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Protecting Attachments · **Released**: 04-19-2006

How do you go about protecting your attachments? I recently ran across a site that told everyone how to download attachments using a program called "Down Them All" and by adding a additional filter you can download all attachments.

I've got my attachments stored outside of the web root, is there anyway to add some code to attachment.php or else where that would distort the image when downloaded?

I've got about 4gigs of attachmetns that i need protected

Erwin · #2 04-19-2006, 05:41 AM

Do you mean sites that register a fake account to allow other unregistered guests to download attachments using a third party software? Not sure how you could block that really.

Ntfu2 · #3 04-19-2006, 04:21 PM

It seems they dont even have to register to download them.

The program goes by attachment id, 1 by 1 and then it downloads all files to their local computer :-\

davidw · #4 04-19-2006, 07:07 PM

Down Them All sounds like the new feature in Firefox downloading. (actually I think its a Firefox extension now that I think about it).

FlyBoy73 · #5 04-19-2006, 08:36 PM

That is what I came up with also - FireFox addition - but I have not yet got it to automatically download bulk attachments from my own forum, but I have yet to really get into it.

I think the best was to cover or attempt to prevent it is to watermark your images with your site's URL. I believe there is a hack for this here, though I have no experience with it. The other more painstaking option would be to manually do this yourself using Photoshop or any other image editing program.

I am sure people will be much less likely to want to grab your images if they are then advertising where they got them from as well as being in clear copyright violation.

David

PS. There are a lot of programs out there that will not only download your images, videos and attachments, but also your content. They have been around for a long time and were meant originally to copy sites for offline use.

davidw · #6 04-19-2006, 10:13 PM

Kind of like Internet Explorer's File => Save As xxxx.htm/l feature?

Ntfu2 · #7 04-20-2006, 12:39 AM

Yea, i'm not sure how it works, or what it belongs to.

I already have the watermark hack installed, theres only one to my knowledge right now, was just checking to see if there was other ways to protect the attachments

Erwin · #8 04-20-2006, 03:37 AM

Make them not downloadable to guests?

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