Miscellaneous Hacks - Anti-Leech Attachments - prevent hotlinking and bandwidth theft!

Title : Anti-Leech Attachments

Version : 1.1

Coder : Jason Williams

Purpose : Prevent your forum attachments from being directly linked to - prevent bandwidth abuse.

Why : Bandwidth can be expensive, plus I was frustrated with one of my members linking to three video clips on my forum from his own site, effectively abusing the bandwidth I pay for, so I set about a system that stops hotlinking, but at the same time, as a courtesy, providing a dynamic link to the post containing the attachment.

How : This could be replicated very easily using .htaccess but the one thing that it can't do is give you the link to the attachment itself. This mod displays a message informing the user that hotlinking is not allowed, then giving them the link to the post to view the attachment directly.

Known Issues : The security can be defeated by using the drop down style menu on the Anti Leech page - this has only been confirmed as an issue on Firefox. I have unsucessfully tried to find a way of removing the drop down on that page only.

Confirmed working with vBSEO 3.2.0.

Important : This has been tested on 3.6.2 and 3.8, I can presume it will be compatible with 3.7.x because it works on 3.8 - as always BACKUP FIRST!

Demo : http://www.steadiforum.com/attachmen...9&d=1180779148

Installation :

1. Import Product - product-antileech.xml
2. Save bandwidth!

File uploads : 0
Files to Import : 1
New Templates : 1
New Phrases : 2
Uses Hooks : 1
Uses Queries : 1

History :
v1.0 - Original release

v1.1 - Added enable/disable option, tested on VB 3.8

Done - if you like please click install! (and click Nominate for MOTM!)

[steadicamop]

Originally Posted by kether1

Hi Jason,

The attachment did not show with the modification enabled. Nothing showed. I already removed the modification from my board and was hoping that you would have a solution so that I could re-install when it was working correctly. Sorry to not have it installed any longer.

Thanks,
K

I don't have VBSEO but I have just installed and tested Zoints SEO and that works fine - it does not rewrite the attachment url, only the thread/post ones - I am very curious to find out what it did to this mod ..... can you give me more of an idea what was happening?

Cheers

Jason

[kether1]

Originally Posted by steadicamop

I don't have VBSEO but I have just installed and tested Zoints SEO and that works fine - it does not rewrite the attachment url, only the thread/post ones - I am very curious to find out what it did to this mod ..... can you give me more of an idea what was happening?

Cheers

Jason

Hi Jason,

I will install it again tomorrow and make sure to detail the total process and effect. Thanks for working on this. I would really like for this to work! I hope it is not me being an idiot and screwing up the install.

Thanks,
K

[goyo]

Sorry...I don't get it.

In our board attachments will show only to registered users. It's impossible to hotlink as they'll only "come up" to registered users. It's a vBulletin setting for a long time. Am I missed something here ?

[steadicamop]

Originally Posted by goyo

Sorry...I don't get it.

In our board attachments will show only to registered users. It's impossible to hotlink as they'll only "come up" to registered users. It's a vBulletin setting for a long time. Am I missed something here ?

Not at all - I designed this with my forum in mind and decided to release it, if you set your forum to allow only members to download attachments then you don't need this.

I just felt my forum was best have guest viewable attachments so that's why I made this to prevent my bandwidth being leeched.

[steadicamop]

Originally Posted by kether1

Hi Jason,

I will install it again tomorrow and make sure to detail the total process and effect. Thanks for working on this. I would really like for this to work! I hope it is not me being an idiot and screwing up the install.

Thanks,
K

You certainly can't screw up the install - unless I screwed up the code!

I'm just very curious if it does rewrite the attachment url.

If you PM me your site details I will sign up and can test this out if you would prefer.

Cheers

Jason

[badboy_29]

Very easy to install and it works very well. I already had 2 people email me saying when they clicked files on there site it sent them to my forums.

[Triky]

Nice idea.
Installed.

[Mrdby]

this even work with photoplog?

[steadicamop]

Originally Posted by Mrdby

this even work with photoplog?

Good question ... I see you have it installed, as long as it uses the standard attachment system it should be compatible as that's where the hook is.

Taking this off Beta stage as it's been in use long enough with very few issues.

[Mrdby]

does this work with photoplog?