One Way to Deal with Internet Thieves • Hacker News Board

Re: One Way to Deal with Internet Thieves

#71

Post by biot » Sun, Apr 10, 2011, 9:22 PM UTC

datasink wrote: post #57

biot wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check web logs for regular visits from a specific IP address. Setup alternate site (eg: on a different port) and use firewall rules to direct http traffic from that IP to that port. Make a small change to the site and verify that the copied site is altered. Then have fun.

It would be simpler to handle it in the application. if ($ip == 'XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX') { require 'poison.html'; exit; }

Setting up a new site is trivial to do and allows you to mess around with it without modifying your main site... which may not be so simple as your example if it's based on a CMS or other framework.

Re: One Way to Deal with Internet Thieves

#72

Post by m0dE » Mon, Apr 11, 2011, 3:58 AM UTC

Quarrelsome wrote: post #46

I don't quite see the argument myself. As a former dancer in the breakdancing scene the premise of "biting" (stealing) moves comes up a lot. After a lot of consideration I came to the conclusion that if you perform something publicly its pretty much fair game for copying. I don't think there is a benefit in spending your time trying to hunt down these copycats. The time is much better spent creating new works. The Op…

Yo, where did you used to break?

Re: One Way to Deal with Internet Thieves

#73

Post by gaius » Mon, Apr 11, 2011, 1:55 PM UTC

jedsmith wrote: post #67

JoachimSchipper wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"WHOIS may be wrong" is a very good point. However, if he were actually certain to get the right guy, what's so bad about "attacking his family" as you define it? Putting a thief in jail does reduce the income of his/her family, but I wouldn't blame the victim for doing so! You could argue that the punishment doesn't fit the crime, but that's a much more subtle argument than you appear to be making.

> However, if he were actually certain to get the right guy, what's so bad about "attacking his family" as you define it? Spoken like a bachelor. Two things I firmly believe in, especially when it comes to Internet squabbles, disagreements and such: - Don't mess with someone's livelihood. - Don't mess with someone's family. They're related. You're going to sit here and tell me that it's justifiable that the alleged g…

Don't mess with someone's livelihood

But that is exactly what the scammer was doing! Person A does something wrong, person B catches them with their hand in the cookie jar, person A turns it around and said "person B is stealing my family's cookies!" Sorry, doesn't work like that.

Re: One Way to Deal with Internet Thieves

#74

Post by voyvf » Mon, Apr 11, 2011, 5:00 PM UTC

jedsmith wrote: post #20

Okay, I'll take the alternative view: this is embarrassing for the OP. What worries me is that the OP found the name Bart Burns on the WHOIS for the domain, and assumed (a) that's who registered the domain, and (b) that the information he found via a quick Google is actually Bart Burns. I can change the information on my domain to be whoever I want, particularly if I'm a scammer. Whatever I put in NameCheap's panel s…

First of all, I both agree and disagree with you. :D

The OP's idea was sound - and not without precedence - but the execution was flawed. I say not without precedence, because people have been spitting in the eye of internet theft since the first person figured out how to configure their web server to behave differently based on the Referer header.

Many, many "hot-linkers" (including some fairly well known U.S. politicians...) have gotten an image that was unflattering, simply because they or their staff couldn't be bothered to download and host it themselves. (:

However, I do agree with you in that one cannot be certain about information lifted from WHOIS and Google. That brand of revenge is quite thoughtless, and could have severe repercussions on someone (and, as you pointed out, their family) who's completely innocent.

As such, while it may sound childish, replacing assets for scrapers to such an extent that they get something embarrassing is, IMHO, perfectly fine, so long as it's kept childish (e.g., they receive pages that state "I spent all that time on my scraper and all I got was this lousy GeoCities page", complete with ugly animated gifs), and not malicious, like posting someone's personal information.