Stop bandwidth thievery?

[X-Fan]

I've been having a big problem with bandwidth thieves of late, linking directly to images at my Web site from other sites, and I need to put a stop to it.

How can I set it up so that if someone tries to link directly to an image on my server it blocks them from doing so?

[Admin]

Use mod_rewrite... I don't have the exact syntax, but if you search Google for "mod_rewrite images stop bandwidth" I'm sure you'll come up with something. :)

[Admin]

<a href="http://www.bignosebird.com/apache/a13.shtml" target="_blank">http://www.bignosebird.com/apache/a13.shtml</a>

[X-Fan]

Worked perfectly!

Thanks a bunch, Chen!!!!

[X-Fan]

Actually, it worked a bit too perfectly. It's not only blocking other sites from loading up images at my site, but blocking my site from loading images in it as well!

I used my site's base URL's of x-mencomics.com and www.x-mencomics.com in the htaccess file, then tried adding the xfan subdirectory to the end of each and still no luck.

Any ideas how I can tweak it so as to stop it blocking my own site from loading images?

[Admin]

Try this:
http://www.thesitewizard.com/archive/bandwidththeft.shtml

[X-Fan]

Yeah, I found that site and tried their method too. It's still blocking images from loading on my site, as well as blocking them when linked to on other sites.

[Admin]

I really don't know then, sorry. Try asking at vB.com's Server Config forum, eva2000 will know the answer. :)

[X-Fan]

Shall do. Thanks for taking the time out to try and help, Chen!

[Logician]

<a href="https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/attachment.php?s=&postid=271487" target="_blank">https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/attac...&postid=271487</a>

[X-Fan]

Thanks Logician, but I followed what the tutorial said to do (which was slightly different to the other methods) and still no go - the .htaccess file in my images directory is blocking my forums from loading files from the images directory and any sub-directories. :(

[Logician]

maybe you can ask your host.. They usually tend to help with .htaccess problems..

[TECK]

x-fan, what broswer do u use?
read this:
Like the PHP and CGI solution, this method relies on the HTTP_REFERER being properly set by the visitor's browser. A number of modern browsers as well as some of the anonymous surfing proxies allow the user to change this header. These browsers or proxies will thus either transmit HTTP_REFERER headers that have some user-specified value or not bother to transmit them at all. There are also buggy browsers around that unpredictably transmit the wrong HTTP_REFERER header on occasion. i'm sure that's your prob, the browser.

[X-Fan]

I'm using IE v6.0

[Rapdis]

the problem is the mod_rewrite is not installed on the server, and not installed on many server due to abuse, i need help asap, it cost me £155 this month, i really dont know what to do...

sum1 help!