Website Security

[camerasnoop]

Anybody know how to beat Pixel Grabber in their website coding? I'm on a Zeus Server, so no cPanel Console. People are using Pixel-Grabber to download my right-click protected images.

[Xenedis]

Disabling right-clicking is completely ineffective. It's an unquestioably bad attempt at security through obscurity, and would fool only absolute beginners, who are arguably not the kind of people determined to get their hands on your images.

People need to understand that if a Web browser is displaying an image, then it has already downloaded a copy, which is present in its cache, and which can be easily extracted.

Alternatively, anyone viewing your image can simply perform a screen capture.

Some people use Flash to display images, but again a screen capture can easily circumvent that approach.

[camerasnoop]

Yes I realise that, but I still like to slow them down a bit. Male 'em work for it. They're cowboys not computer wizards. The images are small and watermarked as well.

Anybody else?

[ricktas]

All you need to do is ALT+PrtScr and copy into an editing package to get any photo that displays on your screen. There is no way to stop people getting it, if they want it. Bung a decent size watermark over your photos.

There is no way to stop them, if they really want to. Other than not putting your photos onto the net.

However, does your website software allow you to capture the visitors to the site and what they do? Maybe you can block the IP addresses of the main offenders from accessing your site.

[Xenedis]

The only way to avoid having your images used in an unauthorised manner is to refrain from publishing them.

Obviously that undermines the entire point of having an online gallery.

Sorry, but your approach won't slow anyone down. It's as useful as hiding your house key under the front doormat. Even the cowboys can grab your images with little effort.

Short of not publishing your images at all, or restricting parts of your site with a password, all you can do is make your online images less appealing to those who would use them in an unauthorised manner, by uploading low-res images with a very obtrusive watermark.

Having had a Web site for 16 years, I actually do have a bit of a clue about this stuff.

[camerasnoop]

Yes, I know how to do a screen capture. I do appreciate your responses though. Doing a screen capture from my galleries will only give them a full screen image. They can't get a clean grab of just the image - unless they use Pixel-Grabber. That means these cowboys have to get someone to clean the image up for them by cropping it to remove everything except the image. They're cowboys and not computer programmers for a reason.

I don't want to bar them from access as I want them to be able to buy the photos of themselves. I am aware that there are all sorts of ways to get a photo from a website right down to simply taking a photo of it on-screen with your own camera. I watched kids doing this to my screen saver when I was shooting a sporting event.

I also know who's doing it on my website because the images are coming out of galleries under the names of the people pictured. I see the page accessed in my web stats and then simply google their Facebook page. Pixel Grabber just gives them a tool that allows them to crop around the picture to remove the rest of the screen without the need for a photo editor.

I guess I'll just have to make my watermark more opaque and wear the complaints about it from genuine customers. I hate displaying images on my website that are really small and hidden behind big opaque © symbols. Making them less attractive to steal also makes them less attractive to buy.

Thank you anyway.

[ameerat42]

Plenty of useful info here. Ta.
Sorry for your problem Snoopy.
Am.

[Mark L]

Capture 1.JPG

Yeah they can, no cropping involved.