Bandwidth Stealing and Hotlinking – What to Know
Direct linking is an effective tool to link pages or embed files such as images into a web page or onto a website. When files (image, video, documents, etc.) are copied without permission from a web page and pasted onto another site, it is called bandwidth leeching a.k.a. hotlinking a.k.a. inline linking a.k.a. piggy-backing. What it amounts to is bandwidth stealing, and it can be done so stealthily that many people do not realize it is happening to them. Not only is bandwidth stealing an issue of copyright infringement, it can cost a person money. In addition, the content linked may not be used in the way the owner intended, and hotlinking can be used for phishing expeditions.
Legitimate Uses for Linking
There are legitimate uses for direct linking. For instance, a blogger or Ebayer may want to embed images onto their site instead of having the images uploaded each time a person visits their pages. Direct linking is also used with web banners and as a way for web hosting companies to divide their bandwidth on their servers. Also, some website owners allow and want links to other sites, but these should be pages and not files. This article centers on the illicit use of linking as it relates to bandwidth stealing.
Why Bandwidth Matters
Every time a person visits a website the information on the site is transferred to their computer using bandwidth. Bandwidth is measured in megabytes and is calculated by the amount of data or information that is transferred to a computer. Companies that host websites, images and blogging spaces allot each customer a certain amount of bandwidth that can be used in a month’s time. With regard to bandwidth, a web page can also be images and blogs that are hosted by a company (image hosting services, blog hosting sites). For instance, each time someone clicks on an image in Ebay bandwidth is used.
Online companies charging for bandwidth usage is something like cellular phone companies service plans. For a monthly charge, a cell phone customer is given a set number of minutes that they can use. If they go over their minutes, they are charged for the overage. The same happens with bandwidth. If a person goes over their bandwidth megabytes there is an extra charge for that overage. The hosting website can also close your account.
When a person’s bandwidth has been hotlinked, they are using more bandwidth than they normally would. If there is an overage, they pay not the person who has leeched. The other scenario is that the person who has been hotlinked buys a larger bandwidth plan, spending money unnecessarily.
How Hotlinking Is Done
While all files on web pages can be leeched, hot linking is most commonly associated with images. Anyone who has a web page can easily link image files to their site. It is only a matter of copying and pasting the images URL onto the new page. Once the image is embedded onto the leecher’s web page, every time someone visits that page it costs the original owner of the image bandwidth megabytes because the file is still linked to the original site.
Checking for Bandwidth Stealing
One of the easiest ways to check whether an image is being hotlinked is to check the website’s access logs (statistics) for the site and compare them to the expected activity. If there is a big jump in megabyte usage, chances are hotlinking is the cause. On the server logs check to see if images are being pulled up by a particular IP address more than is reasonable. Your web page host site can give you more details on how and what to check.
Also, try googling the image name to see if it is comes up on other websites. If images are stolen from an Ebay account or photo hosting service notify customer service. A deterrent to hotlinking is to imprint a logo or name on all images.
Remedying Hotlinking Situation
There are several options to remedy the situation if images have been hotlinked. Write an email to the person and let them know what they have done and that the image should be removed from their site. There are many people who do not know that hotlinking is wrong. So, most people will readily take the image off their site once they are made aware of it.
The image file can also be changed to an “htaccess” file. If the person totally ignores the situation, replace the image with something that is embarrassing. Another image can be used, or words to the effect, “This image was stolen from me. This person is a thief.” To find out how effective this is type “John McCain hotlinking” in a google search.
Preventing Bandwidth Leeching
To prevent bandwidth leeching use the “htacces” file change. This website - http://underscorebleach.net/jotsheet/2004/06/htaccess-prevent-hotlinking - gives detailed directions on how to change image files to an htaccess file. One of the things to be aware of in adding a “htacces” file is that legitimate uses of linking can also be denied. Although, there are ways around that, it may be easier to just contact customer service for the web hosting site to assist in preventing image leeching.
Most image hosting websites have built-in filter that protect images from being hotlinked. Some of them allow a person to opt in or out of the filter.
Final Note
At the moment, prevention and removal methods for hotlinking are cumbersome and not easy to do for the average computer user. However, issues regarding hotlinking are just beginning to come into the mainstream, and it is only a matter of time that programmers develop effective programs that guards against bandwidth stealing.
constant-content.com | March 20th, 2008
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Your thoughts about bandwidth stealing is actually true. This is a good source of information. Thanks.