ANOUNCEMNET: Movie Anti Hotlinking is Here! - Page 2 - GoFuckYourself.com

cotsios · 04-09-2003, 11:07 AM

We already using that script on few of our servers.
It a nice script. No problems at the moment. We offer it for free on our dedicated - virtual servers.

VeriSexy · 04-09-2003, 01:10 PM

http://www.galleryjapan.com/ahl_status_report

Works good, saves allot of bandwidth and $249 is nothing compared to the amount of bandwidth it saves. Each additional server license is only like $20 bucks for me.

x3m · 04-09-2003, 02:05 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by VeriSexy
http://www.galleryjapan.com/ahl_status_report

Works good, saves allot of bandwidth and $249 is nothing compared to the amount of bandwidth it saves. Each additional server license is only like $20 bucks for me.

You weren't supposed to be telling people that we give discounts!

Madball · 04-10-2003, 01:15 AM

I installed this & started sending hotlinkers to popuphell. Made the $249 back in 3 or 4 days.

They install it on your box and babysit you through the whole process. If you host movies and don't use this you're throwing cash outta the window, period...

Theo · 04-10-2003, 01:32 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Jizar II
I don't see why anyone think this is expensive.. I would say it's a fair price! How to stop movie hotlinking has been the topic of many threads on GFY and the outcome has always been the same - No one had a working solution that didn't require cookies or wasn't dependable on using a specific host.

X3M - Good luck with it

yes,i was wondering the same. At least the ones that do have big movie posts or do movie galleries should save them wayy more money.

m0rph3us · 04-10-2003, 02:32 AM

script works very good. no more js/cookie baby

sync · 04-10-2003, 07:36 AM

We at http://likewhoa.com have an Apache module for anti-hotlinking that works exactly as this program; however we're not charging for it. Most of the major Adult ISPs provide this protection as well. Just an FYI

pancake7 · 04-10-2003, 10:01 AM

Just so you all don't get a false sense of security, this can be easily defeated. Let's say you have a page that you have a bunch of hot links on. To get around the AHL protection, just rename your main page, say index.html, to index_frame.html, then create a new index.html that looks like this:

Code:

&lt;frameset rows="0%,100%"&gt;
  &lt;frame name='gallery' src='http://www.antihotlinking.com/demo/gallery.html'>
  &lt;frame name='mypage' src='index_frame.html'&gt;
&lt;/frameset&gt;

Then on your index_frame.html page you can have a link to http://www.antihotlinking.com/demo/demo.mpg and it will work perfectly. What is happening here is that the browser is loading the "approved" page in a hidden frame that the user never sees. They only see your index_frame.html page. Then because they have loaded the approved page in the background, they are fully able to load the video you're linking to. So now when someone hot links to you, they're going to be causing 2 hits instead of 1... one to the main gallery, then another to the movie file itself. Thus increasing your bandwidth usage. BTW, I have seen this in the wild... this isn't just something I came up with myself.

Also, for all those posting thieir stats for number of hot-linkers blocked by the AHL script, think about how many of those might have been legitimate users getting an error.

In short, there is no way to protect against hot-linkers. The best you can do is slow them down, which this script will probably do. Just don't think that it's bullet-proof. And use this information when deciding if $250 plus a per-server fee is worth it. You might be enjoying low-bandwidth for now, but hot-linkers might eventually get around it.

If you want to test this frames tactic yourself, create an index.html file with the code above, then create index_frame.html with the following:

Code:

&lt;html&gt;
&lt;body&gt;
&lt;h2&gt;Anti-hotlinking crack&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;a href="http://www.antihotlinking.com/demo/demo.mpg"&gt;The hot-linked video file&lt;/a&gt;

&lt;/body&gt;
&lt;/html&gt;

Then load index.html in your browser and click the link. You do still have to click it within 3 minutes, just like the main gallery page.

At the site I work for, we use a rotating temp link. It also can be defeated, but it would take a little scripting on the hot-linkers side, and wouldn't be as easy as just dropping in some HTML. It also works perfectly with our setup of multiple seperate video servers. Again, nothing is bullet-proof, especially not referer-checking.

One last question for x3m. Does your script work with multiple load balanced servers? We have our "gallery" page served off of a load balanced cluster, then the video files are served off of other dedicated video servers. So each request to the gallery page will go to a different server, and the request to the video file itself goes to a completely different set of servers. My guess is that your script is storing the client info on the server, so it only works if both hits go to the same server, which of course won't work for any large scale site using load-balancing like Cisco's Local Directory or a Coyote Point Equalizer. The logistics of sharing the client-info between several servers presents many challenges, especially if those servers are at disparate networks across the world, and the connection between each has its own lag. Let me know what you're thoughts are on this.

Anyways... I'm not trying to discourage any of your from buying the AHL script. It will proabably help in the short run. I just want you to be informed that it's not all that the AHL guys hype it up to be. Make an informed decision.

Thanks

Mole · 04-10-2003, 10:49 AM

Wouldn't a simple script which randomly renames the directory the movies are stored in every couple minute or so work as well?

That's what they use on ProAdult free hosts.

ServerGenius · 04-10-2003, 10:59 AM

php session id's and movies stored outside webroot.
Have a simple script serve the movie file on authoritive sessions
and redirect non auth session to wherever you want to send them.

That way impossible to download the movies as they are not
accessible through the webserver.....only by script and if you
use file sessions it´s fast and not heavy to run on your server.

Allthough for movie galleries this would not be ideal because of
most tgp/mpg have blocked any type of scripting and don´t
accept variables.

This you can fix by a little wrapper that translates variables to
look at dir structures....similar as a lot of scripts use for search
engine stuff as they also don´t like variables too much.

so movie.php?file=filename will become movie/file/filename I
think that way it would work again

DynaMite

Pipecrew · 04-10-2003, 11:07 AM

I am glad i am on likewhoa yet again

Saved me 250 for this script, I told you guys on videosboard that people on GFY could make this for cheaper and I wasnt lying

x582 · 04-10-2003, 11:16 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Pipecrew
I am glad i am on likewhoa yet again Saved me 250 for this script, I told you guys on videosboard that people on GFY could make this for cheaper and I wasnt lying

correct me if im wrong, but likewhoa's script cannot send your hotlinkers traffic to a specific URL

and if you serve your HTML from server #1 and you movies from server #2, likewhoa script won't work for that. At least this is what noc told me.

ServerGenius · 04-10-2003, 11:19 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by pancake7
Just so you all don't get a false sense of security, this can be easily defeated. Let's say you have a page that you have a bunch of hot links on. To get around the AHL protection, just rename your main page, say index.html, to index_frame.html, then create a new index.html that looks like this:

Code:

<frameset rows="0%,100%"> <frame name='gallery' src='http://www.antihotlinking.com/demo/gallery.html'> <frame name='mypage' src='index_frame.html'> </frameset>

Then on your index_frame.html page you can have a link to http://www.antihotlinking.com/demo/demo.mpg and it will work perfectly. What is happening here is that the browser is loading the "approved" page in a hidden frame that the user never sees. They only see your index_frame.html page. Then because they have loaded the approved page in the background, they are fully able to load the video you're linking to. So now when someone hot links to you, they're going to be causing 2 hits instead of 1... one to the main gallery, then another to the movie file itself. Thus increasing your bandwidth usage. BTW, I have seen this in the wild... this isn't just something I came up with myself.

Also, for all those posting thieir stats for number of hot-linkers blocked by the AHL script, think about how many of those might have been legitimate users getting an error.

In short, there is no way to protect against hot-linkers. The best you can do is slow them down, which this script will probably do. Just don't think that it's bullet-proof. And use this information when deciding if $250 plus a per-server fee is worth it. You might be enjoying low-bandwidth for now, but hot-linkers might eventually get around it.

If you want to test this frames tactic yourself, create an index.html file with the code above, then create index_frame.html with the following:

Code:

<html> <body> <h2>Anti-hotlinking crack</h2> <a href="http://www.antihotlinking.com/demo/demo.mpg">The hot-linked video file</a> </body> </html>

Then load index.html in your browser and click the link. You do still have to click it within 3 minutes, just like the main gallery page.

At the site I work for, we use a rotating temp link. It also can be defeated, but it would take a little scripting on the hot-linkers side, and wouldn't be as easy as just dropping in some HTML. It also works perfectly with our setup of multiple seperate video servers. Again, nothing is bullet-proof, especially not referer-checking.

One last question for x3m. Does your script work with multiple load balanced servers? We have our "gallery" page served off of a load balanced cluster, then the video files are served off of other dedicated video servers. So each request to the gallery page will go to a different server, and the request to the video file itself goes to a completely different set of servers. My guess is that your script is storing the client info on the server, so it only works if both hits go to the same server, which of course won't work for any large scale site using load-balancing like Cisco's Local Directory or a Coyote Point Equalizer. The logistics of sharing the client-info between several servers presents many challenges, especially if those servers are at disparate networks across the world, and the connection between each has its own lag. Let me know what you're thoughts are on this.

Anyways... I'm not trying to discourage any of your from buying the AHL script. It will proabably help in the short run. I just want you to be informed that it's not all that the AHL guys hype it up to be. Make an informed decision.

Thanks

This can be solved very easy.....just use a java-script frame buster

DynaMite

x3m · 04-10-2003, 12:12 PM

Let me first address the free advertisement comment from Likewhoa and then I will get to the real questions in more details.

I am more that happy for your customers. Pipecrew seems to be very happy with your services. I don't know how long he is hosted with you but I bet he just learned today that you provide anti-hotlinking protection

Otherwise I am sure he would have mention it earlier.

I went through all of the pages on your site, but I could not find any information about the ability for your customers to save money on their bandwidth bills with anti-hotlinking protection. I wonder why?

x3m · 04-10-2003, 12:38 PM

Dear pancake7,

Since you it took you quite a while to post your comments and questions, I will answer all of your post in several parts, just so I don't miss anything out.

Quote:

Originally posted by pancake7
Just so you all don't get a false sense of security, this can be easily defeated....

The method you're describing in such details

is indeed something that can be done, but ...

First of all, the hotlinking webmaster must understand what exactly is going on on the protected domain which causes his loyal freeloader get redirected to a pop-up hell, dialers, ect. while he was sure that when he posted the link on his site, everything was working fine for him.

When he went to my gallery where he grabed the links to my movies that he wanted to post at his site, he was authorised for 1 hour to watch the movies in a ny way, so when he posted them on his site and checked the links everything works fine.

Until he got hate emails from his freeloaders that the links don't work, I already made a few bucks from those freeloaders.

After observind the source of my html pages and not finding any Java, CGI, or PHP code in there, he MOST LIKELY decided that he fucked up and simply removed the links.

In the situation, when he decided to find what out what the hell was going on, and implemented the methos you're describing, he will allow his freeloaders to view my movies and will indeed send a few more gigs of transfer to my html pages (20k per page at the most for which I am already compensated from his traffic redirected to dialers

), As soon as I see this activity in my logs, all I have to do it to block his domain in my httpd.conf and that's it. We are done with this guy once and for all and probably still made a few bucks in the end. But, honestly, how many people do yuo think will go through all that. My guess is, not many.

Actually, we already have a new version of AHL that will have a feature to block and redirect domains through AHL configuration file. It was suggested by one of our customers.

This will also allow you to block and redirect the domains from which you believe you have unproductive traffic and actually never posted at. such as phatforims.com or even all of the .ru

Last comment on this issue. I LOVE HOTLINKERS after I started using AHL. I encourage them to hotlink my movies as much as they can. I even consider signing up at those forums and hotlink my own movies! All it does for me, is extra income from people redirected to "for free sponsors" and dialers.

BR Guy · 04-10-2003, 12:39 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by DynaSpain

This can be solved very easy.....just use a java-script frame buster

DynaMite

I bypassed the protection using i.f.r.a.m.e. html tag.
It's possible to bust i.f.r.a.m.e.
s using java-scrpt?

here's the link:
http://www.brguy.com/gfy/bypassAHL.html

darksoul · 04-10-2003, 12:46 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by x582

and if you serve your HTML from server #1 and you movies from server #2, likewhoa script won't work for that. At least this is what noc told me.

the same thing happens with ahl

jojojo · 04-10-2003, 01:20 PM

Quote:

http://www.antihotlinking.com/demo/demogallery.html

How come I can highlight the urls and paste them into another browser window and they work?

I thought you said it protects cut + paste which is how a lot of hotlinkers set things up these days?

x3m · 04-10-2003, 02:00 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by pancake7

One last question for x3m. Does your script work with multiple load balanced servers? We have our "gallery" page served off of a load balanced cluster, then the video files are served off of other dedicated video servers. So each request to the gallery page will go to a different server, and the request to the video file itself goes to a completely different set of servers. My guess is that your script is storing the client info on the server, so it only works if both hits go to the same server, which of course won't work for any large scale site using load-balancing like Cisco's Local Directory or a Coyote Point Equalizer. The logistics of sharing the client-info between several servers presents many challenges, especially if those servers are at disparate networks across the world, and the connection between each has its own lag. Let me know what you're thoughts are on this.

Current version oh AHL supports the following types of setups:

1. Single server setup - when html and movies are served from the same box (right off the box)
2. Multiple server setup - when html on server "A" links to movies hosted on other domains or subdomains on servers "B" "C" ..., providing that those subdomians are hosted entirely on one server (there also needs to be a change to html pages done in this case)
3. DNS load balancing setup - when html and movies are hosted on multiple servers providing that user session is kept alive on one server with serves both html and movies

Load balancing setup with multiple servers described above by pancake7, will be supported by AHL Enterprise, scheduled to be released in a few weeks. It's already coded and is under testing on our stands.

x3m · 04-10-2003, 02:07 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by BR Guy

I bypassed the protection using i.f.r.a.m.e. html tag.
It's possible to bust i.f.r.a.m.e.
s using java-scrpt?

here's the link:
http://www.brguy.com/gfy/bypassAHL.html

Try again!

Pipecrew · 04-10-2003, 02:10 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by x3m
I am more that happy for your customers. Pipecrew seems to be very happy with your services. I don't know how long he is hosted with you but I bet he just learned today that you provide anti-hotlinking protection Otherwise I am sure he would have mention it earlier.

I've known they have had it forever, I dont do galleries therefore I dont use it, You are going to kill your product, I've seen you spam it on 3 boards now, Give it a bit of time and someone will come out with something better and cheaper

x3m · 04-10-2003, 04:14 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Mole
Wouldn't a simple script which randomly renames the directory the movies are stored in every couple minute or so work as well?

That's what they use on ProAdult free hosts.

That will probably work if you don't post movies to TGPs that prohibit page changes. If you do, TGPs will blacklist you. AHL is 100% TGP compatible.

jayeff · 04-10-2003, 04:29 PM

I do think your product is too expensive... way too expensive.

The reason has nothing to do with "fair" or any other considerations like that: solely the market place.

If you write a script (for want of a better word) that has a very small potential market, then a high margin business model is more or less forced on you. But a script which has potentially (tens of) thousands of customers gives sellers the freedom to choose whether to sell a lot of scripts at a low price, or a small(er) number at a high price.

In some markets there is room for both price models because you can sometimes offer additional features or something else to make a high price worthwhile for some customers. But in this case the script basically either works or it doesn't.

There are already other anti-hotlinking scripts around that work for movies and as broadband content becomes more and more popular, there will be more. You can bet that many of the sellers will go for low price/high sales.

When that happens your pricing will seem like a scam (please note that I am not saying it is a scam, only what the perception will be). That will hurt your reputation, damaging not only your sales of this product, but of any others you try to sell.

Nor can you later on suddenly drop your price to a competitive level: at least, not without pissing off everyone who paid the original price.

x3m · 04-11-2003, 04:08 AM

Jayeff,

Let me give you some numbers so you can see that $249.00 for AHL is indeed fair.

Any newbie webmaster who posts movies even only twice a week is burning at least 5 mpbs or 1600 gigs of transfer (5*320).

Although most of our current clients report up to 60% !!! of their bandwidth stolen by hotlinkers, I am taking only 8% into my calculations, since this is what I am seeing on my sites after 3+ months of using AHL. It was over 15% when AHL was just turned on and it went down to 8% right now.

So, 1600 gigs per month * 8% = 128 gigs stolen by hotlinkers

Even if this newbie is paying only 25 cents per gig, he is loosing:
128 gigs * $0.25 = $32.00 stolen by hotlinkers every month.

As you can see, even with these conservative numbers, any newbie webmaster working with movies will make the investment back in under 8 months. But, with the income from redirecting hotlinkers even faster. Most likely under 4-6 months.

From that point on, this webmaster will have net savings and profit from using AHL for the rest of his movie posting career.

Now, look at your bandwidth usage and you will understand why people who burn 30+ mpbs (minimal rate for any serious movie webmaster) report that they make their investment back in no time.

Madball · 04-11-2003, 04:41 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by jayeff
I do think your product is too expensive... way too expensive.

Too expensive? Ok fine, let's try this again:

So you do $5k a month in bandwidth. This software let's you

a) save 10% or whatever (e.g. $500) in raw bandwidth costs by blocking hotlinkers
b) send the hotlink traffic to either your own programs or offshoreclicks (insert: amateurpages, dialers etc.) and generate additional cash. Let's assume that's another $500 a month.

So you pay $249 and come out $1k after 30 days. That's a 300 % ROI after 30 days for this investment. WHAT THE FUCK IS EXPENSIVE HERE???

BRISK · 04-11-2003, 04:47 AM

I don't believe there is that much money to be made redirecting hotlinkers to dialers, etc...

Most hotlinkers come from countries that are on the usual shit lists, somehow I doubt there is much money to be made from them.

nevermind · 04-11-2003, 08:09 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by pancake7

At the site I work for, we use a rotating temp link. It also can be defeated, but it would take a little scripting on the hot-linkers side, and wouldn't be as easy as just dropping in some HTML. It also works perfectly with our setup of multiple seperate video servers. Again, nothing is bullet-proof, especially not referer-checking.

By far the best solution because, as you pointed out:

Quote:

Originally posted by pancake7

Also, for all those posting their stats for number of hot-linkers blocked by the AHL script, think about how many of those might have been legitimate users getting an error.

Rotating temp links do not block legitimate viewers ...

x3m · 04-11-2003, 08:11 AM

Just send them to an email collection program and you will like the results!

x3m · 04-11-2003, 08:14 AM

nevermind,

AHL does not block legit user as well, but as compared to rotating temp link scripts, AHL is 100% safe with TGP scripts.

nevermind · 04-11-2003, 08:43 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by x3m
nevermind,

AHL does not block legit user as well, but as compared to rotating temp link scripts, AHL is 100% safe with TGP scripts.

You can hype your product all you want, but it doesn't change the facts.

Any IP based "solution" is going to cause at least some problems with legit viewers. Perhaps you have missed numerous discussions on various webmaster boards to this effect.

And I haven't had any problems with TGP's regarding time-stamped urls because the actual page link to the video doesn't change under the system set up by my hosting company.

Cost to me for this service: ZERO

liquidmoe · 04-11-2003, 12:41 PM

Lets not call an apache module a script. In any case the likewhoa apache module is configurable to redirect where ever you want.

Captain · 04-11-2003, 01:09 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by justsexxx
OH BTW, my host offers php protection as well, and it worked great, but only problem is/was that Brownie didn't accept the gallery because no cookie could be set to it...

Andre

Andre,

ICQ me when you get a chance!

Babel · 04-07-2005, 09:22 PM

Anything better out there for anti movies hotlinking?

Snake Doctor · 04-07-2005, 09:26 PM

I didn't read the whole thread...so excuse me if this has been posted already.

To stop movie hotlinking for free all you have to do is set a cookie on the gallery page, and put an htaccess file in the directory with the movies that checks for the cookie.
I've been doing this for years with movie galleries.

If the user doesn't accept cookies then they won't be able to view the movies....but if they don't accept cookies you're probably not getting credit for them if they signup....so fuck them.

rickholio · 04-07-2005, 09:26 PM

x3m - With all due respect to your marketting campaign, content at Holio has been protected from hotlinking for at least the last 5 or 6 years. Claiming you're the first to come up with movie anti-hotlink protection is disingenuous.

You may be the first to come to market with such a tool, but I guarantee you that 'prior art' exists, and I'm fairly certain we're not the only ones to have developed such protections.

04-09-2003, 11:07 AM	#51
cotsios Confirmed User Industry Role: Join Date: Oct 2001 Posts: 1,371	We already using that script on few of our servers. It a nice script. No problems at the moment. We offer it for free on our dedicated - virtual servers. __________________ SIGNATURE FOR SALE - SEND Icq 149389211

04-09-2003, 01:10 PM	#52
VeriSexy Join The Royal Family Join Date: Apr 2002 Posts: 25,463	http://www.galleryjapan.com/ahl_status_report Works good, saves allot of bandwidth and $249 is nothing compared to the amount of bandwidth it saves. Each additional server license is only like $20 bucks for me. __________________ Looking for a KICK ASS TEEN SPONSOR? Check out ROYAL CASH - THE KING OF TEEN! Incredible webmaster tools FHGs, Morphing Blog and RSS Feeds, Embedded FLV & WMV Videos. With TOP RATIO Sites like TeenStarsOnly.com - Earn $$ with our New Site & Bonus Payouts!! ATMovs.com \| iTeenVideo.com \| TeenSexMovs.com \| TeenSexMania.com

04-10-2003, 02:32 AM	#56
m0rph3us Confirmed User Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: Principality of Sealand Posts: 2,033	script works very good. no more js/cookie baby __________________ <font size="2" face="Tahoma"><a href="http://www.18blowjobs.com/webmasters/?640" target="_blank">Get paid $25 per signup</a> listing over <a href="http://galleries.18blowjobs.com/hosted.html" target="_blank">100 free hosted video galleries</a> - <a href="http://www.18blowjobs.com/webmasters/?640" target="_blank">Check it</a> » </font>

04-10-2003, 10:59 AM	#60
ServerGenius Confirmed User Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Amsterdam Posts: 9,377	php session id's and movies stored outside webroot. Have a simple script serve the movie file on authoritive sessions and redirect non auth session to wherever you want to send them. That way impossible to download the movies as they are not accessible through the webserver.....only by script and if you use file sessions it´s fast and not heavy to run on your server. Allthough for movie galleries this would not be ideal because of most tgp/mpg have blocked any type of scripting and don´t accept variables. This you can fix by a little wrapper that translates variables to look at dir structures....similar as a lot of scripts use for search engine stuff as they also don´t like variables too much. so movie.php?file=filename will become movie/file/filename I think that way it would work again DynaMite __________________ \| http://www.sinnerscash.com/ \| ICQ: 370820 \| Skype: SinnersCash \| AdultWhosWho \|

04-11-2003, 04:47 AM	#76
BRISK Too lazy to set a custom title Join Date: Feb 2003 Posts: 12,240	I don't believe there is that much money to be made redirecting hotlinkers to dialers, etc... Most hotlinkers come from countries that are on the usual shit lists, somehow I doubt there is much money to be made from them. __________________ I post on GFY so that when people ask me what I do, I can tell them that I work with the mentally retarded.

04-10-2003, 01:15 AM	#54
Madball Confirmed User Join Date: May 2002 Location: Oslo, Norway Posts: 748	I installed this & started sending hotlinkers to popuphell. Made the $249 back in 3 or 4 days. They install it on your box and babysit you through the whole process. If you host movies and don't use this you're throwing cash outta the window, period...

04-10-2003, 07:36 AM	#57
sync Confirmed User Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: NY Posts: 204	We at http://likewhoa.com have an Apache module for anti-hotlinking that works exactly as this program; however we're not charging for it. Most of the major Adult ISPs provide this protection as well. Just an FYI

04-10-2003, 10:01 AM	#58
pancake7 Registered User Join Date: Apr 2003 Posts: 1	Just so you all don't get a false sense of security, this can be easily defeated. Let's say you have a page that you have a bunch of hot links on. To get around the AHL protection, just rename your main page, say index.html, to index_frame.html, then create a new index.html that looks like this: Code: <frameset rows="0%,100%"> <frame name='gallery' src='http://www.antihotlinking.com/demo/gallery.html'> <frame name='mypage' src='index_frame.html'> </frameset> Then on your index_frame.html page you can have a link to http://www.antihotlinking.com/demo/demo.mpg and it will work perfectly. What is happening here is that the browser is loading the "approved" page in a hidden frame that the user never sees. They only see your index_frame.html page. Then because they have loaded the approved page in the background, they are fully able to load the video you're linking to. So now when someone hot links to you, they're going to be causing 2 hits instead of 1... one to the main gallery, then another to the movie file itself. Thus increasing your bandwidth usage. BTW, I have seen this in the wild... this isn't just something I came up with myself. Also, for all those posting thieir stats for number of hot-linkers blocked by the AHL script, think about how many of those might have been legitimate users getting an error. In short, there is no way to protect against hot-linkers. The best you can do is slow them down, which this script will probably do. Just don't think that it's bullet-proof. And use this information when deciding if $250 plus a per-server fee is worth it. You might be enjoying low-bandwidth for now, but hot-linkers might eventually get around it. If you want to test this frames tactic yourself, create an index.html file with the code above, then create index_frame.html with the following: Code: <html> <body> <h2>Anti-hotlinking crack</h2> <a href="http://www.antihotlinking.com/demo/demo.mpg">The hot-linked video file</a> </body> </html> Then load index.html in your browser and click the link. You do still have to click it within 3 minutes, just like the main gallery page. At the site I work for, we use a rotating temp link. It also can be defeated, but it would take a little scripting on the hot-linkers side, and wouldn't be as easy as just dropping in some HTML. It also works perfectly with our setup of multiple seperate video servers. Again, nothing is bullet-proof, especially not referer-checking. One last question for x3m. Does your script work with multiple load balanced servers? We have our "gallery" page served off of a load balanced cluster, then the video files are served off of other dedicated video servers. So each request to the gallery page will go to a different server, and the request to the video file itself goes to a completely different set of servers. My guess is that your script is storing the client info on the server, so it only works if both hits go to the same server, which of course won't work for any large scale site using load-balancing like Cisco's Local Directory or a Coyote Point Equalizer. The logistics of sharing the client-info between several servers presents many challenges, especially if those servers are at disparate networks across the world, and the connection between each has its own lag. Let me know what you're thoughts are on this. Anyways... I'm not trying to discourage any of your from buying the AHL script. It will proabably help in the short run. I just want you to be informed that it's not all that the AHL guys hype it up to be. Make an informed decision. Thanks

04-10-2003, 10:49 AM	#59
Mole Registered User Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Thailand Posts: 26	Wouldn't a simple script which randomly renames the directory the movies are stored in every couple minute or so work as well? That's what they use on ProAdult free hosts.

04-10-2003, 11:07 AM	#61
Pipecrew Master of Gfy.com Industry Role: Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 14,887	I am glad i am on likewhoa yet again Saved me 250 for this script, I told you guys on videosboard that people on GFY could make this for cheaper and I wasnt lying

04-10-2003, 12:12 PM	#64
x3m Confirmed User Join Date: May 2001 Posts: 254	Let me first address the free advertisement comment from Likewhoa and then I will get to the real questions in more details. I am more that happy for your customers. Pipecrew seems to be very happy with your services. I don't know how long he is hosted with you but I bet he just learned today that you provide anti-hotlinking protection Otherwise I am sure he would have mention it earlier. I went through all of the pages on your site, but I could not find any information about the ability for your customers to save money on their bandwidth bills with anti-hotlinking protection. I wonder why?

04-10-2003, 04:29 PM	#73
jayeff Confirmed User Join Date: May 2001 Posts: 2,944	I do think your product is too expensive... way too expensive. The reason has nothing to do with "fair" or any other considerations like that: solely the market place. If you write a script (for want of a better word) that has a very small potential market, then a high margin business model is more or less forced on you. But a script which has potentially (tens of) thousands of customers gives sellers the freedom to choose whether to sell a lot of scripts at a low price, or a small(er) number at a high price. In some markets there is room for both price models because you can sometimes offer additional features or something else to make a high price worthwhile for some customers. But in this case the script basically either works or it doesn't. There are already other anti-hotlinking scripts around that work for movies and as broadband content becomes more and more popular, there will be more. You can bet that many of the sellers will go for low price/high sales. When that happens your pricing will seem like a scam (please note that I am not saying it is a scam, only what the perception will be). That will hurt your reputation, damaging not only your sales of this product, but of any others you try to sell. Nor can you later on suddenly drop your price to a competitive level: at least, not without pissing off everyone who paid the original price.

04-11-2003, 04:08 AM	#74
x3m Confirmed User Join Date: May 2001 Posts: 254	Jayeff, Let me give you some numbers so you can see that $249.00 for AHL is indeed fair. Any newbie webmaster who posts movies even only twice a week is burning at least 5 mpbs or 1600 gigs of transfer (5320). Although most of our current clients report up to 60% !!! of their bandwidth stolen by hotlinkers, I am taking only 8% into my calculations, since this is what I am seeing on my sites after 3+ months of using AHL. It was over 15% when AHL was just turned on and it went down to 8% right now. So, 1600 gigs per month 8% = 128 gigs stolen by hotlinkers Even if this newbie is paying only 25 cents per gig, he is loosing: 128 gigs * $0.25 = $32.00 stolen by hotlinkers every month. As you can see, even with these conservative numbers, any newbie webmaster working with movies will make the investment back in under 8 months. But, with the income from redirecting hotlinkers even faster. Most likely under 4-6 months. From that point on, this webmaster will have net savings and profit from using AHL for the rest of his movie posting career. Now, look at your bandwidth usage and you will understand why people who burn 30+ mpbs (minimal rate for any serious movie webmaster) report that they make their investment back in no time.

04-11-2003, 08:11 AM	#78
x3m Confirmed User Join Date: May 2001 Posts: 254	Just send them to an email collection program and you will like the results!

04-11-2003, 08:14 AM	#79
x3m Confirmed User Join Date: May 2001 Posts: 254	nevermind, AHL does not block legit user as well, but as compared to rotating temp link scripts, AHL is 100% safe with TGP scripts.

04-11-2003, 12:41 PM	#81
liquidmoe Confirmed User Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: NY Posts: 4,994	Lets not call an apache module a script. In any case the likewhoa apache module is configurable to redirect where ever you want.

04-07-2005, 09:22 PM	#83
Babel Confirmed User Join Date: Apr 2004 Posts: 1,457	Anything better out there for anti movies hotlinking? __________________

04-07-2005, 09:26 PM	#84
Snake Doctor I'm Lenny2 Bitch Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: On top of my soapbox Posts: 13,449	I didn't read the whole thread...so excuse me if this has been posted already. To stop movie hotlinking for free all you have to do is set a cookie on the gallery page, and put an htaccess file in the directory with the movies that checks for the cookie. I've been doing this for years with movie galleries. If the user doesn't accept cookies then they won't be able to view the movies....but if they don't accept cookies you're probably not getting credit for them if they signup....so fuck them. __________________ sig too big

04-07-2005, 09:26 PM	#85
rickholio Confirmed User Industry Role: Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Nor'easterland Posts: 1,914	x3m - With all due respect to your marketting campaign, content at Holio has been protected from hotlinking for at least the last 5 or 6 years. Claiming you're the first to come up with movie anti-hotlink protection is disingenuous. You may be the first to come to market with such a tool, but I guarantee you that 'prior art' exists, and I'm fairly certain we're not the only ones to have developed such protections.