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People hotlinking my flash files!

Posted: Sat Oct 14, 2006 11:19 am
by Katie22
I have a website with flash applications on it , but they are embedded from another site (mine).
How do I keep people from stealing my thunder and embedding my flash apps on their site?
plz help me. :cry:
Kate.

Posted: Sat Oct 14, 2006 11:21 am
by nickvd
It's truly amazing what 5 seconds of searching can do...

http://www.google.ca/search?q=prevent+hotlinking

Posted: Sat Oct 14, 2006 11:28 am
by neophyte
For flash files I've worked with in the past I import a PHP variable string. Make an md5 hash out of some string. Put it in a file name the file with some md5 hashed string. You check it in your actionscript. If it's there the movie plays if not no play. That'll not only prevent hotlinking but it'll also prevent people from playing it if its not on your server.

Posted: Sat Oct 14, 2006 12:00 pm
by MrPotatoes
neophyte wrote:For flash files I've worked with in the past I import a PHP variable string. Make an md5 hash out of some string. Put it in a file name the file with some md5 hashed string. You check it in your actionscript. If it's there the movie plays if not no play. That'll not only prevent hotlinking but it'll also prevent people from playing it if its not on your server.
wow, that's actually kinda sexy. if i had video files that i did mind people taking i would totally do this

Posted: Sat Oct 14, 2006 2:41 pm
by Mordred
That'll not only prevent hotlinking but it'll also prevent people from playing it if its not on your server.
Hmm, but would that prevent people from downloading the swf, decompiling it, removing your check and then compiling it again? :twisted:

Posted: Sat Oct 14, 2006 5:45 pm
by MrPotatoes
Mordred wrote:
That'll not only prevent hotlinking but it'll also prevent people from playing it if its not on your server.
Hmm, but would that prevent people from downloading the swf, decompiling it, removing your check and then compiling it again? :twisted:
man if they went through all that effort for a lameass swf then have it. enjoy it. lmao

Posted: Sun Oct 15, 2006 12:38 pm
by Ambush Commander
Yep. It's always a tradeoff. I remember this one website that used blank gifs overlaid over an actual background image to prevent you from downloading the images: if you right-clicked and saved you'd just get a blank image. Of course, since we're tech-savvy, we can easily get around it, but the average user would be stumped.

Posted: Sun Oct 15, 2006 2:55 pm
by wtf

Posted: Sun Oct 15, 2006 9:26 pm
by alex.barylski
I thought this disscussion was about hotlinking or image burning?

There is nothing you can do to prevent people from copying your content onto their own desktop. Zip...natta...any technique you can come up with, I gaurantee you I can get around it - assuming I can see it in my browser window and it's not behind locked doors, so to speak. :P

Image burning is when one web site uses a file stored on your web site without your permission and their web site, thus using your bandwidth not their own. I don't think this is a common problem anymore as bandwidth is pretty cheap these days. :)

Cheers :)