September 6, 2002

2:42 PM

Don't steal people's bandwidth for your auctions, lest ye be prepared to suffer the consequences of your actions.
posted by Arvid (23 comments total)

One must scroll down, if one wishes to see what the to-do is about.

Because if one doesn't speak German, one might get a wee bit disoriented.
posted by padraigin at 2:44 PM on September 6, 2002

Thanks padraigin, glad I went back and checked it out. That's hilarious, but think what this link is going to do to the poor guy's bandwidth.
posted by gametone at 2:53 PM on September 6, 2002

Thanks for the tip, padraigin. Was a bit confused at first.

That's just great. Also check out Rob's page at cockeyed.com, where he details his responses to various image thieves.

Stealing a picture of someone else for your own eBay "About Me" page? Yup. Sleazy, innit?
posted by Vidiot at 2:57 PM on September 6, 2002

Nice. The counter's at 50,000 and going strong. Only 37 bids??
posted by Jeff Howard at 2:57 PM on September 6, 2002

"...think what this link is going to do to the poor guy's bandwidth."

Especially since I just posted it to one of the eBay boards.
posted by gordian knot at 2:58 PM on September 6, 2002

Well, it seem slike every board on the web is linking to it now. Here is the discussion in the original host's forum. And another webmaster who discovered the same theft when he checked his logs.
posted by rotifer at 2:59 PM on September 6, 2002

""...think what this link is going to do to the poor guy's bandwidth."

Especially since I just posted it to one of the eBay boards."

If Fark posting it yesterday didn't kill it, nothing will.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 3:03 PM on September 6, 2002

From 2cpu.com disscusion:

Bandwidth is not really an issue (we don't pay for bandwidth), it's just the whole point of stealing the pictures. If the guy has what he says he has, why can't he snap his own pics?

At least its not costing him.
posted by Dr_Octavius at 3:07 PM on September 6, 2002

But at least it's free advertising for the stealee's site...
posted by websavvy at 3:07 PM on September 6, 2002

oh thats classic.
posted by Espoo2 at 3:17 PM on September 6, 2002

Deuce of Clubs did it even better than Cockeyed.
posted by jazon at 3:43 PM on September 6, 2002

Scheiß
posted by JonnyX at 3:58 PM on September 6, 2002

*giggle*
posted by toddshot at 4:01 PM on September 6, 2002

Miguel will do anything for publicity.
posted by Kafkaesque at 4:14 PM on September 6, 2002

What a coincidence! I just finished dealing with some sports message board, wherein someone hotlinked a huge (150 K) image from my site. I was going through my referrer logs, and said "Whoa!" when I noticed the bandwidth drain. Upon finding the miscreants, I noticed the board was littered with typical macho homophobic bullshite, so I exacted my revenge based on that. You can see the page here (WARNING! Page contains irritating MIDI, and may be un-work-safe).

For posterity, here's a snapshot of the page in case they change the link.
posted by evanizer at 5:14 PM on September 6, 2002

This post made me wonder if any of my pics were being used, esp. as one of my friends had complained that people were using pics of him as pics of themselves in various chat rooms (though those guys are actually downloading the pics and not hotlinking.)

Wouldn't you know, I found that a really evil pic of this particular friend as a photoshopped devil had been used for the purposes of making a cheap shot against a murder suspect and to make some other guy look like a badass. What they now look like is me sitting in my bathroom, making a face into a kiddie digital camera.

Here's one result.

This is fun.
posted by meep at 5:56 PM on September 6, 2002

XQ: Generally you can only track image theft if you have access to the actual server logs. Something like Sitemeter needs to be embedded in the HTML of a particular page in order to work.
posted by dhartung at 6:21 PM on September 6, 2002

Anyone speak German? There are two comments added by the dweeb who hijacked the image and they seem to be a bit apologetic.

Or maybe I was just seeing things while trying to read what he posted since I CAN'T READ GERMAN! =P
posted by Blaze_01 at 7:20 PM on September 6, 2002

Babelfished. Not perfect, but it can give you an idea of what he's saying.

To 05.09.02 around 15:00:12 Central European Summer Time the salesman added the following information: Sorry for the unpleasant Striften in the picture, I dared itself and with the fact surveyed into a new area of the HTML programming inside that I load the range of another with a stranger left. Artist pitch. Will not no more happen. Sorry again. I add myself its own camera. To 05.09.02 around 19:48:24 Central European Summer Time the salesman added the following information: Although I apologized for the beginner error hoeflichst, the owner of the pictures remains uneinsichtig. Please ignores the two upper pictures. The picture down remains however. How processors and the remainder look, each professional along-increases here to think to be able, that. It is described no unknown commodity and so far well. I answer gladly further questions by email. The memory is from Kingston. Please regard to you my evaluations, in order to estimate my Serioesitaet.
posted by benjh at 8:05 PM on September 6, 2002

Wow. Sounds like Der thomkatspitze.
posted by evanizer at 8:40 PM on September 6, 2002

XQUZYPHYR: if you're using apache then you would need access to your access_log and then run an pplication like webalizer.
posted by suprfli at 9:57 PM on September 6, 2002

Saw something odd related to this today. Whenever the picture was initially viewed, it would display fine. If -- and only if -- the page was refreshed, it would now display "Remote linking not allowed!"

Now that is a delayed reaction.
posted by hlari at 9:53 PM on September 7, 2002

Y'all thought it was funny originally?

The auction ended and the guy reposted the same item still stealing bandwidth.

The new auction is here.
posted by SuzySmith at 5:52 AM on September 8, 2002