movie hotlinking
 

i decided to try to finally do something about all the
movies that were being hotlinked from me. After doing
a little bit of research (mostly on this board), I learned
that normal referrer protection implemented using
.htaccess doesn't work because not all media players
send a referring URL.
So I decided to use a cookie based approach and it
appears, to the best of my knowledge, to be working.
I implemented it as follows:

1) i recompiled apache making sure to includes the mod_usertrack and mod_rewrite modules.
mod_usertrack was configured so that anyone
visiting my movie galleries would be sent a cookie
that persists for 10 minutes. I suppose I could
also set a cookie by including hahahahahahahahahaha code in my
galleries, but this would require changing my galleries
which is more work. Also, i believe some TGPs and MPGs
don't like hahahahahahahahahaha in galleries.

2) i added an .htaccess file that checks for the presence
of the cookie. If the cookie is present then access to the
movie clips is allowed. If the cookie isn't present i redirect
to a page that explains that cookies are required.


- Does this sound like a reasonable way to tackle the problem
or am I overlooking something? Are there better ways?

- thanks,
Johnny

WHO BE LINK HOTTIN ME?