hotlinking question

[scorpion]

If you open somebody else's website in..

1. an invisible frame, is that considered hotlinking?
2. using PHP's fopen, is that hotlinking?

Thanks.

[johannes]

I'm not sure what you mean with hotlinking. Can you specify what you actually want to do with this?

1. Why do you want to do this?

2. There are no problems with this. You're downloading a public website.

[leoo24]

1, several things, i always ask before i add anyone's link (whatever form it may come in) to my site.
I don't think it would come under the term 'hotlinking', but if you are trying to pass it off as your own then yes you could call it hotlinking. Many sites open up other sites in frames,a good example being about.com.
I recommend asking the owners permission!
2. If you know what hotlinking is then you will know what you cannot do with fopen.

[grahamstewart]

you will know what you cannot do with fopen

Really? I would have thought fopen followed by an fpassthru would be a fairly effective way to steal someone elses content :)

[johannes]

One example of hotlinking is when you put images on your website, but the images are downloaded from another site's server.

If this is what you mean scorpion, #1 is hotlinking, #2 is not.

[leoo24]

it is graham, i wasn't trying to give anyone any ideas how to steal stuff (granted they can probably find it somewhere else), i was beating around the bush, trying not say "yes you can easily steal stuff with fopen but you really shouldn't "

[grahamstewart]

i was beating around the bush

Sorry, I can always be relied upon to jump straight to the point - whether its appropriate or not :)

To answer scorpions question: I would seriously frown upon any use of my content without my permission, regardless of how you actually obtained it.

However, I suspect most webmasters will happilly give permission for you to use their content - provided you acknowledge the source and give a suitable link back to their site.

[scorpion]

Hey Johannes, I don't understand your example.

If the images come from the other person's server, then hotlinking would be #2 and #1 would not, not the other way around...

[johannes]

Again hotlinking can be when you put images on your website, but the images are downloaded from another site's server.

In #2 you only mention fopen. What are you going to do with the files you download?

About #1, framing is a kind of hotlinking I guess. But an invisible frame is really something. What are going to use it for?

[scorpion]

well, I guess its a grey area. I mean if you have a link to somebody's page, is that hotlinking or just publishing a link? If you redirect in a frame so people can come back seems ok...

as for fopen, if you insert a base href tag in the header and then echo it back, that seems like hotlinking to me as it "looks" as if its on your domain but in fact the graphics come from the base href server...