I found something out... I'm not alone in this part of the world. Not the real world... I'm never alone here. Not the virtual world... there are too many to count and one can be sure that they can find a partner to level in an number of MMOs out there. No, I speak of my blog. I seem to be sharing bandwidth with people who are too limited to create their own graphics... let me discourse...
I created kenzden.com about 5 years ago. Not much more than a collection of webpages that I put files for the world to see and, if they want to, use. I've expanded since then with a couple of blogs and a forum, but the original webpages still exist. These people are NOT using my files, but rather my bandwidth. They are linking my file(s) to their webpage when they create them. This shouldn't come as a surprise to me. I'm an artist and sometimes people ask me for art. This I understand. If I post it on the web, I expect it to be viewed, copied, heck even plagiarized (not that I tolerate that... I'll go after folk if I think it's worth it). These guys have the nerve to link their Style Sheet Background code to a file named Black640x320.bmp... That's right a BLACK BITMAP ! Nevermind that anyone with half a brain can open up Microsoft Paint, set the properties to 640x320 pixels and fill it in black. It irked me... thence lies the tale...
So I check my logs for the first time in 5 years... just a simple one-day log and I notice something that I've seen in the stats page I have, but never really investigated. I have several pages putting GET requests for Black640x320.bmp . The stats page shows that Black640x320.bmp is a popular file, but I just figure people are using and downloading my tutorial. But there were entries for Swedish blogs in the referral sites... aLOT of hits from them. So when I'm checking my logs I see these GET statements and that starts to cheese me off... I start to plan my revenge...
I take a 640x320 bitmap (black, of course) and add a little bit of text to it. Something like "Don't link to my graphics. Make your own Black bitmap." I run off to the blog sites and sure enough... there they are! I monitor the logs for the next couple of hours just to see if these sites are visited frequently. Sure enough there are more log entries for the sites. One of them drops from the log and I go visit. They have nicely removed the link from their style sheet. The others, not so much. I take a new bitmap and add " This file is no longer available. " We'll see what happens.
It's not so much that they were using the image, or even really stealing my bandwidth so they wouldn't have to take up space on their precious sites. It's the fact they they didn't have clue that they just needed to set their background style to #0000000 and it would put a purely BLACK background on their site, which was what they were after (I checked their sheets, and yes, that was what they had set for). It's script kiddies that don't understand what they are doing that irks me. Take the time to learn a little about what you are setting up. It was A BLACK BITMAP ! Not even an image, just black...
Talk about thick....
I created kenzden.com about 5 years ago. Not much more than a collection of webpages that I put files for the world to see and, if they want to, use. I've expanded since then with a couple of blogs and a forum, but the original webpages still exist. These people are NOT using my files, but rather my bandwidth. They are linking my file(s) to their webpage when they create them. This shouldn't come as a surprise to me. I'm an artist and sometimes people ask me for art. This I understand. If I post it on the web, I expect it to be viewed, copied, heck even plagiarized (not that I tolerate that... I'll go after folk if I think it's worth it). These guys have the nerve to link their Style Sheet Background code to a file named Black640x320.bmp... That's right a BLACK BITMAP ! Nevermind that anyone with half a brain can open up Microsoft Paint, set the properties to 640x320 pixels and fill it in black. It irked me... thence lies the tale...
So I check my logs for the first time in 5 years... just a simple one-day log and I notice something that I've seen in the stats page I have, but never really investigated. I have several pages putting GET requests for Black640x320.bmp . The stats page shows that Black640x320.bmp is a popular file, but I just figure people are using and downloading my tutorial. But there were entries for Swedish blogs in the referral sites... aLOT of hits from them. So when I'm checking my logs I see these GET statements and that starts to cheese me off... I start to plan my revenge...
I take a 640x320 bitmap (black, of course) and add a little bit of text to it. Something like "Don't link to my graphics. Make your own Black bitmap." I run off to the blog sites and sure enough... there they are! I monitor the logs for the next couple of hours just to see if these sites are visited frequently. Sure enough there are more log entries for the sites. One of them drops from the log and I go visit. They have nicely removed the link from their style sheet. The others, not so much. I take a new bitmap and add " This file is no longer available. " We'll see what happens.
It's not so much that they were using the image, or even really stealing my bandwidth so they wouldn't have to take up space on their precious sites. It's the fact they they didn't have clue that they just needed to set their background style to #0000000 and it would put a purely BLACK background on their site, which was what they were after (I checked their sheets, and yes, that was what they had set for). It's script kiddies that don't understand what they are doing that irks me. Take the time to learn a little about what you are setting up. It was A BLACK BITMAP ! Not even an image, just black...
Talk about thick....
Calendar
