Bait and Switch
Saturday, May 20th, 2006In perusing this site's logfiles, I noticed a curiously high number of "referrals" coming from a site about riding motorcycles. I referral is like when you google something (for the sake of argument, let's say "monkey diapers"), and then click on the link in the results to go to monkeyneeds.com. Google "referred" you to that site - it actually shows up on monkeyneeds.com's log files.
So, the motorcycle site. Why are these guys interested in JAB? Curiosity got the better of me, so I checked the logs. Lo and behold, there it was, a call from one of advrider.com's forum pages. I go to advrider to see what's up and - Hey! Some guy posted my fonzie jumping the shark picture! And didn't even give me props. I check the source, and sure as hell - he's leeching it right off my server. That is, he didn't save the image from my site and upload it to the forum, he just put in an image tag that referenced the pic on my site. So, when people look at that page and that image downloads to their browser, it doesn't take up advrider's bandwidth - it takes up my bandwidth.
Ok, that's kind of rude. You don't leech people's bandwidth. Granted, I was never in any danger of using up my alloted monthly bandwidth, but still. My first thought was to post to the forum and be all like "hey dude, you coulda at least given me props for that leeched pic". I gave up on that idea after trying to get registered there just to post - they're even more paranoid than I am. So I had another idea...
The upside to someone leeching your images is that you're still in control of the image. You can easily get rid of it, so their image is broken. Or, if you're a little more devious, you can replace that image with something just a little different. You can guess which route I chose.
Now when people view that forum, instead of seeing this:
They see this:
Or click here to see it live, if "FlowBee" hasn't caught on yet.
So, the motorcycle site. Why are these guys interested in JAB? Curiosity got the better of me, so I checked the logs. Lo and behold, there it was, a call from one of advrider.com's forum pages. I go to advrider to see what's up and - Hey! Some guy posted my fonzie jumping the shark picture! And didn't even give me props. I check the source, and sure as hell - he's leeching it right off my server. That is, he didn't save the image from my site and upload it to the forum, he just put in an image tag that referenced the pic on my site. So, when people look at that page and that image downloads to their browser, it doesn't take up advrider's bandwidth - it takes up my bandwidth.
Ok, that's kind of rude. You don't leech people's bandwidth. Granted, I was never in any danger of using up my alloted monthly bandwidth, but still. My first thought was to post to the forum and be all like "hey dude, you coulda at least given me props for that leeched pic". I gave up on that idea after trying to get registered there just to post - they're even more paranoid than I am. So I had another idea...
The upside to someone leeching your images is that you're still in control of the image. You can easily get rid of it, so their image is broken. Or, if you're a little more devious, you can replace that image with something just a little different. You can guess which route I chose.
Now when people view that forum, instead of seeing this:
They see this:
Or click here to see it live, if "FlowBee" hasn't caught on yet.
Comments:
It's still there, good job. Don't get mad, get even.
posted by Ned F. Reiter : : Saturday, May 20th, 2006
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