Everyone of Your Photos Albums Are Open to Hot Linking

[BarelyHangingOn]

Unless somebody has a method to protect but I just went through google and hot linked photos from the about 10 VBulls using the plugin to display photo album images on the front page.

Any thoughts? Any solutions? Why would VBull not address this flaw? There have been numerous posts on this board and the official board without any solution that I can see.

[1Unreal]

Thats up to you not vB. And there are hundreds (http://reque.st/z2zp) of tutorials on protecting your site from hotlinking.

[BarelyHangingOn]

Wow, Google has information of hot link protection? I didn't know that.

Now, for the rest of the people that know something about VBulletin.

They have decided to call image requests from Photo Albums not like normal image requests but like this: /board/picture.php?albumid=3&pictureid=52

How do you block that through htaccess. I found tons of requests on this board and the official board and there was not one response from VBull on how to help with this situation.

It's not up to me, it's to them since they decided to call the images in such an off centred way. It's the same with attachments which can be totally hotlinked.

1Unreal, if you are on top of it. Then what is the code to prevent hot linking of images in photo albums?

[1Unreal]

Depends how the images are being stored. In the database or as files. Storing them as files would make them easier to protect.

[BarelyHangingOn]

There is no difference between how how the software calls them. I have switched it between files and database and it still handles them the same way.

[1Unreal]

No it doesn't.

[BarelyHangingOn]

I have just switched it between the three storage types and the address given for all of the photos is:
/board/picture.php?albumid=3&pictureid=53

This seems to contradict your "no it doesn't"

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=299574&highlight=picture.php%3F

[Lynne]

If you store the album images in the file system, and put that directory above your public_html folder (just like the attachment folder and just as recommended), then you should not be able to see them if they are linked on another site (unless the person viewing them is also a member of the site and has the correct permissions to view them). If you want to do the same with thumbnails, I think there is some option to disallow publicly linking to them.

[BarelyHangingOn]

Thank you Lynn can you give me an exmaple of the path to the folder in setup if I called it "album". I am having problems as it won't write to the folde which I have 777 permisions on.

Example

/domains/mydomain.com/album ???

My board is located at
/domains/mydomain.com/public_html/board

[Lynne]

From what you wrote above, I'm guessing that /domains/mydomain.com/album would be fine.

You might want to see this - Album Picture Storage Type (http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/album_picture_storage) and this - When Pictures are in the Database (http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/album_picture_database) and this - When Pictures are in the File System (http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/album_picture_file_system)

[BarelyHangingOn]

I keep getting the error that it can't write to it. Thanks for your help I appreciate it.

[Lynne]

Did you read those links? They talk about setting the permissions on the directory so it is writable.