Hotlinking of MPEGS?! What can be done! HELP!
 

Hey everyone...

How do you deal/prevent with hotlinkers that either make links to your mpegs so surfers can right-click and "save as" or have the text ready to cut and paste for the srufers?

Is there a technological solution other than renaming the files and altering the gallery HTML? (Don't want to get blacklisted for changing HTML)

Damn asian sites are killing me... :ak47:

HELP!

:BangBang: :BangBang: :BangBang:

format c:

.htaccess

doesn't work with video.

Can't you deny access to asian IPs/domains with .htaccess?

htaccess

I make html redirects and put them in the movie file and fuck the surfer with either popup hell or either a good converting sponsor.

yes... but you also can't ALLOW anything to access video through htaccess. That's the problem.

it does..

just block no-referer surfers to the movies

Yes it does.
Just set a cookie from your htaccess.
Can't remember the code though.

Lane, if you got the code for that, I could certainly use it....

please...

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://yourdomain.com.*$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www.yourdomain.com.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule .*[Mm][Pp][Gg]$|.*[Gg][Ii][Ff]$|.*[Mm][Pp][Ee][Gg]$ / [F]


do this for each file type
it should take care of it

on the sample code i just gave, it protects for mpg, gif and mpeg for example

did that... in fact, I trried 4 or 5 variations of htaccess.... not a single one would allow the movie to come through. (running Apache 1.3.19 Win32)

That does not help.
Movie viewers does not carry refferers.
You need cookies to block it

if you already have hotlink protection and if you have this line:

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$

You gotta remove this line!

it is allowing no-referer hits to the file.. type-in and right click will be allowed. if you remove that line, it will block that kind of hits...

nevermind..

right.... I can BLOCK access to it easily enough... what I can;t get it to do is ALLOW access to the movies. Something does not crossover from the htaccess scripting to the video viewer and it generates an error box

does it happen on all types of video? or just streaming ones?

happens on packaged movies only... streaming is fine.

ok, Due was right, its done with cookies


Add this rule to your .htaccess file in your movie directory:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteOptions inherit
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://([a-z0-9-]+\.)*yourdomain.com/ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_COOKIE} !(^|(.+;)*)id=valid(;.*|$)
RewriteRule /*$ http://www.yourdomain.com/ [L,R]


put this on the page where you have the movies at:

< SCRIPT LANGUAGE="javascript" >
// Calculate the expiration date
var expires = new Date ();
expires.setTime(expires.getTime() + 1 * 60 * 60 * 1000);
document.cookie = "id=valid; path=/" + "; expires=" + expires.toGMTString();
< /SCRIPT >


(remove those extra spaces inside the script tags)

It didn't show up lane...



NM

told ya....

but NOOOOOO..... don't listen to Amplitude! I'm just a fuckin' monkey! :tongue:

the problem with that code is, you will not give access to people without javascript or cookies.. and i dont know how the tgp bots would react to this change

yeah...... I know.. I've been round and round on this problem... I finally gave up.... the only thing you can really do, is to use a script that changes the file names and urls every so often. htaccess is shit for protecting vids.

and if those hotlinkers iframe your page, the cookie will be sent to the surfers first, and the surfers with browsers that allow third party cookies will have access to the movies..

yea, a script is the best solution i guess

Amputate Your Head is right .htaccess doesn't work for movie files. I've spend all day long on this issue after a bandwith thief stole 15 Mbyte/sec from me ! 150 Gb in 1 day!

The problem is that when you remove this line from your .htaccess
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$

people can't download the movie any longer with MS Media Player. Yes they are also unable to use "save target as", but the problem is that most people have Media Player connected. I even don't know how to remove the link of mpg files with MediaPlayer in WinXP myself !!

So what I did was removing the line which I was speaking about above and put this extra tag on top of the .htaccess

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^nsplayer.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule .*\..*$ - [L]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^$ [NC]
RewriteRule .*\..*$ http://www.videotemple.com/hotlinkerssuck.shtml [R,L]

And it was working for *.wmv files, so I thought I had the solution. After this I was going to change the .htaccesses on one of my other site. On this site I used *.mpg files and you know what ??? ONCE AGAIN IT DIDN'T WORK!!!!

You know why? Because when MediaPlayer is loading a movie it first gives as referer "nsplayer" which is good, but after that it gives a second referer which is Mozilla , the same as Internet Explorer !! And that is not allowed by the .htaccess

It was working with *.wmv files because with this files MediaPlayer only gives one referer which is "nsplayer".

You are still following me ?

I haven't looked any further yet, but I think that the only solution will be to use a cgi script. And then one in such a way that nobody can detect the place of your movie files. Or you can rename your mpg files to wmv that will still work for the time being, but then visitors need to rename the files which is not very handy.

Long story and all because those hotlinking monkeys !
Let me know if you already have found a good solution.

i think you are on the right track.. do you know when exactly the user_agent is sent as mozilla ? before the media player loads? or after?

from what I can tell, it's after the player loads, but before the movie starts loading.... but I couldn't be 100% on that either... but the player will load... and then lock with the error.

Well poop.

Amp, I agree you are a fucking monkey.

A really experienced, wise monkey.

The problem is that MediaPlayer FIRST gives as referer "nsplayer" and AFTER that "mozilla".

It's by the way very strange that MediaPlayer gives only 1 referer back when it's loading WMV files. Or maybe it's more strange that it's giving 2 referers for loading a mpg file........

Its not going to help you for now but in future if you have access to something like PHP and .htaccess isnt going to help you with movies then stick them outside your web area or in a directory and block all access with .htaccess or file permissions and use File IO functions to read the file and then stream it to the browser using the script.

You can then check whatever you like in the script such as referers or IP addresses or what have you.

If TGP's have problems accepting links for a movie that is say a PHP file its easy enough to make it look like a movie so that shouldnt be an issue either.

Jayson

i was guessing maybe first the browser sends the http request for the movie (where "Mozilla" is sent), and the server responses and tells the browser that its a movie file... and the movie player loads and it connects to the movie url again where the nsplayer is sent as user_agent and no referer is sent..

if what i just said is correct,
with the htaccess you gotta block all no-ref browser hits, and allow all hits including norefs from nsplayer. but you gotta do these two at the same time. (i am thinking how that could be done)..

just an idea....

Dont you hate it when you get distracted in the middle of a reply and someone else says the same thing and then you look like a dickhead.

Anyway, freeones/Lane already pointed out using a script. I have PHP examples if anyone needs them. I use it for some pics and also for zip files and the like.

Jayson

We used a PHP program which creates the link to the video as a sym link. The program then renames the file twice per hour and rotates the video twice per day. We get alot of error traffic from the hotlinkers and send it to our paysites.

Talk to me Sleepy.... where can I get a copy of that thing?

Check this out..

Right Click disabled.. view source is encrypted.

http://www.coolness.com/streaming/stream5e.html

Streaming Real Video but it works with any stream.. embeded or not.

Is this what your looking for?

My icq number is in my profile. We dont sell commercial programs but Im sure I can help you out. I have been using this one for about 6 months. Its a simple and rock solid little program.

Whoa 38 posts!

When it comes to bandwidth sucking whores we certainly rally together don't we :thumbsup

I see you are all back to the same conclusions I have already drawn :)

The only possible way to combat this is changing the location.

Sleepy: About the php script idea - what would the link to the mpeg look like? Would it change also or just internally?

Would tgp's accept this? Would TGP software like Brownie accept this?
:cool-as-a