Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Hosting Security and Technology : How to protect flash files?

[kioshi]

I wanna put some of my swf files on my personal page, but how do I prevent people from copying it by viewing the source and typing like mysite.com/flashfile.swf?

I saw sites that do that... Only thing I know about protection is how to prevent hotlinking of images...

The site is on a subdomain so I would only need protection for that subdomain...

Any help would be throughly appreciated. Thank you so much.

[BN-Pat]

AFAIK, there is no way to prevent the downloading of your .swf files.

Once they are viewed, they are chached to the local computer anyway.

The only option I could recommend is adding a copyright notice before the flash actually plays, giving a link to your site, and possibly an e-mail address for reporting copyright violations.

[CodyRo]

I suppose you could could allow only linking directly from your site to the flash imbedded.. so if they visit the .SWF they'll get a forbidden. It WILL still be cached locally though, so no real way to prevent stealing of it.

[zeus111981]

And, correct me if I am wrong, .swf files are not (easily) broken down to .fla source files, so it is to a great deal protected.

[CodyRo]

Actually they're easily decompiled.

Check out Sothink's decompiler!

[kioshi]

Originally Posted by EmpathogenN

I suppose you could could allow only linking directly from your site to the flash imbedded.. so if they visit the .SWF they'll get a forbidden. It WILL still be cached locally though, so no real way to prevent stealing of it.

Thanks EmpathogenN, that's good enough for me, I know they are cached locally anyway, I'd just like to prevent the 'easier way' - viewing the source and opening the swf in the browser then 'saving as'. How do I do it, can you help me please?

Thanks again for the answer.