4 ms·

You're breaking the internet.

krapp 13y ago
You can have everyone's images when you're willing to pay them for the bandwidth. The internet has changed (unfortunately.)
chollida1 13y ago
How so? I mean this as an honest question. how does this "break the internet"? I configure my browser to send the referrer as the site I'm currently on as I don't believe a site has the right to know where I've come from. Does this also break the internet?
- twistedpair 13y ago
  Three cheers. Never trust a "referrer" header. But now you're a "hacker," right?
AJ007 13y ago
For smaller sites it is not unusual for a hot linked image to use more bandwidth than the rest of an entire site many times over. This isn't an issue for me any more, but I had some ideas over the years - 1) Make hotlink images serve pictures with a massive watermark. This way you get free branding/advertising. 2) Serve specific images to specific problem hot linkers, for example "Pinterest sucks (insert favorite word)." 2) If you are more malicious, make the behavior random so it isn't immediately evident to the site owner/moderator what is going on. Image attribution gets little respect, just take a look at what happened to Google Images. The service went from being obvious (to the mass market user) where the image was coming from (assuming it was being published by the original owner) to now it just looks like Google has their own stock photography service. Irregardless of your opinion on copyright, everyone agrees on attribution when it comes to code. As far as I believe the same is true for images. Hotlinking is the tip of a very problematic iceberg.
Steuard 13y ago
How? Hotlinking of images on someone else's site has been viewed as inappropriate as long as I can remember (was it okay before 1995?). It's not wise design in any case: what if they remove it or reorganize their site? (Hyperlinks to other peoples' pages have always been okay, but that's not what we're talking about here.)
- hawleyal 13y ago
  Hotlinking or embedding on another site is not the only thing that breaks. - Downloading - Search engines - Caching - Sharing (usually nabs thumbnail) It's just not a good idea. And it doesn't really work. Any scraper worth their salt would just fake the referrer and be fine.

krapp 13y ago

You can have everyone's images when you're willing to pay them for the bandwidth. The internet has changed (unfortunately.)

chollida1 13y ago

How so? I mean this as an honest question. how does this "break the internet"? I configure my browser to send the referrer as the site I'm currently on as I don't believe a site has the right to know where I've come from. Does this also break the internet?

twistedpair 13y ago
Three cheers. Never trust a "referrer" header. But now you're a "hacker," right?

AJ007 13y ago

For smaller sites it is not unusual for a hot linked image to use more bandwidth than the rest of an entire site many times over. This isn't an issue for me any more, but I had some ideas over the years - 1) Make hotlink images serve pictures with a massive watermark. This way you get free branding/advertising. 2) Serve specific images to specific problem hot linkers, for example "Pinterest sucks (insert favorite word)." 2) If you are more malicious, make the behavior random so it isn't immediately evident to the site owner/moderator what is going on. Image attribution gets little respect, just take a look at what happened to Google Images. The service went from being obvious (to the mass market user) where the image was coming from (assuming it was being published by the original owner) to now it just looks like Google has their own stock photography service. Irregardless of your opinion on copyright, everyone agrees on attribution when it comes to code. As far as I believe the same is true for images. Hotlinking is the tip of a very problematic iceberg.

Steuard 13y ago

How? Hotlinking of images on someone else's site has been viewed as inappropriate as long as I can remember (was it okay before 1995?). It's not wise design in any case: what if they remove it or reorganize their site? (Hyperlinks to other peoples' pages have always been okay, but that's not what we're talking about here.)

hawleyal 13y ago
Hotlinking or embedding on another site is not the only thing that breaks. - Downloading - Search engines - Caching - Sharing (usually nabs thumbnail) It's just not a good idea. And it doesn't really work. Any scraper worth their salt would just fake the referrer and be fine.