Image protection

[OpenLens]

Originally posted by andretan

I think it requires the user to install the Java plugin or something... I can view it
:dunno:

In IE it requires a digitally signed plugin...if I weren't on DSL it would have taken more time to dl than the image is worth.

Any significant additional download times or additional plugin installs are just going to put people off. A quick stat: over half of visitors will leave a page if it takes more than 15 seconds to load. There are a lot of other palm tree pics out there.

 

[Richard]

Originally posted by tsdh
Would like to invite all of you stealing my image.
You may try the mouse right-click, PrtScreen, view source, or any other method you can think of.

My test page is here

please let me know your result.

Lovely picture. The black contrasts with the yellow words... and the dots, simply leaves me speechless. Not to mention the sharpness of the picture! Absolutely amazing!

PS: Not everyone uses IE...

 

[Richard]

Just did a test using a Mac OS X machine running IE. No image either.

 

[Richard]

Originally posted by Richard
Just did a test using a Mac OS X machine running IE. No image either.

My mistake, IE prompted for software installation, however, other browsers on the Mac showed up with no images.

 

[OpenLens]

Originally posted by Richard


My mistake, IE prompted for software installation, however, other browsers on the Mac showed up with no images.

Like I said before, you can't require odd plugins...it's not a solution

 

[andretan]

Originally posted by OpenLens
In IE it requires a digitally signed plugin...if I weren't on DSL it would have taken more time to dl than the image is worth.

Any significant additional download times or additional plugin installs are just going to put people off. A quick stat: over half of visitors will leave a page if it takes more than 15 seconds to load. There are a lot of other palm tree pics out there.

15 seconds?
I think my IE 6 took more than 1/2 a minute (on 256k DSL) :what:

 

[maddog]

Originally posted by OpenLens
Requires an uknown plugin...instant turn off to a lot of your audience.

Excellent!! Even after viewing page source, the image link is not obvious.

 

[tsdh]

Originally posted by OpenLens
Requires an uknown plugin...instant turn off to a lot of your audience.

It doesn't require any plug-in, if your browser is Java-enabled.
The way it works is:
- Once the html page is loaded, then it will request for a Javascript code from the server.
- After it was loaded and executed, then the script will send html source URL and requesting for an applet.
- The server then compare that URL with the one set by image owner.
- If the URL is OK, then the server will send the image ciphered and bundled inside a Java applet.
- This applet will decipher the image and display it on screen. It disable mouse right-click and detect the PrintScreen button.
So the image will never be written into any separate file.

The only way to steal the image, is to take photo of the screen or grab it from the display card's memory.

This method shows that by using just a Java applet can do the job. No need any proprietary software component to be installed by the viewer, just a standard Java Virtual Machine will do, which most web-browser already have (don't know about IE 6).

 

[tsdh]

Originally posted by OpenLens
Like I said before, you can't require odd plugins...it's not a solution

yeah... you're right. Using odd plug-in means not good. I test using several PCs, some requires plug-in, but some are not. I don't know why.

 

[Kho King]

Originally posted by tsdh

It doesn't require any plug-in, if your browser is Java-enabled.

YES, it does require user to install special plugin to view the image. My IE is Java enabled. The plug in that promt me to install is Mirage Viewer 2.3 from Alchemedia. Never heard of Alchemedia before, thus will not download/install anything from them.

You might have a good solution for your images, but definitely not every user is going to take the time/risk to download something to view your images.

 

[Richard]

Originally posted by tsdh

It doesn't require any plug-in, if your browser is Java-enabled.
The way it works is:
- Once the html page is loaded, then it will request for a Javascript code from the server.
- After it was loaded and executed, then the script will send html source URL and requesting for an applet.
- The server then compare that URL with the one set by image owner.
- If the URL is OK, then the server will send the image ciphered and bundled inside a Java applet.
- This applet will decipher the image and display it on screen. It disable mouse right-click and detect the PrintScreen button.
So the image will never be written into any separate file.

The only way to steal the image, is to take photo of the screen or grab it from the display card's memory.

This method shows that by using just a Java applet can do the job. No need any proprietary software component to be installed by the viewer, just a standard Java Virtual Machine will do, which most web-browser already have (don't know about IE 6).

The problem with the applet is that it uses ActiveX to activate... which isn't a standards by any chance. It's a great idea, but if only it can be implemented cross-browserwise.

 

[Darren]

And there are several more open questions about Mirage itself -

1. Image is encrypted on originating server - may be okay for intranet with 10s of users, how scalable is it to handle Internet with possible 1000s of users/image requests - time for that 32-processor Itanium2 server?

2. Server s/w only runs on Windows & Solaris - no open source OS supported currently.

3. Cost? from the website, appears that Mirage is a software suite that requires the developer themselves to install and commission the software (which btw is actually more targetted towards enterprise security).

Great technology, very niche market with opportunities - but IMHO, not something that can easily or cost-effectively implemented on the Net (otherwise we would have seen more sites with this tech already).

 

[tsdh]

Originally posted by Darren
Great technology, very niche market with opportunities - but IMHO, not something that can easily or cost-effectively implemented on the Net (otherwise we would have seen more sites with this tech already).

Agree with you.
So in the meantime, we can conclude that there is no image protection suitable for us.
(Until later if all web-browsers have built-in features to allow those kind of protection without any additional component)

 

[Darren]

Originally posted by tsdh
So in the meantime, we can conclude that there is no image protection suitable for us.
(Until later if all web-browsers have built-in features to allow those kind of protection without any additional component)

Well, there are certain things that can be done to *minimise* but it won't eliminate the problem. The only consolation we can give is that most, if not all, image sites have this issue and we may not be able to have a 100% solution (heck, if I knew how to do it cost-effectively, I will be marketing it and retiring .. muahahaha)

As for browsers getting built-in features hah!! tang ku ku lar (wait long long), in IE6/WinXP, the browser even provides one-click buttons to save the image to your HD....