Lately I’ve noticed my logs filled with all sorts of misleading information that is caused by external image linking.
It’s really ticking me off that the Google image search makes it so easy for people to find these images.
I thought I read somewhere in the past about a way to prevent all external image linking.
Can someone help with this… I’ve love to have this stop once and for all.
yeah, just made that change… but I was reffering to an .htaccess modification, do those even work on windows servers?
Not sure, being a server numptie. It is apparently possible to include an .htaccess file on the windows servers, so I assume that would work much like a Linux one. Try it, and let us know…
I tried uploading an .htaccess file with ftp but it just dissapears… and I can’t access the control panel right now to try that.
Will try again in a while.
Well it looks like according to this thread .htaccess does not work on windows… really too bad, is there any other solution to stop images from loading when they are hot linked?
It did not disappear, make sure you allow “show hidden files”. All files with dots “.” in front are hidden
Yeah… figured that out quick.
But the code found over the web that prevents external linking doesn’t work. I’ve read that that function doesn’t work in a windows enviroment.
So any other solution would be great.
if you dont want to allow image linking, you could put all images below the root folder, then have an ASP or PHP page as the image (eg ) you could then in the ASP/PHP file have code that checks the referring site to see if its allowed, if not you could get it to load a “no hot linking” image, if it is allowed, then have code to stream the image
if you need the code i can post it
I’d do what scotty has suggested, it’s only a few lines of code and should work pretty good.
While not a prevention method so much..you can have a litttle fun with the offending site. Just upload some real “unflattering” type of image..(I will leave what that could be to your imagination) rename it to the image name that is being hot-linked..and also rename the original image. Doing this often results in the offending site..removing the image quite quickly! 
From reading post I found by searching, I got the impression that there was some sort of filter that can be enabled in IIS on Jodo’s server… Is this possible?
Changing the code for every image on my site is just not feasible.
if this is a static IP as probbs would br if a website, then you can get jodo to block calls / requests from that server/IP Address
This is a problem that needs to be handled on Jodo’s end. There are many ASAPI filters available that will make it possible to stop hotlinking in IIS.
I’m not sure of how to request this, as most of the filters are not free. Is there anyone out there that has more experience with these filters, or knows of good free ones?
I’m not going to change my code or move my file below root, that’s just not realistic.
Here is a free opensource one http://www.michaelbrumm.com/leechblocker.html
The problem is we cant just go isntalling ISAPI filters willy-nilly, as they are huge factors in crashes and such.
If you can give IPs we can block.
Well I don’t consider this a willy-nilly situation… There are other variants of the same type of filter that are available for a cost. Maybe those might make Jodo feel better about it.
I think saying that installing these kind of filter will cause crashes without any evidence is jumping the gun.
Also blocking the IP is a waste of time, I am looking for a perminent solution so that I won’t have to worry about this for the future.
This program seems much more advanced and employs more reliable techniques to block hotlinking: Helicon Tech - Web Server Enhancements
It’s not that expensive either, considering you only need a license per server.
His comments are based on prior experience. I will let him clarify, but please be patient for a while as he’s on a vacation and may not be able to reply soon.
ISAPI filters work directly on IIS datastream and if the filter crashes it brings down your whole web server. We already have seen many of them causing crashes. Maybe Stephen can go test the latest version, but it certainely includes risk.
Well I would really appreciate it if you guys did give one of these a trial run. It sure would be nice to have this feature at jodo. In the long run it’ll save you guys some bandwidth too.
Image hotlinking seems to be running wild with all these forum and blogs popping up all over the place. While I currently do not suffer much from this problem, it would be a worry lifted to know there was a way of completely preventing it.