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Protecting images

Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2003 12:15 pm
by oldtimer
Anyone know the best way to protect images? I have some copy protected images I want to display but do not want anyone to be able to get them.

Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2003 12:36 pm
by Judas
easy use a transparant layer and place it over your image.
so you cant copy past with a right click.

else make use off a watermark like digimark included in photoshop
so you can trace your work on the net.

Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2003 12:50 pm
by oldtimer
How do you do a transparent layer?

Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2003 1:42 pm
by JAM
1x1 .gif with a transparent color. Using <div>-layers with a size that matches the real image placed on top of the same, could help.

But really, the only way to stop a person from stealing a displayed image, is to not show it at all. If you can see it, you CAN save it in one way or the other.

Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2003 1:53 pm
by oldtimer
That is my fear. Trying to figure out how to get small images of Celebs up without people getting them and distributing them. Got a friend who is a professional photogropher who has thousands of pics.

Was hoping that I could do an include of an image but then source shows it as well :(

Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2003 2:55 pm
by JayBird
You could watermark them like they do on Corbis - http://www.corbis.com

Mark

Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2003 3:17 pm
by JAM
oldtimer wrote:That is my fear. Trying to figure out how to get small images of Celebs up without people getting them and distributing them. Got a friend who is a professional photogropher who has thousands of pics.

Was hoping that I could do an include of an image but then source shows it as well :(
You have probably also seen the "showimage.php?id=3" url's where id stands for a certain image somewhere. But the image is displayed as just an image in the end result, so...

As Bech100 said about watermarks, a visible watermark in for example a grey shade of text "SAMPLE" pressed across the entire image, makes it unwanted. If you on the other hand sell the image, the "SAMPLE" text id of course removed =).

There are functions in PHP for adding text to images (or even images to images), so perhaps scouting around for such snippets of code might help.

Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2003 5:14 pm
by JPlush76
your worst enemy = the dreaded printscreen button

lol

no matter what you do, if you're displaying an image someone can just print screen it. Its a pain but if they want it, they'll get it.

Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2003 5:52 pm
by Nay
Can't you disable buttons with Javasript?

But then, if the window is not focused, the script can't do anything.

-Nay

Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2003 6:03 pm
by JPlush76
I believe the print screen button overrides everything. It was put in to debug windows msgs on screen for tech support.

Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2003 6:32 pm
by nigma
Thanks Plush, didn't know that.

Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2003 7:54 pm
by phice
Printscreen is the best :D

Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2003 9:07 pm
by jayr517
I'm having the same sort of problem...but a bit different. My images are saved as .jpg files in a linux directory. I only allow users to view the images if they're registered users (i.e. I add an "image" link to the nav bar if the user is authenticated). I know I can change permissions on the image directory, but I'm wondering if there's a purely PHP/MySQL approach to doing this.

So, my question is: Is there a way to control image access (or any file, for that matter), vie PHP and MySQL, without having to omit world permissions in linux.

Is encrypting a blob or longblob data type image (i.e. vie AES_ENCRYPT) more secure than simply adjusting the linux permissions where images reside when they're not in the db?

Just wondering what everyone thinks, and what you guys have done in this situation.

Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2003 9:17 pm
by oldtimer
I can use htaccess to control over all access. But just one image is tougher. I could make a person login but that is asking to much really.

I will have to talk my friend into letting me make smaller modified images with a diagnal copy protect accross it.

Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2003 2:13 am
by twigletmac
I think the important thing to note is that the only way to truely protect the images is to not put them on a website in the first place.
  • Watermarks can be removed.
  • Javascript protection is easily disabled.
  • Print Screen is available.
However, since this generally isn't an option, it is best to ensure that you do your best to prevent hotlinking, have a robots.txt that stops the Googlebot (and others) from indexing your images and try and make the watermark difficult to remove without distorting the image.

Mac