Last week I told you that my daughter had devised a method to
protect her awards from being downloaded by visitors and
asked that you visit her site at www.imsvm.com/winaward.htm
and try to steal one. Naturally within a few hours I had several
e-mails with some of the awards attached. In order for a picture
to be displayed on a visitors monitor it must first be
downloaded and cached on the viewers machine. Anyone that
views a picture over the Internet will consequently end up with
the picture on their computer whether they want it or not. Any
determined and half knowledgeable user will therefore be able
to get a picture from your web site if they really want it.
Even so, it is possible to help protect your work from the casual
visitor or to make the task of taking a picture more difficult. In
my daughters case, she simply positioned an invisible
rectangle over each picture so that when a user tries too right
click it, the mouse hits the rectangle instead of the picture. This
is very easily done in IMS Web Engine and IMS Web Spinner
with the Rectangle button. Once created, simply drag and scale
the Rectangle Object over the Images you want to protect. If you
want to make the task of stealing the Object even more complex,
you could position multiple bitmap rectangles at the same
location as the real Image then use a behavior to keep all but the
real Image invisible. The would-be thief would then have to go
through your HTML code in some detail to determine which
images needed to be looked at to find the one they wanted. The
effort could just be too much trouble. I have posted an example at is2fig1. To prevent excessive download times, keep the fake images small.
Another method submitted by Steve Cartwright uses a Script to
disable the right mouse button making it difficult for a visitor to
right click and save the image.
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE=3D"JavaScript">
<!-- Begin
function right(e)
{
if (navigator.appName =3D=3D 'Netscape' && (e.which =3D=3D 3 || =
e.which =3D=3D 2))
return false;
else if (navigator.appName =3D=3D 'Microsoft Internet Explorer' &&
(event.button =3D=3D 2 || event.button =3D=3D 3)) {
alert("This page is protected by Website Designs.......");
return false;
}
return true;
}
document.onmousedown=3Dright;
if (document.layers) window.captureEvents(Event.MOUSEDOWN);
window.onmousedown=3Dright;
// End -->
</script>
To use this script on your web site simply use Ctrl-C to copy
the above text and Ctrl-V to paste it into the IMS Text editor. Be
sure to set the editor to HTML mode and read section 3 of this
news letter for help on Importing and Using Scripts and HTML.
You should remember that the Internet is basically a public
forum. Anything that you post on a web site can be taken if
the visitor is determined and knowledge. Always be sure to
include a Copyright Notice on your page and make it clear that
the material belongs to you or give credit to the owner. If
something is really so important that you do not want it taking
then it should probably not be posted. Finally, consider if it
really is that important. In the case of an award the value is that
you won it and not necessarily that you have the picture.
Anyone can get a good replica of an Oscar or can even
sometimes buy a real one from a stars estate sale. The real
value in an award however, is in having won it and not in
possessing it.
"IMS Web Tips" is a weekly news letter for all web site managers regardless of experience who are looking for detailed information on
creating, maintaining and promoting their web sites.
