Securing

[codingmasterRS]

Don't know if this is the right section to post, but here goes.

 

Firstly, I am developing a video site for a specific purpose, but I need to protect videos from being downloaded. So I know at present it is hard to truly prevent people from downloading videos posted on websites, so I am looking at developing my own system like Flash Player and was wandering how to go about this best?

 

Thanks in advance

[Alex]

You can't truly secure them from being downloaded. If they can't download it then they can't view it.

[Tazerenix]

true that. You can protect it from being downloaded directly by putting 403 restrictions on all the videos. Another way of protecting it is by storing the data in a database and then creating a tmp file which the flash player interprets. Although that would make a massive SQL database.

[codingmasterRS]

@Tazerenix how do I implement the 403 or the DB one (how do I store it in a DB)?

[Tazerenix]

in terms of 403 restrictions. if your running apache, inside the folder where the video's are stored create a .htaccess file. Inside it put

<Files *>
order deny, allow
deny from all
</Files>

I think, i might be wrong but that should pop a 403 if people try and open the video directly.

 

And as for storing in a database. I'm not sure of the exact way but i'm sure there is some way to get the binary representation of the video or something.

[Mchl]

true that. You can protect it from being downloaded directly by putting 403 restrictions on all the videos.

 

Or just put them outside of webserver's document root....