Securely embedding images?

[sowillo14]

Say I am making a web page on .Mac, and I want to put pictures on the page. Is there anyway I can put a decent size picture up that people will not be able to download. If someone could help I would greatly appreciate it!!

 

[angelwatt]

No, there's not. There's 90% effective ways, but not 100%. If a person can see it, they can get it. Whether it's through looking at the source code, or just taking a screen shot of the browser window, people will be able to get it.

 

[sowillo14]

No, there's not. There's 90% effective ways, but not 100%. If a person can see it, they can get it. Whether it's through looking at the source code, or just taking a screen shot of the browser window, people will be able to get it.

I see. But what do you think the 90% way would be?

 

[ChrisA]

I see. But what do you think the 90% way would be?

It's easy, you make you work so unattractive that no one would want it. One way to do that is to watermark each photo. Here is an example from a commercial site: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/images/items/324762.jpg

It is only 90% effective because someone who really wanted (why?) a photo of a Norman power pack could use Photoshop to "clone out" the watermark.

The other method is to onlu use low res images but you said "decent size" so that's out, I assume.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

off the top of my head... instead of a img tag, use a div tag, apply a background image, and then use a transparent gif with the width and height set to 100%

Like so:

<div style="background-image:URL('image.jpg');height:height_of_image_px;width:width_of_image_px;">
<img src="transparent_gif.gif" height="100%" width="100%">
</div>

 

[sowillo14]

off the top of my head... instead of a img tag, use a div tag, apply a background image, and then use a transparent gif with the width and height set to 100%

Like so:

<div style="background-image:URL('image.jpg');height:height_of_image_px;width:width_of_image_px;">
<img src="transparent_gif.gif" height="100%" width="100%">
</div>

Will that make it so when they click the image, they are really clicking a transparent gif? And the image sits in the div tag?

 

[angelwatt]

Will that make it so when they click the image, they are really clicking a transparent gif? And the image sits in the div tag?

Yes, that's right. Yahoo makes use of this type of solution fairly often I've seen. To make it a little harder for a person to get the image you can use JavaScript to obfuscate the code so they can't easily get at the actual source. I know how to get around this though and also can make thee images unavailable to those with JavaScript disabled.

Another solution is to use Flash to display the image. It takes more time to set it up though and requires you to have Flash.

On a similar note; One thing I've setup on my server is blocking of hot linking images. This is when someone takes the source of an image on your server and uses it on their pages, some times claiming it as their own. When they do this it makes use of your bandwidth, which is a big reason people put a stop to it. Blocking hot linking won't stop them from downloading your image, but will protect your bandwidth. I have my hot link blocking replace the image they try to use with a 2-bit image that says "Thief." It's quite hilarious when I find the image on other sites. I came across a site where an "artist" was trying to claim my work as their own. Here's an alright write-up on blocking hot linking with an Apache web server.

 

[sowillo14]

Cool, thanks everyone for the help.

 

[Carl Spackler]

It's easy, you make you work so unattractive that no one would want it.

This is really the way to go, but you run the risk of starting a new art movement, then everybody will try to download your art. Oh, or combine a couple, post-modern dada would be a real feat.

 

[ChicoWeb]

How about...

Not putting it on the web? Thats the only way you can insure that no one steals your artwork.