I have some bozo filching images from my cart for his eBay auctions. Currently, I store images in the database - is there anyway to stop this cretin stealing my bandwidth?
Where are the images hosted?
if on your server, you can hotlink protect them or better yet. rename that image to somethign else, and then put a nasty image up with that name on yoru server.
for example, if your iamge he is stealing is /images/myitem.jpg
take that image rename it to myitem2.jpg and use taht in your store.
then go find some gay porno image and upload it as /images/myitem.jpg
so when his auction loads it shows the gay porno image. CLASSIC!
I did something close to that… another website was using one of my product images on their ecommerce site… I did the renaming of the file and replaced the image that they were using with an image with this text “Buy at www.NashuaNutrition.com - Cheaper”.
A few weeks later, my image was gone!
[quote name=‘ETInteractive’]Where are the images hosted?
if on your server, you can hotlink protect them or better yet. rename that image to somethign else, and then put a nasty image up with that name on yoru server.
for example, if your iamge he is stealing is /images/myitem.jpg
take that image rename it to myitem2.jpg and use taht in your store.
then go find some gay porno image and upload it as /images/myitem.jpg
so when his auction loads it shows the gay porno image. CLASSIC![/quote]
Ive done this before 
I put a text message in an image stating "THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN STOLEN FROM www.mystore.com Please visit here for legitimate goods
or something similar, beleive me… they wont steal them again !
Great ideas everyone - thx for your help & I’ll post a link when done to the culprit’s auction so you can see the result!
[quote name=‘ETInteractive’]Where are the images hosted?
if on your server, you can hotlink protect them or better yet. rename that image to somethign else, and then put a nasty image up with that name on yoru server.
for example, if your iamge he is stealing is /images/myitem.jpg
take that image rename it to myitem2.jpg and use taht in your store.
then go find some gay porno image and upload it as /images/myitem.jpg
so when his auction loads it shows the gay porno image. CLASSIC![/QUOTE]
LOL love it!
Btw, how did you figure out some site was using your images? Did you happen upon them or have a way of tracking them?
j
You can view your web log files, and see that there are calls to your images from ebay or wherever.
Just happened to pick up a lot of eBay related hits in AWStats. He’s placing the same ad in multiple BIN auctions for a popular item so it was easy to track back to his auction.
Interestingly, eBay stopped me using my site logo in auctions as it contravened their ultra-strict rules on side-stepping potential customers out of eBay to your site, so in a strange way, the image replacement therapy that my friend is going to get will help to promote my store without pissing off eBay! Ain’t life sweet…
post the link already!!! i need a laugh.
hehehe
yeah me too, been one of those days today 
Bugger, because I store images in the database, loading a modded image has changed the id from [url]http://www.hotdealz.co.uk/image.php?object_id=3235&image_id=3191&mode=detailed[/url] to [url]http://www.hotdealz.co.uk/image.php?object_id=3235&image_id=3363&mode=detailed[/url]
It’s buggered his listing though…
[url]http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/WaterProof-docking-station-for-ipods-New_W0QQitemZ120059238052QQihZ002QQcategoryZ84082QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem[/url]
Cheecky bugger hes even running it through your dbase query
so not only using server bandwith but also creating db connections.
Send them a message saying you are about to bill them $5 per kb of bandwith used from your server
You’re right, didn’t even consider that. Just tried to change the image id to the original but the field has to be unique…hmm thinking cap on now…must be a way…
just another reason NOT to store images in a db.
Damn, this is getting to me now. Just tried creating a new product and modding the image ID to mateys image but the SQL database said no (cue Little Britain voice over). Must be a way to upload an image via phpMyAdmin to that ID??
And yes, I know what your thinking, get a grip - I do love a challenge though…
surely if you remove the original image id from within phpMyAdmin then you can alter the one you wish to occupy that space as there will no longer be a duplicate id
You learn something new every day. It would seem that deleting products from the cart via admin doesn’t clear down the images from the database. Now my vengeful streak could get me into deep water if I’m not careful…still pondering…
[quote name=‘David’]You learn something new every day. It would seem that deleting products from the cart via admin doesn’t clear down the images from the database. Now my vengeful streak could get me into deep water if I’m not careful…still pondering…[/QUOTE]
Sorry, I might have got this wrong, the images do appear to be dropped from the database. Need food now…
[quote name=‘ETInteractive’]Where are the images hosted?
if on your server, you can hotlink protect them or better yet. rename that image to somethign else, and then put a nasty image up with that name on yoru server.
for example, if your iamge he is stealing is /images/myitem.jpg
take that image rename it to myitem2.jpg and use taht in your store.
then go find some gay porno image and upload it as /images/myitem.jpg
so when his auction loads it shows the gay porno image. CLASSIC![/QUOTE]
Is there anything you won’t do to give yourself an excuse to look at gay porn ?
Well only if by “Gay” you mean 2 hot lesbians, then No, there is NOTHING I wont do.
LOL… :p:p