Forum Moderators: open
I soon realized four things:
1) It is impossible to protect source code, images - whatever it is that anyone can access - if they can access it, they can also steal it.
2) It seemed to me like only amateur sites even bothered messing with "protection". But no matter what they did, I could always find a way around it.
3) If I could find a way around it, then people who are a lot smarter than I am will also be able to grab the code, even if I try to stop them. Besides, why would they ever want to steal my code?
4) If anyone, against all odds, would want to take something I put on my site - be it images, code, CSS .. whatever - it's actually an honor. Apparently I did something they couldn't do, or they just liked it so much that they wanted to do the same thing.
Today, it still puzzles me to see all those questions pop up - "How do I protect my source code?" "How can I prevent someone from stealing my images?"
No offense, I understand how you feel .. Let me just tell you that it can't be done! However, there are always dumb users, those that will be fooled by those tricks ..
So let me tell you one little thing - if you're even going to attempt "protecting" your pages (even though you know you can't protect them 100%), then do it right!
If there's anything I hate, it is a pop-up stating that "No rightclicks allowed!" or "Copyright blah blah blah" .. or even worse, "Ha ha ha!"
All those things you can usually get around by clicking both mouse buttons simultaneously, and the context menu will pop up (try it in IE and you'll see).
So, I wasted my time putting together a nifty page. Here, take it .. do whatever you want with it.
At least this one isn't as annoying as most other scripts out there. And at least the context menu won't pop up no matter what they do (well, unless they have JavaScript turned off of course ;))
It supposedly works in IE4+ .. and in Netscape (prior to NN6). All other browsers - Opera, Mozilla .. - this script won't help. (Not that it helps anyway .. but, oh well.)
if(document.layers){
window.captureEvents(Event.MOUSEDOWN);
window.onmousedown=NN1;
window.onselectstart=NN2;
}
if(document.all){
document.onmousedown=IE1;
document.onkeydown=IE2;
document.oncontextmenu=IE3;
document.onselectstart=IE4;
}
//-->
</script>
<table width=450>
<tr>
<td>
<div align="justify">
<font size=5><b>No right-clicks or text copying!</b></font><br>
<br>
This script supposedly stops right-clicks and text selections in both Internet Explorer (version 4+) and Netscape (version <6). Try using the right mouse button, Shift-F10, and/or the Context Menu key. Also, try selecting any portion of this text. If the script works the way it is supposed to, you will only be able to select text in the form field below.</div>
</td>
</tr>
</table><br>
<form name="testform">
<input type="Text" value="You CAN select the text in this field" name="field" onfocus="stop=0;" onblur="stop=1;" size=50><br>
<input type="Text" value="You CAN NOT select the text in this field" name="field2" size=50><br>
<br>
<input type="Button" onclick="document.testform.field.select();" value="Select the text in the first field">
This button does not work<br>
<input type="Button" onclick="stop=0;document.testform.field.select();stop=1;" value="Select the text in the first field">
This button works<br>
</form>
</body>
</html>
wget --user-agent='Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0)' [domain.com...]
DrDoc, Mods - can we stick this in the library and then just point people to it when they ask about copy protection?
I wonder who is really being stopped with JScript mods?
Who is really being "thwarted?"
[edited by: EricL at 10:38 pm (utc) on Jan. 28, 2003]
However, if you want to protect images then apply a watermark to them.
What you do serverside is gold dust. Don't let any of that leak. Especially, don't do clientside anything that is important.
There just seems no point in trying to protect code because when it doesn't work the code thief just smiles and thinks "Another Amateur".
