Secure Pictures

Feb 27, 2005 25 Replies

As a bit of a challenge for those with nothing to do tonight, download the following .pdf file:



formatting link



- and see what you can do with it in the way of changing it, printing it, editing it etc.



Peter



=============================== Sample sent off group. Mike.H.

Any more ???

formatting link

-- Regards,

John Stevenson Nottingham, England.

Visit the new Model Engineering adverts page at:-

formatting link

============================== At least I thought I did until it was bounced back to me as undeliverable to your address Peter!. I used a screen capture prog saved it as a jpeg and used my normal editing suite . There are possibly easier methods but it works for me(whatever floats your boat) Mike.H.

This way broke Peter's encrypted file, altered the picture. Digitally signed it and saved it with my encryption.

Sign of a miss-spent youth

-- Regards,

John Stevenson Nottingham, England.

Visit the new Model Engineering adverts page at:-

formatting link

hiya, best i can do is this:

formatting link
^ Picture

formatting link
^ Able to do anything inside it?, have i gone to far?

Not all may be as good as me though? I do spend alot of time trying to make things work that shouldn't.

Here you are Peter, you can air drop this on Japan

formatting link
Regards,

John Stevenson Nottingham, England.

Visit the new Model Engineering adverts page at:-

formatting link

Can't print it....................

Brian L Dominic

Web Sites: Canals:

formatting link
of the Cromford Canal:
formatting link
Light Railway:
formatting link

I decided to have a play with DHTML code, Something i spend alot of time using at university.

And ive come up with this...

formatting link
I know its a little strange but it dose:

  • Stop you copying the image via right click
  • Stop you using the toolbar that appears when you place your cursor on an image
  • Stop you using a screen capture program
  • When printed it only comes out very dark (i do have a laser black printer though)
  • Image or text can not be highlight at all (thus no copy paste-ing)
  • I can also scramble the source code to stop people searching for the file names if required.
  • Much much more

Maybe a few ideas to consider, fully customizeable.

Ive applied it to a blank webpage thrown together in Front Page. The link is:

formatting link
Please try your hardest to copy that image, Without copying it off the server. :)

thanks Martyn

This image ?

formatting link

-- Regards,

John Stevenson Nottingham, England.

Visit the new Model Engineering adverts page at:-

formatting link

so how do we get passed it?

what do you think on the idea though?

thanks, Martyn

How hard was it to copy? Thanks Martyn

Very easy. Run Paintshop pro, set for screen capture grab the picture, rework in PSP and save.

Images are easy to do this way. What is harder is to paste a caption on the picture so it obscures part of the item and covers a range of shades on the picture. This can be cropped or cleaned up but in most cases the work needed out weights the time taken. Much like the Ebay watermark on their pictures.

Text is harder to do as you need to break the encoding on the pdf and get into the text file to alter it. Working on pdf text as an image is hard work and in most cases you can see where you have been.

A liberal sprinkling of © XXXXXXX at the end of paragraphs might put someone off going thru a 20 page article

-- Regards,

John Stevenson Nottingham, England.

Visit the new Model Engineering adverts page at:-

formatting link

It might obstruct the right click and save brigade, but the simple fact is that the only way to completly protect an image is to never publish it. Personally I am not that bothered by people taking and using an image from one of my sites, but what is a real problem, is those who use my images by hotlinking to them. Despite having .htaccess in place and a warning on my site very often there can be a dozen or so "hotlinked" images being displayed in various forums. Should the people from whom I obtain my hosting apply their bandwidth rule, I would be left with the options of, paying more for extra bandwidth, subsidising the extra cost by advertising, reducing the amount of images and their size, or throwing in the towel and terminating the sites.

Still copies from Opera on right click

Why not, if you can find the image address in the code then you can grab it off the server can't you?

AJH

The address code should of all been scrambled.

Is my idea of DHTML a dead dog, or worth carrying on?

or in other words how secure is it acturally?

Like alot of things, with theft if you want it bad enough your find a way, So it may put off the amatures but anyone who really wants the photo will find a way.

thanks Martyn

20src%3D%22theimage.jpg%22%20width%3D%22383

Is about as scrambled as it got, easily decipherable but not from m$oft browser even frontpage did not like to show it without going off to ask permission somewhere

Firefox has right click disabled but will show source code.

AJH

go to my testpage again...

see what you can do to the image

thanks Martyn

From opera it displays the image with the wrong aspect ratio. It still copies the image and will direct the browser to the image address where it displays fine, apart from being MiBbed ;-).

AJH

so people can extract it, thats ok, i dont mind that, but can they modify it?

have a go...

photo is located here on my server...

formatting link
Thanks Martyn

Please note ive only inserted to many MiB's in it to see what is the hardest to remove or mask.

Here we go,

formatting link
I left the number 5 in but turned it upside-down.

Join the Discussion

Have something to add? Share your thoughts — no account required.

Didn't find your answer?

Ask the community — no account required