To Catch a Leech
Hotlinking:
Bandwidth theft or "hotlinking" is direct linking to a website's files (images, video, etc.). An example would be using an <IMG> tag to display a JPEG image you found on someone else's web page so it will appear on your own site, journal, weblog, forum posting, etc.
Bandwidth refers to the amount of data transferred from a website to a user's computer. When you view a webpage, you are using that site's data transfer to display the files. Since web hosts charge based on the amount of data transferred, bandwidth is an issue. If a site is over it's monthly bandwidth, it's billed for the extra data or taken offline.
A simple analogy for bandwidth theft: Imagine a random stranger plugging into your electrical outlets, using your electricity without your consent, and you paying for it.
Definition from http://altlab.com/hotlinking.html
The other day, as I was checking the statistics for my site, I discovered that I was getting a few hits from a site that I had not gotten hits from, before. The site is located at http://members.blackplanet.com/diamondballa03/. As it turns out, this site was hotlinking a picture from my site to his and using it as a background tile.
Now, I usually do not mind when someone hotlinks to me. It is rather complementary, after all, that they would like one of my pictures so well that they would want to use it on their own site.
If I find that someone is hotlinking a picture, I will, generally, send them an E-Mail asking them to save the pic that they like and then use it on their own site, instead of hotlinking the picture.
However, on this occasion, I found something that really irritated me. When I right clicked the site to see the source code I was greeted with a little box. The box read "I Hate A Thief". Interesting words from a guy who was stealing my bandwidth for use on his site.
After I eliminated the "I Hate a Thief" box, I was forwarded to a tripod website with a rather annoying and continuous pop up box. The idea was to keep me there for a long period of time. I assume that it was to teach me a lesson. It didn't.
So, I went back to his site and found the source code. I discovered that the majority of his images were, in fact, hot linked. Well, that really irritated me. This guy, who hates thieves was stealing from many different sites, not just mine.
So, I set forth, in my bastardlike ways, to make things a bit irritating for the old boy.
First, I renamed the original picture that he was using for background tiles and re-adjusted some html for my site. Then, I made a new picture and named it the same as the picture that he had hotlinked.
After I uploaded the new picture and code to my site, I went to his site and I was thoroughly pleased at what I saw. His background tile - formerly a picture of Janet Jackson's boob - was now tiled with a brilliantly self satisfied me. And looked something like this.
Yes, I know that I could
have installed a simple .htaccess file to my site to prevent hotlinking. But,
this was much more fun.
