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The world wide web can seem like world wide kleptomania. The world wide web is open. If you present it to the world, anyone in the world can take it. Maybe. There are several ways to resist graphics theft. One of the best is with MasterTheftResister, written especially for subscribers of WillMaster Possibilities and given freely to all web masters for their own legal and ethical use. This is a theft resister rather than a theft preventer. It might not foil felonious focus; but it can be sufficient for less malicious tendencies. If it can be displayed on your computer monitor, it can be stolen. Some browsers ignore the "no-cache" directive, for example. And anything on a monitor is vulnerable to screen capture utilities; although the quality of such captures may be suspect. MasterTheftResister is not practical for protecting entire websites. But key logos or other graphics can be theft resistant. The rest of this article talks about the development process and the methods used by MasterTheftResister. If such is boring for you or you are pressed for time, go to the example page at http://www.willmaster.com/possibilities/demo/trfwpg.html and try to steal the graphic. Then go to http://www.willmaster.com/MasterTheftResister/ and download your own "Master Web Graphic Theft Resister Kit". It has complete instructions. The idea for MasterTheftResister came from posts on lists about people stealing other people's websites: "graphics and all", "logo I made on speculation", "just copied the whole thing", and other such phrases. "Why not use JavaScript rollover technology to foil theft", I thought. "That way, the browser's 'save picture as' feature would work only on the secondary graphic." When the mouse travels onto the primary graphic, it disappears, replaced by the secondary. When the mouse travels off the secondary, the primary reappears. Well, that's good as far as it goes. Turns out that right-clicking with IE on Win95 brings the primary graphic back as soon as the cursor hovers over the pop-up menu. It can then be copied. No such problem with Netscape, and no such problem on Mac with either browser. Not so good. The next step was to surround/cloak the primary graphic with transparent images. And only the mouse traveling over one of those transparent images brings the primary back to visibility. That works. Placing the META "no-cache" directive into the HTML prevents most browsers from caching the page on the visitors hard drive. Still, a person can view the source code of your page and determine the URL of your graphic. Typing the URL into their browser will then retrieve it. That's where the script comes in. The MasterTheftResister script serves the primary graphic. It will serve the graphic only to the correct web page. Attempting to retrieve the graphic by typing the scripts URL into the browser is futile. The Master Web Graphic Theft Resister Kit then, resists graphic theft in three ways:
The "Try to steal this graphic!" example page is at http://www.willmaster.com/possibilities/demo/trfwpg.html Your very own Master Web Graphic Theft Resister Kit is free at http://www.willmaster.com/MasterTheftResister/ The download contains complete instructions. If you need help, write to me. Copyright 1999 by William Bontrager
William Bontrager, Programmer and Publisher
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