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Bandwidth Thief Alert! (& always check your server logs)
10-20-2007, 06:08 PM
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Title: AF'er
Join Date: Sep 2005 Posts: 400  |  Bandwidth Thief Alert! (& always check your server logs) Bandwidth Thief Alert! Very sadly, it's come to my attention that a fellow vB forum is blatantly stealing my bandwidth via one of my forums at nfh.org.uk.  I've noticed a substantial increase in traffic recently coming directly from forumivirtual.com and at first I'd wondered if they were using my free vB Vanilla Cola skin or similar or were even linking to us for some reason, etc. I couldn't work it out initially, as there didn't seem to be any obvious links to my domain in question (nfh.org.uk) after looking in their source code of some of the many referring page URLs from forumivirtual.com. Then I realised, the forum in question also has the 'PagePeel' ('Peel Away Ads') effect in place, which I purchased and installed via this forum a while ago from a fellow AF member. It seems that forumivirtual.com has been directly stealing the .swf files directly from my server over the last week or so to run the pagepeel effect on their forum. e.g: /pagepeel/esel_s.swf /pagepeel/esel_b.swf Not only is this theft (they have cost us considerable bandwidth), it is immoral and appalling practice that a fellow forum owner would involve themselves in such an underhand activity. One can only guess if this forum owner has legally purchased the Peel Away Ads script or not and I'm not sure if the forum admin is a member here at AF or not.  I've attached some screenshots of forumivirtual.com to this post to demonstrate the theft - where the 'red arrows' are pointing to indicate (1. Before when they are using my .swf file sources to show the Peel Away effect, 2. The view when I change the .swf file source directory name so the effect dissapears from their forum and 3. When I replaced the .swf directory files to show the theft.  ). At time of posting, you can see my .swf file replacements live on their forum view.  Maybe this was an 'accident' or maybe it was a deliberate theft, I'm not sure? It also serves as a warning to us all to regularly check our server logs and note any suspicious activity, etc - always be on the lookout for unscrupulous bandwidth and file thieves! 
__________________ NFHiB Forum (5 Years Live, now in 6th year!) Free vB Skin: Vanilla Cola (for vB 3.6.8)  | ||||
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10-20-2007, 07:59 PM
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Title: AF Lead Developer
Join Date: Sep 2005 Posts: 1,186 Location: OHIO, US  
| its tons of fun to put the hotlinking protection on and make it put up some obnoxious message.
__________________ Do not post your PF private key in public. Did I help you with this post? If so, pls click the rep button or send money.  | ||||
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10-20-2007, 09:04 PM
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Title: AF'er
Join Date: Sep 2005 Posts: 400 | Quote:
My hotlinking protection is on for this domain (e.g. "Hotlink protection is currently enabled"), so I'm not sure how direct access has happened, unless it's different for .swf files as opposed to image files, etc? Thanks.
__________________ NFHiB Forum (5 Years Live, now in 6th year!) Free vB Skin: Vanilla Cola (for vB 3.6.8) | |||||
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10-20-2007, 10:42 PM
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Title: Forum Addict
Join Date: Feb 2006 Posts: 1,312 Location: Delaware  Recent Blog: What are you saying?  | I would take the pagepeel down, i saw a significant decrease in registrations with it up. | ||||
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10-21-2007, 12:39 AM
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Title: Forum Addict
Join Date: Feb 2006 Posts: 1,544 Location: Florida 
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Matthew, sorry this is happening to you! I hope you can get this figured out!
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10-21-2007, 01:25 AM
| #6 |
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Title: Administrator
Join Date: Sep 2005 Posts: 10,246 Location: Athens, GA | Quote:
Cori - To do this, log into cPanel and go to Hotlink Protection. Enable it. You can also read that page for more info.
__________________ ...some super-sweet signature | |||||
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10-21-2007, 02:55 AM
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Title: AF Lead Developer
Join Date: Sep 2005 Posts: 1,186 Location: OHIO, US
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__________________ Do not post your PF private key in public. Did I help you with this post? If so, pls click the rep button or send money. | |||||
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10-25-2007, 02:14 PM
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| Title: Member
Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 127 | Quote:
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10-25-2007, 02:44 PM
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Title: Forum Addict
Join Date: Sep 2005 Posts: 1,354 Location: Spring, Texas | You can always ban the ips from accessing your server, right? | ||||
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