How Do Popular Sites Protect Their Files?

I have a website i'm developing which I believe could be big in the near future. My issue now is that I need to start looking for people to help with different jobs on the website such as improving the design etc. I'm worried that one or more may take parts or all of my files and have an exact replica of my website.

How do popular websites keep all their files and databases safe without any one or more people stealing code or even deleting files if they wanted?

 

If directory listings are enabled you should add a blank index.php file to each open dir, eg. yourdomain.com/images/ so people cant browse the dir and download all image.

If you have a template directory and the files are .html you could protect them from direct ripping/downloading with .htaccess
Eg. htaccess file in template dir
<Files ~ "\.html$">
Order allow,deny
Deny from all
Satisfy All
</Files>

Never leave backups in public accessible folders, put them offsite or store above public_html folder.
No one should have access to delete files, never give ftp/cpanel access to anyone unless needed, people fall out, get jealous, download a copy for them selves, etc.

If someone wants to rip the html/css/images from your site they will, its not worth encoding the source. If your site is copied it must be a great site that someone wants to spend time on.

 

I understand what your saying above, but I mean for designers or programmers who need access to certain files.

How would a designer for Twitter do his work without access to all of Twitters files?

 

I think they would use a SVN and would have access to whatever applies to the area they are working on, they would commit changes, then tested multiple times going up the chain, until eventually live on the site.

 

So would it be wise to hire a server administrator at some point to setup an SVN for me and to manage the system? I'm quite new to subversion so would that run on a separate server to the live script?

 

Non disclosure agreements and that kind of clauses plus svn.

Using svn u can restrict certain developers to access only certain areas of the code plus you can track who, when and how is modifying your code, but that doesn't prevent that coder from stealing his part of the code, and depending on what part of the code someone is working on, it may not be very difficult for him to figure out what the whole project is about.