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How to prevent screenshots in a web browser

patrick-wied.at

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Re: How to prevent screenshots in a web browser

#51

Post by fabrixxm »

nbush wrote: post #18

Cool, I love counterintuitive (and even counterproductive) solutions just for their own sake. I tried to do a similar thing with text a while ago: http://nbush.github.io/headache/

"Tired of people stealing your content? Looking to make copying HTML text a huge pain for your users? Sick and tired of useful, well-made Python scripts? Headache will make it so users cannot select, copy or paste html text without getting a bunch of garbage as well. Try copying this sentence. No, seriously, try it. Yeah that's right. Now try pasting it somewhere.

Now the only way you can steal my sweet, sweet content is by writing it out letter by letter or writing your own noble script that filters out all the junk. Checkmate.

You might say that this solution is unintuitive, massively inefficient and completely unnecessary. Well that's not the true Hacker Spirit now, is it? " ;)

Re: How to prevent screenshots in a web browser

#52

Post by nbush »

awhitty wrote: post #29
nbush wrote: post #18

Cool, I love counterintuitive (and even counterproductive) solutions just for their own sake. I tried to do a similar thing with text a while ago: http://nbush.github.io/headache/

This is clever! I think it can be circumvented by removing all spans in a paragraph with more than 1 character.

Thanks! Yeah, there are many JS ways around this, but it would be more than enough to stop most people... including myself in most cases.

Re: How to prevent screenshots in a web browser

#53

Post by stcredzero »

shmerl wrote: post #20

Why would anyone want to do such stupid thing? It would prompt users to bypass it just because. And there are tons of ways to make a series of screenshots or even a video of the screen. Ksnapshot, imagemagick (import), ffmpeg, avconv etc. etc. > let’s assume things on the web should be protected… Let's assume DRM is a dumb and nasty idea which always leads to very crooked practices. Period. As if we don't have enough…

The evidence shows that DRM in the service of corporations and businesses tends to be nasty. But there are reasons to believe that DRM, if used to protect the data and privacy of individuals would be very valuable, with the caveat that it would have to be implemented in a trustworthy way.

What if there was a way to provide access to your medical records to people who need them, only for as long as they need them? What if even the provider of the service couldn't easily circumvent this?

Re: How to prevent screenshots in a web browser

#54

Post by colanderman »

mikeash wrote: post #5
NathanKP wrote: post #4

That demo messed with my eyes. Even though it is interlacing faster than the eye can see for some reason it still felt weird to look at it. Overall, not worth the trouble or the decline in user experience.

I'm pretty sure it's not interlacing faster than the eye can see, which is the whole problem. For this to work perfectly, your monitor refresh rate would need to be at least 2x higher than what your eyes can detect. And why would anyone build hardware with such a fast refresh rate? It's a cute idea, but in the end it ruins the image for normal uses just like the watermarks do.

Well, the website's down, so I can only speculate, but, how is the website to know the screen's refresh rate? If the site assumes, say, 60 Hz, but the rate is actually 72 Hz, you'll see an odd "fading" effect between the two interlace frames at a rate of 12 Hz, which is very noticeable.

EDIT: Ah, I see he uses window.requestAnimationFrame [1] to sync with the frame rate, so this is not a problem.

[1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/window.requ...

Re: How to prevent screenshots in a web browser

#55

Post by alexhawdon »

dyeje wrote: post #11

You could still subvert this by taking an actual picture of the screen with a camera I think.

Yup. In audio copy protection this is referred to as the 'analogue hole' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_hole), and there's pretty much nothing you can do about it.

Re: How to prevent screenshots in a web browser

#56

Post by skizm »

paulhauggis wrote: post #28
dsr_ wrote: post #12

How to drive away customers: prioritize your unproven loss of income over making an attractive product. Accuse all your users of copyright infringement.

I really dislike this attitude on HN. You can have great products that make no money because cracks get popular (I have done testing with my own software and know for sure this is the case) and get higher results than the original product listing on google, Adblock, and many other methods thought to be "rights". Even look at music piracy. Pirates did the big labels a favor: small, independent artists can't make a liv…

I don't think anyone is saying piracy is not hurting anyone. To what extent, I would say there is a great deal of disagreement. If a perfect DRM existed (completely prevents privacy while leaving paying customers unaffected) everyone would implement it. However, the message is that you shouldn't stoop to making your own product worse or punish paying customers just to combat piracy. For example, if you're selling software and someone wants to buy it, they shouldn't have to jump through hoops to get it and/or use it. On the other hand if someone wants your product and doesn't want to pay for it, there is a significant probability that is a lost sale regardless of DRM efficiency. Just because a ton of people use a pirated version of your software doesn't mean that a ton of people would have bought it if you had better DRM.

Re: How to prevent screenshots in a web browser

#57

Post by jayrox »

NathanKP wrote: post #4

That demo messed with my eyes. Even though it is interlacing faster than the eye can see for some reason it still felt weird to look at it. Overall, not worth the trouble or the decline in user experience.

me too, it actually gives me a bit of a headache. almost like when you get used to your work laptop being 60Hz and your home monitor being 120Hz. you can't really see it but you can feel it. nope. don't like it one bit.

Re: How to prevent screenshots in a web browser

#59

Post by stcredzero »

meshko wrote: post #39
paulhauggis wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really dislike this attitude on HN. You can have great products that make no money because cracks get popular (I have done testing with my own software and know for sure this is the case) and get higher results than the original product listing on google, Adblock, and many other methods thought to be "rights". Even look at music piracy. Pirates did the big labels a favor: small, independent artists can't make a liv…

Like it or not, you can't do it, so don't waste your time.

To be able to do this on browsers is foolish. Devices might be workable, though they would only be on the same level of deterrent as a cheap lock. A user could always take a photograph of the screen.

Re: How to prevent screenshots in a web browser

#60

Post by clarry »

kstrauser wrote: post #48
paulhauggis wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really dislike this attitude on HN. You can have great products that make no money because cracks get popular (I have done testing with my own software and know for sure this is the case) and get higher results than the original product listing on google, Adblock, and many other methods thought to be "rights". Even look at music piracy. Pirates did the big labels a favor: small, independent artists can't make a liv…

That attitude is realism. It's not unreasonable to take minor steps to make casual copying easier - the clear GIF overlay is a good example of that - but there ain't no such thing as perfect digital restrictions management. Anything beyond those minor steps becomes an inconvenient nuisance for your real customers and the risk/reward paying just isn't worth it. Imagine you have a stock photo website. Basically honest…

There's nothing dishonest about not being a customer and not wanting to pay. But breaking protections for the heck of it is fun indeed.
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