Some poor home school kid in the USA just got the sharp end of my tongue .. I had just signed up to a political forum and so had he (he said) and he wrote:

Also I was wondering if you would join my political forum at http://www.xxx.org .(I know this is an advert but it's really hard to get a new board going, and) it's new, and is actually for a senior year homeschool project ... I'm afraid I take a dim view of anyone attempting to steal members in this way. But it's no big deal and I'm more amused that upset.

But there's an irony. Why on earth did I sign up to the Conservative Forum in the first place? Because I found it in a Google search when looking for something on my own site - and I was taken there by one of my own images in use there.



I recognise Silbury Hill. The guy who used the image is a moderator who hadn't even bothered to seek permission, or to copy the file onto his own site - so I'm paying for bandwidth as people view his pages.

I had a theory. By using a MySQL database to hold images and a PHP script to access them, I could add a degree of control to who views my images - a grand theory, but one I have never put to the test; this sort of thing goes on all the time after all. But this is a cheeky violation by someone who should know better. Well ... I've tested it now. The following lines appear in my image script:

if (eregi("conservativesforum",$_SERVER[HTTP_REFERER])) {
  $error = 1;
  $msgs = array("Image STOLEN","From www.wellho.net");
  }

And all the images look fine when viewed from almost anywhere ... but that site on the conservative web site looks like this:



You think I lack charity at Christmas? Perhaps I do, but I really don't see why I should put up with attempted theft of my membership, theft of my copyright material, and theft of my bandwidth. And perhaps I am making a mountain out of a molehill. But I would like to thank both the people involved for giving me an excellent tale to tell today!

Edit to add I seem to have hit a raw nerve - one measure of apology, three measures of vitriol, and I have been banned from the Conservative Forum ... oops! It seems they're having trouble with a troll and don't believe that I found their site by searching for my own domain name. They think I'm actually the troll! I can't see the logic in that when they started the whole thing by nicking my image!
(written 2007-12-26 21:06:49)

 A213 - Web Application Deployment - Commercial and Legal Aspects
  [2592] Re-using our pictures - (2010-01-21)
  [2252] Leaping dog, Leaping horse, copyright of old masters - (2009-06-20)
  [2140] Beware - giving copyright away when you upload a picture - Dogs Trust - (2009-04-25)
  [1937] Getting hold of the wrong end of the stick - (2008-12-12)
  [1840] Validating Credit Card Numbers - (2008-10-14)
  [1747] Who is watching you? - (2008-08-10)
  [1506] Ongoing Image Copyright Issues, PHP and MySQL solutions - (2008-01-14)
  [1486] Does anyone understand Lithuanian? - (2007-12-27)
  [1431] Getting the community on line - some basics - (2007-11-13)
  [1054] UK legal requirements for your commercial web site - (2007-01-27)
  [994] Training on Cascading Style Sheets - (2006-12-17)
  [876] Making pages clearer - easy Disability Discrimination Act Compliance - (2006-09-23)
  [795] Remember a site's non-technical issues too - (2006-07-07)
  [759] Watch your Google profile - (2006-06-13)
  [746] Domain Listing Center and Domain Registry of America - (2006-06-06)
  [532] Copyright - how much can I legally copy? - (2005-12-17)
  [322] More maps - (2005-05-23)
  [320] Ordnance Survey - using a 'Get a map' - (2005-05-22)
  [288] Colour blindness for web developers - (2005-04-22)
  [259] Responding to spam - (2005-03-27)
  [142] Colour for access - (2004-12-06)

G502 - Well House Consultants - Business Practice
  [2598] An excuse for making a sales call - (2010-01-26)
  [2465] Melksham Town - asleep or awake? - (2009-10-21)
  [2331] Certification Revisted - Lua - (2009-08-09)
  [2283] Everyone is in the customer relations business - (2009-07-12)
  [2190] How you are (re)presented at an exhibition - (2009-05-19)
  [2187] Are we IITT (Institute of IT Training) members? - (2009-05-17)
  [2161] Get it right ... if it goes wrong, it takes so much effort to sort out! - (2009-05-08)
  [2126] Weeding out old phone numbers - (2009-04-11)
  [2122] Commission Creep - (2009-04-08)
  [2044] Please Trouble me - (2009-02-16)
  [1913] Alastair Darling helps make paperwork and confusion - (2008-11-30)
  [1855] Volunteer v Employee - a skewed balance? (FSB) - (2008-10-25)
  [1713] Ways to accept credit cards - or not! - (2008-07-19)
  [1626] Early May - a short chance to regroup and improve - (2008-05-01)
  [1453] What makes our courses special? - (2007-12-02)
  [1394] Business to Business Networking - North and West Wilts / Melksham - (2007-10-17)
  [1373] New Month, New Quarter, New Laws - (2007-10-01)
  [1342] Google, wwmdirectory, Freshwater, ATP - new scam? - (2007-09-09)
  [1319] Customer feedback - lifeblood of a business - (2007-08-25)
  [1263] 0800 043 8225 - a new phone number for Well House - (2007-07-10)
  [1260] An inspirational business talk from one of our prospective MPs - (2007-07-06)
  [1243] Heavy duty hole punch - (2007-06-24)
  [1165] Extended Credit request - train in June and be paid in September - (2007-04-27)
  [1157] Speed Networking - a great evening and how we arranged it - (2007-04-21)
  [1133] B-2-B Networking, 20th April. Useful for YOUR business? - (2007-04-03)
  [1084] Writing terms and conditions for conferences and other events - (2007-02-17)
  [1057] Selling by phone and Skype - our policy - (2007-01-30)
  [906] A commitment we won't be making - (2006-10-27)
  [883] Age discrimination law - (2006-10-01)
  [869] UNABLE TO ATTEND - (2006-09-16)
  [849] Staff Meeting - (2006-08-30)
  [766] Discounts and approved supplier lists - (2006-06-17)
  [664] Ruby course - oops - it's not happening - (2006-04-01)
  [652] Morning Post - (2006-03-20)
  [626] Not just a pretty face to answer the phone. - (2006-02-26)
  [536] Cancellations and penalties - (2005-12-21)
  [491] Being atypical is typical - (2005-11-10)
  [487] On line course booking - credit card protection - (2005-11-06)
  [467] Tell them three times - (2005-10-17)
  [457] Do the work and take the risk - a PHP contract to avoid - (2005-10-06)
  [438] Fair system for travel and accommodation expenses - (2005-09-07)
  [399] simplicity hides real size - (2005-07-31)
  [321] Sales - the alternative close - (2005-05-23)
  [297] A reminder that the customer is King - (2005-05-01)
  [226] Growing our systems - (2005-02-24)
  [217] Use of time - (2005-02-16)
  [211] Look after your staff and they'll look after you. AOL. - (2005-02-12)
  [200] Tips for the top - (2005-02-03)
  [188] Pink elephant and appreciation - (2005-01-24)
  [180] Skunk works - (2005-01-17)
  [157] Automatic service upgrades - (2004-12-19)
  [137] Certification schemes - (2004-12-02)
  [129] Trawling our site to prevent student copying - (2004-11-24)
  [125] Staff theft - (2004-11-21)
  [121] Fair and Simple - (2004-11-17)
  [108] A typical morning - (2004-11-03)
  [95] Five red flags - (2004-10-21)
  [88] Getting the right level of trainer - (2004-10-14)
  [77] Telephone systems - (2004-10-07)
  [68] Get the strategy worked out and the tactics just fall into place. - (2004-09-30)
  [27] Sales technique - (2004-08-25)
  [15] 90 to 10 or 80 to 20 rule - (2004-08-15)

G903 - Well House Consultants - Running and moderating forums
  [2569] How to run a successful online poll / petition / survey / consultation - (2010-01-10)
  [2527] Flying tonight - (2009-12-05)
  [2526] A reluctance to move from old shoes to new - (2009-12-05)
  [2386] Computing under the influence of alcohol - (2009-08-29)
  [2254] Forum membership - a privilege not a right - (2009-06-22)
  [2177] Preventing forum spam - checks at sign up - (2009-05-12)
  [2162] Admins thoughts on banning a member from a forum - (2009-05-09)
  [2156] Stopping forum spam - control of the signup process - (2009-05-04)
  [2116] Why do we delay new forum members through authorisation? - (2009-04-03)
  [2103] Ask the Tutor - Open Source forum - (2009-03-25)
  [1972] Pettifog and forum boards away from public view - (2009-01-03)
  [1923] Making it all worthwhile - (2008-12-04)
  [1759] While the world sleeps ... - (2008-08-19)
  [1678] Software - changes and delays. But courses must run on time! - (2008-06-15)
  [1595] First Great Western Weekend - (2008-03-30)
  [1578] Please don't shout at me! - (2008-03-16)
  [1569] I dont care - goodbye - (2008-03-09)
  [1563] Guidlines for posting on a forum - (2008-03-04)
  [1539] A forum is not always the best vehicle - (2008-02-14)
  [1532] Comment spam blocked. Please comment via Forums - (2008-02-05)
  [1523] Ive just received an email from myself. Should I be worried? - (2008-01-29)
  [1472] The Horse goes on and on - (2007-12-15)
  [1362] No Thank You - (2007-09-23)
  [1190] Save the Forum - A regular clean sweep - (2007-05-17)
  [1088] Why use BBC code not HTML? - (2007-02-21)
  [948] Running an on line campaign - (2006-11-27)
  [923] Why shouldn't I spam? - (2006-11-13)
  [919] Freedom for X is denial of privacy for Y - (2006-11-09)
  [841] Forum help - a push in the right direction - (2006-08-21)
  [828] Freedom of speech and freedom to post - (2006-08-10)
  [806] Check your user is human. Have him retype a word in a graphic - (2006-07-17)
  [651] Please Register with Opentalk - but just once! - (2006-03-19)
  [516] Open source questions? Anyone can ask. - (2005-12-03)
  [424] How not to run a forum - (2005-08-24)
  [248] Use me, but use me effectively - (2005-03-16)
  [231] Feedback as lifeblood - (2005-02-28)
  [204] The confidence to allow public comments - (2005-02-06)
  [130] Spelling and grammar - (2004-11-25)
  [115] Expiration dates or times on web pages - (2004-11-12)
  [29] Silence is Golden - (2004-08-26)
  [22] Falling out over the silliest things - (2004-08-21)

H112 - PHP - Further Web Page and Network Handling
  [2679] How to build a test harness into your PHP - (2010-03-16)
  [2632] Shipping a test harness with your class in PHP - (2010-02-12)
  [1549] http, https and ajp - comparison and choice - (2008-02-22)
  [1518] Downloading data for use in Excel (from PHP / MySQL) - (2008-01-25)
  [1515] Keeping staff up to date on hotel room status - (2008-01-22)
  [1505] Script to present commonly used images - PHP - (2008-01-13)
  [1496] PHP / Web 2 logging - (2008-01-06)
  [1495] Single login and single threaded models - Java and PHP - (2008-01-04)
  [1379] Simple page password protection - PHP - (2007-10-04)
  [1355] .php or .html extension? Morally Static Pages - (2007-09-17)
  [1210] PHP header() function - uses and new restrictions - (2007-05-30)
  [1187] Updating a page strictly every minute (PHP, Perl) - (2007-05-14)
  [1183] Improving searches - from OR to AND? - (2007-05-11)
  [1114] PHP Image upload script - (2007-03-21)
  [1009] Passing GET parameters through Apache mod_rewrite - (2006-12-27)
  [936] Global, Superglobal, Session variables - scope and persistance in PHP - (2006-11-21)
  [904] Of course I'll tell you by email - (2006-10-25)
  [847] Image maps for navigation - a straightforward example - (2006-08-28)
  [789] Hot answers in PHP - (2006-07-02)
  [767] Finding the language preference of a web site visitor - (2006-06-18)
  [732] Where is a web site visitor browsing from - (2006-05-24)
  [675] Adding PHP tags to an old cgi program - (2006-04-08)
  [603] PHP - setting sort order with an associative array - (2006-02-13)
  [565] Using PHP to output images, XML, Style sheets, etc - (2006-01-15)
  [542] Morning image, afternoon image - (2005-12-26)
  [537] Daily Image Santafied - (2005-12-22)
  [484] Setting the file name for a downloaded document - (2005-11-03)
  [451] Accessing a page via POST from within a PHP script - (2005-09-26)
  [443] Server side scripting of styles to suit the browser - (2005-09-12)
  [425] Caching an XML feed - (2005-08-26)
  [410] Reading a news or blog feed (RSS) in your PHP page - (2005-08-12)
  [376] What brings people to my web site? - (2005-07-13)
  [372] Time calculation in PHP - (2005-07-08)
  [356] Sudoku helper or sudoku cheat - (2005-06-23)
  [345] Spotting a denial of service attack - (2005-06-12)
  [314] What language is this written in? - (2005-05-17)
  [220] When to use Frames - (2005-02-19)

H999 - Additional PHP Material
  [2215] If nothing, make it nothing. - (2009-06-02)
  [2073] Extra PHP Examples - (2009-03-09)
  [1623] PHP Techniques - a workshop - (2008-04-26)
  [1519] Flipping images on your web page - (2008-01-26)
  [1451] More PHP sample and demonstration programs - (2007-12-01)
  [1391] Ordnance Survey Grid Reference to Latitude / Longitude - (2007-10-14)
  [1390] Converting from postal address to latitude / longitude - (2007-10-13)
  [1389] Controlling and labelling Google maps via PHP - (2007-10-13)
  [1270] PHP Standalone - keyboard to screen - (2007-07-18)
  [1194] Drawing hands on a clock face - PHP - (2007-05-19)
  [1104] Drawing dynamic graphs in PHP - (2007-03-09)
  [1053] Sorting people by name in PHP - (2007-01-26)
  [1020] Parallel processing in PHP - (2007-01-03)
  [1010] Dates, times, clickable diarys in PHP - (2006-12-28)
  [937] Display an image from a MySQL database in a web page via PHP - (2006-11-22)
  [917] Syntax checking in PHP - (2006-11-07)
  [839] Reporting on the 10 largest files or 10 top scores - (2006-08-20)
  [822] PHP - a team member leaves - (2006-08-04)
  [687] Presentation, Business and Persistence layers in Perl and PHP - (2006-04-17)
  [665] PHP Image viewing application - (2006-04-01)
  [563] Merging pictures using PHP and GD - (2006-01-13)
  [493] Running a Perl script within a PHP page - (2005-11-12)
  [483] Double Dollars in PHP - (2005-11-02)
  [468] Stand alone PHP programs - (2005-10-18)
  [337] the array returned by preg_match_all - (2005-06-06)
  [239] What and why for the epoch - (2005-03-08)
  [54] PHP and natural sorting - (2004-09-19)

Back to A christmas message

Previous and next or Horse's mouth home

Forward to Does anyone understand Lithuanian?

Pictures of December
New trainee laptop fleet for our Open Source courses
Efficient PHP applications - framework and example
Copyright and theft of images, bandwidth and members.
A christmas message
What have hotels and bananas got in common?
A story about benchmarking PHP
The Christmas Letter
Next course - 7th January 2008, Regular Expressions