Re: Replacing a jpg with a swf ?

[Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

__/ [Tony] on Thursday 17 November 2005 22:16 \__

> Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>> __/ [Tony] on Wednesday 16 November 2005 21:46 \__
>> 
>> 
>>>Eric Johnston wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>People are pulling an image from my site to use in ebay, blogs and
>>>>similar
>>>>postings.  I don't mind too much - it is not a problem at all.   Could I
>>>>make a server re-direct from image.jpg to image.swf  and send out an
>>>>image
>>>>that would incorporate a clickable link back to me ?  I have no idea
>>>>about flash or how to create a clickable flash image file from the jpg or
>>>>if the idea would work....
>>>
>>>
>>>Hi Eric,
>>>
>>>Yep - mod_rewrite should be able to do this. (g for hotlinking)
>>>
>>>
>>>Something like:
>>>
>>>RewriteEngine on
>>>RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
>>>RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?example.com/.*$ [NC]
>>>RewriteRule \.(gif|jpg)$ http://www.example.com/get-them-back.swf [R,L]
>>>
>>>
>>>And in 'get-them-back.swf' you create the clickable link back to your
>>>site.
>>>
>>>If you are not able to create *.swf files, look at
>>>http://www.swishzone.com/ for a cost effective solution. You can easily
>>>create hyperlinks in that.
>> 
>> 
>> Sorry about my ignorance, but how will
>> 
>> <img src="http://example.org/image.jpg"; />
>> 
>> get rendered if converted to
>> 
>> <img src="http://example.org/image.swf"; />
>> 
>> for example?
> 
> 
> 
> Never tried putting this together before, so didn't / don't have an
> example. Sounds doable to me though in one shape or form.
> 
> 
> Onwards to a possible solution then.
> 
> 
> Replace original image1.jpg with a static image1.swf


I don't believe that the browser will render it though. Don't forget that
most browsers will protect the users from oddities and MIME types are an
issue as well. Also see:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/dirigibles/75781.html
  (Flash HotLinking)

"...I redirected everything coming from Fuddruckers.com (the HotLinking
criminal)... Wrote a nice little message pointing out how incredibly stupid
their web developer is. And then redirected the main page to a pleasant
little website showing photographs of slaughterhouses. And also opened up
some more popups, for those that don?t have popup blockers."


> Then:
> http://www.phpclasses.org/browse/package/1904.html
> 
> <quote>
> However, mod_rewrite can be used to protect the service of Flash files
> against hotlinking because these are embedded in pages using the
> <object> tag and in this case the browsers do not send a referer when
> requesting the Flash file from the origin server.
> 
> This class provides an alternative solution that works by generating a
> access key that is used to compose the URL used in the object tag but it
> is only valid only during a limited period of time.
> 
> The class takes as options the location of server directory where is the
> file to be protected, a password and the limit of time during which the
> access key is valid.
> 
> When the class validates the access key, it serves the real Flash file
> if the key is valid, or serves an error Flash file otherwise.
> </quote>


I think that the OP would be best off binding Web addresses as watermarks to
all images. This can easily be done in batch mode ( e.g.
http://tinyurl.com/793lh ) and although there is no link-back, the domain
name might at least gets tattooed in people's minds.

Roy

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Roy S. Schestowitz
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