Messages

1

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Is there a definitive IP range for PICSCOUT - i want to kill the spider!

« on: February 01, 2013, 07:35:57 AM »

I digress... would blocking these IPs in .htaccess prevent them from impacting server resources?  I assume they would completely ignore robots.txt.

If blocked in .htaccess, blocking in robots.txt becomes superfluous. However, if you are blocking by IP and you miss an IP block or a robot changes IP ranges, it won't work. robots.txt might-- if the bot obeys it (which it may not.)

It was Getty Images.  I am already blocking a good range of IP addresses and two domain names with Picscout.

2

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Is there a definitive IP range for PICSCOUT - i want to kill the spider!

« on: January 31, 2013, 06:30:13 PM »

I have noticed that Getty Images over the last few days has been using proxies.  Though I have a thorough listing of thier IP addresses, the other day I noticed I could still access there site though it is blocked by my firewall and using nslookup, I saw that they were using different IP addresses.  5 minutes later, it was back on the usual IP addresses.  Now using domain name to block, but they will figure a way around that too. 

3

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: off topic thread for the tech geeks (Lucia)

« on: January 24, 2013, 09:57:22 PM »

There are lots of twitterbots too; I think their goal is advertizing/seo for their customers (not the site visited).  If you post a link to twitter, a swarm comes and it comes instantaneously.   Because my site is only a blog  I ban most of those too.  Eli probably should too (though I don't think anyone is tweeting ELI's address much. But if it does, most twitter bots are useless.  A few might be useful-- someone could let them in and block the others.)

No ELI's address is not getting tweeted often, I would like to change that however, and have been concentrating some effort into getting a bit more exposure via twitter... I'm not going to go nuts blocking bots , as I don't have the time to invest, but I will make the time if server resources are effected enough in a negative way.. This could easily be a full time job...I lalready have 2 or 3 of those..

LOL..I hear you, and I know the feeling. 

It seems since the whole Getty thing, I have now turned into being more of a security specialist working on hardening our network even more.  We host our own web server on a DMZ, so I have the luxury of blocking large swaths of IP ranges too, but the sheer number going after our web server is ridiculus.  I have over 4000 attempts on our network every month! Good news is I have learned a lot about URL Rewrite, the htaccess and the webconfig configurations over the last few days, so maybe I can slow some of them down.  Compiling a databse and some instructions on how to deal with some of them for future postings. 

4

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Google announces changes to its' Image Search

« on: January 24, 2013, 09:44:21 PM »

Are you sure Google is not working with the copyright trolls on this one?....this is going to make it even easier for people to misuse images and copy them to everywhere on the net.  Though 98% will be innocent infringers, it is just going to give the trolls more of a base to try to extort.

Google needs to but in big red letters over the image...

"The use of this image anywhere else on the web other than the original site the image is hosted will likely net you an extortion letter for copyright infringement!"   

5

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: off topic thread for the tech geeks (Lucia)

« on: January 24, 2013, 08:20:18 AM »

We don't use php, but IIS7.5 uses htaccess and webconfig, so a lot of items that can be written for those types of files, I can use.  Was just hoping for some software that will help automate it a bit and make it easier.  From some more research last nite, it looks like URL rewrite will do what I am wanting to do, just that it is time consuming and I have an entire company network to manage along with being a webmaster and the network security specialist.

You know I was so curious to why our website that I had not worked on much all of sudden last year had almost doubled the traffic hits and bandwidth, only to realize later that it is scanning and trolling bots making my life a living hell.  Our site is static, but when we started posting more on on our twitter and FB pages with links back to our website, it seems the "trolls" got interested in us.  I suppose popularity comes at a price 

6

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: off topic thread for the tech geeks (Lucia)

« on: January 23, 2013, 06:05:35 PM »

I feel if the bot serves no valuable service to a website, it does not need to be crawling it.  As I am finding out the hard way, most malicious bots ignore the robots.txt file.  I'm with lucia and would just go ahead and block them.   

I wish I could use the ZBblock, but our website is on an IIS7.5 server, so all I have to work with is the rewrite rule add on tool and I am still learning how to use it properly.  Lucia, any recommendations if what ZBblock is doing can be done with a rewrite rule?

7

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Very Pissed Off - Payback time

« on: January 19, 2013, 11:32:18 PM »

Ok....I'm on pins and needles!

Enjoy the peace and quiet while it lasts...the shit is going to hit the fan, and it will no be distributed evenly...

and speaking of pins and needles..

http://www.celticmythmoon.com/images/Voodoo_Dolls_800W.jpg

Awesome 

8

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Very Pissed Off - Payback time

« on: January 18, 2013, 10:19:51 PM »

I can only imagine...hang in there Matt 

9

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: We are the latest victim of the Getty Image extortion scam

« on: January 18, 2013, 10:17:43 PM »

I know on another forum I am on (a car site), we have sticky's for certain threads and that seems to work well.  Global mods and topic mods have the ability to create a sticky and lock it.  One note though, even with stickys or a FAQ thread, you will still get posts from newbies asking questions they can find if they just did a search.  Many times we won't answer the question, but just provide the link to the correct topic for them to read themselves in the reply.  That does help on the typing a bit, unless we get one like what Matt had to deal with when he had the flu...LOL   

10

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: New Topic: "ELI After Dark"

« on: January 16, 2013, 11:13:32 AM »

Awesome   

11

Getty Images Letter Forum / Latest image scraper – a troll by any other name

« on: January 10, 2013, 06:08:27 PM »

Today as I was looking over our server logs for the New Year to make sure my new security measures were keeping the bad bots at bay, I came across this little nugget of info in my browsers used log…

BPImageWalker/2.0 (www.bdbrandprotect.com)

Haha! a new image scraper and from the well laid out name of the browser (they rarely are this kind), I knew they were not scanning my server to help me out in any way.  A little research and I found out that this Canadian based company does “brand protection” services, and one of those services is scanning of images.  Here is a link to a pdf that describes their capabilities…
http://www.brandprotect.com/files/BP_Services_Unique_Capabilities.pdf

More research turned up remarks on user agent forums about how this company’s bots ignore the robots.txt file (much like PicScout’s) and that most webmasters just block their domains and IP addresses.  I was able to find out the domains they like to use…

bdbrandprotect.com
brandprotect.com 
brandimensions.net
brandimensions.com

Here are the IP addresses I was able to verify so far….

72.14.164.103
72.14.163.101
72.14.163.107
72.14.170.60
216.183.93.163

And these addresses have been reported as some they have used in the past (could not verify with DNS records other than they are used at the same hosting company)…

72.14.164.122
72.14.164.131
72.14.164.143
72.14.164.157
72.14.164.161
72.14.164.176
72.14.164.183

Tomorrow I will be going over the firewall logs to see if I can spot exactly what kind of traffic and what time they “accessed” my web server.  Now, this may be a legitimate company doing legitimate business, but if they have ways to “bypass” the most basic of web server security settings, then in my opinion, they are no better than hackers and I would refuse to do business with such companies.

12

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: We are the latest victim of the Getty Image extortion scam

« on: January 10, 2013, 03:07:02 PM »

Hi Jot,

Even though I'm willing to bet that your company is in the clear, I do hope you'll continue to participate on these boards. Perhaps at some point you can share more specifics about what they actually did to access your site.

Oh, I intend to, I just can't say much at this time on the forum.  Mathew and Robert have a bit more info I have passed onto them, but I have asked them from not posting anything until I'm told I can do so.

On an interesting note though, as I was looking over my server logs for the new year, it seems Getty has decided to review our website again (new IP address from the list I have on them - looks to be a human this time and not a bot) I suppose before the next letter goes out to us.  I was hoping from the letter the CEO sent over a month and half ago that they would have decided to drop this and move on, but maybe not.  I guess I will see in a few weeks if they do send us another letter.  They really picked on the wrong person for their extortion scam.

13

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: We are the latest victim of the Getty Image extortion scam

« on: January 10, 2013, 10:34:25 AM »

Thanks.  I haven't recieved any more letters from Getty since the first one and the response our CEO mailed to them.  Once I have more info I can post I will. 

14

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: new copyright thug to add to the list?

« on: December 20, 2012, 11:00:09 AM »

Agreed, it could be that the artist has given permission for the images to be used on the government sites or they have purchased licenses for the use.  Be as sure as you can of your facts before you respond.

The fact that is available on so many state government sites is interesting.

I wonder if you reached out to the webmaster of these sites if they would share with you how they obtained them. If they just got them from an image search, it may be nice to warn them that a troll is a'comin'. But wouldn't it be ironic if they got them from some sort of compilation CD-ROM for 50 bucks.

If the image in question is on government sites, whether it be municipal, county, state or federal, the image would be considered in the public domain and can not be in in copyright violation.  Capture screenshots of the image on the government website(s) and inform them of the fact the image is in the public domain the next time they try contacting you.  If they keep trying to press the matter, they will lose.

I'm not sure this is 100% accurate.. this site http://www.fishesoftexas.org/taxon/lepomis-megalotis credits the artist. I think if the image is created by the government entity, it is public domain, thats not to say that government site can't or don't use other images.. I would be weary of grabbing just anything from a government site.. refer to this thread for some PD image resources:

http://www.extortionletterinfo.com/forum/getty-images-letter-forum/list-of-public-domain-stock-footage-companies/

I stand corrected.  I was under the impression that any images on a government web site were in the public domain from what I had read earlier and upon further examination, I have found out this is not true.  I suppose the only true way to be sure of using an image on a website that will not violate anyone's copyright is to only use photographs that were taken by yourself.

Think I am going to stick to posts about security settings and computer networks as that is where my expertise is.  Still learning all of this copyright law stuff and the more I learn, the more I feel I don't know.

15

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: new copyright thug to add to the list?

« on: December 19, 2012, 06:55:47 PM »

The fact that is available on so many state government sites is interesting.

I wonder if you reached out to the webmaster of these sites if they would share with you how they obtained them. If they just got them from an image search, it may be nice to warn them that a troll is a'comin'. But wouldn't it be ironic if they got them from some sort of compilation CD-ROM for 50 bucks.

If the image in question is on government sites, whether it be municipal, county, state or federal, the image would be considered in the public domain and can not be in in copyright violation.  Capture screenshots of the image on the government website(s) and inform them of the fact the image is in the public domain the next time they try contacting you.  If they keep trying to press the matter, they will lose.