Somebody is stealing my bandwidth. What should I do?

Discussion in 'Site & Server Administration' started by ncaditya, Jun 26, 2007.

  1. #1
    This website www.siammatch.com is hotlinking images from my site
    and stealing bandwidth. Last month they stole over 2 GB additional bandwidth.

    I have moved the site to a new server and deleted the image files, however, bandwidth is still getting leached.

    Here is the link where they have hotlinked images from my site (www.acegamer.org) : http://www.siammatch.com/games/show.php

    They are also hotlinking images from other sites eg: www.marmaladearcade.com

    Is there something I can do? I sent them a mail but those scammers didn't respond.
     
    ncaditya, Jun 26, 2007 IP
  2. Christopher

    Christopher Peon

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    #2
    Turn your images into advertisments.

    There's something you can do htaccess wise, not sure how that works.
     
    Christopher, Jun 26, 2007 IP
  3. xluciusx

    xluciusx Peon

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    #3
    xluciusx, Jun 26, 2007 IP
  4. ncaditya

    ncaditya Guest

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    #4
    I deleted the images. In fact, I removed the arcade script that was installed there. I converted the site into a directory. Last night, I even enable the hotlink protection in the cpanel.

    However, in the morning I found 30 mb has been leached. Is there something that can be done?
     
    ncaditya, Jun 26, 2007 IP
  5. grimsqueaker

    grimsqueaker Peon

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    #5
    Are they leeching images? Or multimedia? Do as Chris says, change your htaccess and turn your images into advertisments, if they are stealing images.
     
    grimsqueaker, Jun 26, 2007 IP
  6. DevilHellz

    DevilHellz Well-Known Member

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    #6
    Using .htaccess, you can disallow hot linking on your server, so those attempting to link to an image or CSS file on your site, for example, is either blocked (failed request, such as a broken image) or served a different content (ie: an image of an angry man) . Note that mod_rewrite needs to be enabled on your server in order for this aspect of .htaccess to work. Inquire your web host regarding this.
    With all the pieces in place, here's how to disable hot linking of certain file types on your site, in the case below, images, JavaScript (js) and CSS (css) files on your site. Simply add the below code to your .htaccess file, and upload the file either to your root directory, or a particular subdirectory to localize the effect to just one section of your site:
    
    RewriteEngine on
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?mydomain.com/.*$ [NC]
    RewriteRule \.(gif|jpg|js|css)$ - [F]
    Code (markup):
    Be sure to replace "mydomain.com" with your own. The above code creates a failed request when hot linking of the specified file types occurs. In the case of images, a broken image is shown instead.



    ALSO:
    You can set up your .htaccess file to actually serve up different content when hot linking occurs. This is more commonly done with images, such as serving up an Angry Man image in place of the hot linked one. The code for this is:
    
    RewriteEngine on
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?mydomain.com/.*$ [NC]
    RewriteRule \.(gif|jpg)$ http://www.mydomain.com/angryman.gif [R,L]
    Code (markup):
     
    DevilHellz, Jun 26, 2007 IP
  7. infonote

    infonote Well-Known Member

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    #7
    usa .htaccess file

    html4.com/mime/markup/php/how_to_en/how_to_system_en/how_to_system_10.php
     
    infonote, Jun 26, 2007 IP