed that you watermarked some galleries (ferrari) but not others.

is it possible to do a flash photo gallery in SM?

I haven't been active because I've been ill, the past super long chicago winter was very rough on me.

more later. thanks!

dick

Andy wrote:

Hiya Dick, Long time no talk

Unnerving? If it's on the web, it can be gotten.

Watermark, block originals (and other large sizes if you wish), block external links, and use right click protection.

http://www.smugmug.com/help/image-protection
http://www.smugmug.com/help/custom-watermark-protection

Holler with any questions!

cycleman

flash in SM

NikonsandVstroms wrote:

Using a flash set up will make it so they can't do a mass download, the only file uploaded onto the site is SWF.

is this possible in smugmug?

thanks for your response.

dick

NikonsandVstroms

I'm not sure, currently I'm using my own site that I built and not smug mug. The big thing is, if it lets you upload your own HTML files for this site. If this is possible than you can put the SWF inside those pages.

aktse

cycleman wrote:

is this possible in smugmug?
dick

I think you can do something similar if you have a power or pro account. Smugmug has it's own version of a full page slideshow using flash, but it isn't the same as the .swf that NikonsandVstroms is referring to. I guess you can force the FFSS, and disable all other gallery styles.

And if you're so concerned about photo thief, I suggest you lock down your originals on your gallery pages. They're currently enabled (as least on the few that I checked).

Still, limiting sizes and watermarking is the best way to go. There are are ways to get around flash as well.

DJT

NikonsandVstroms wrote:

I'm not sure, currently I'm using my own site that I built and not smug mug. The big thing is, if it lets you upload your own HTML files for this site. If this is possible than you can put the SWF inside those pages.

Long time ago... I used a program that I downloaded and it had some security features:

no right click
no page print
no image copy
no text highlighting
no offline browsing

I don't remember what else...

But it's still around:
http://www.html-protector.com/encrypt/

Don't know exactly how secure it was or is, maybe someone here knows.

denisegoldberg

DJT wrote:

Long time ago... I used a program that I downloaded and it had some security features:

no right click
no page print
no image copy
no text highlighting
no offline browsing

...Don't know exactly how secure it was or is, maybe someone here knows.

What that program gave you was a false sense of security. If something is displayed on a computer, that something is in the computer's buffer and is available to be snatched.

See Nikolai's post above - http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=856433&postcount=4.

--- Denise

mwgrice

DJT wrote:

Long time ago... I used a program that I downloaded and it had some security features:

no right click
no page print
no image copy
no text highlighting
no offline browsing

I don't remember what else...

But it's still around:
http://www.html-protector.com/encrypt/

Don't know exactly how secure it was or is, maybe someone here knows.

Eh, it'll stop casual browsers. I downloaded their sample page easily enough (with wget) and a minute or two of browing got me this: http://www.jimcosoftware.com/protect.aspx He has a decrypt page to convert the HTML encoding they're using into regular text, and it works well enough.

NikonsandVstroms

aktse wrote:

I think you can do something similar if you have a power or pro account. Smugmug has it's own version of a full page slideshow using flash, but it isn't the same as the .swf that NikonsandVstroms is referring to. I guess you can force the FFSS, and disable all other gallery styles.

And if you're so concerned about photo thief, I suggest you lock down your originals on your gallery pages. They're currently enabled (as least on the few that I checked).

Still, limiting sizes and watermarking is the best way to go. There are are ways to get around flash as well.

This really is the best way to, even with my flash pages, the images themselves are only 40-120 kb, nothing you can use commercially at least.

DJT

mwgrice wrote:

Eh, it'll stop casual browsers. I downloaded their sample page easily enough (with wget) and a minute or two of browing got me this: http://www.jimcosoftware.com/protect.aspx He has a decrypt page to convert the HTML encoding they're using into regular text, and it works well enough.

Yeah.. I downloaded a trial way back when... never purchased the full version, because I had my doubts.

Also... think I posted the wrong html protector. think this is more like the one that I downloaded:

http://www.antssoft.com/htmlprotector/index.htm

Because I remember reading about on the website:

Disable the Ability of Browsers to Cache Your Website
Expire Your Pages Immediately