Technical solution to protection of content in database

content protection theft

[tanx]

Hi everyone,

I am currently compiling a very large MySql (10,000 entries+) address database which will be published on the internet in Feb or Mar next year. The content will naturally be freely available to visitors, however, I am slightly worried about the content being stolen/copied with the intent to publish the material on another website.

I know this topic has been discused before, but I have yet to find a solution that will, on the one hand maintain the integrity of the site so that users with good intentations will be able to surf the site, and on the other hand keep spiders etc. from copying the content.

Search engines, such as Google, Altavista etc., should of course still be able to spider the site.

Does there exist any technical solutions that can prevent this sort of theft?

Thank you very much

[Sanenet]

Make it impossible to run queries that return large amounts of data (ie, each search only returns, say, 5 entrys).

Make sure that the site isn't easily downloadable, stick a random mix of letters and words into static pages filenames.

Block more than 20 queries an hour.

Etc.

None of this is foolproof, it's just raising the bar to getting your information.

[tanx]

Hi Sanenet,

Thanks for your suggestions - however, what do I do if I still want to allow i.e. Google to spider my site? I run an sql server, are there any ways to allow specific ip-ranges to access the site without restrictions?

[ddent]

Depends how much work you want to put into it. If you are very careful, what you can do is put in mechanisms to detect when the content of the site is being bulk copied. Then, rather than deny access, you start feeding real-looking but fake data to the person accessing it. Depending on how careful the person is being, they may end up having to delete everything they got from your site, not knowing which is real and which is fake.