"Protecting web pages" can mean a lot of different things.
Protecting the text on a web page means protecting the data and
information that the web page displays. Such protection can
start at the database and a web page can request data on the fly
using SSL or other secure protocols which can protect the data
in transmission using encryption.
Even a static web page that uses hard coded text for the page
content can be encrypted, and while stored on the server,
depending on the encryption method used, can be most secure.
Note that and protection or encryption using JavaScript is
the least secure option and not recommended security is
paramount.
So we have protection of the text while it's stored on the
server and also while it's being transmitted to the user's web
browser, but what about protecting the text and information
while the page is in view?
Protecting media and images (anything that can be displayed on a
web page) gets a little more difficult because that media,
whether it be an image or a movie file, will have a unique link
embedding it on the page. The link to the media is the only
means of locating that media on a server and that link can be
protected in the page prior to download and also protected after
the page has been displayed.
Links to media can be protected by encryption but it is only
effective up until the page is displayed in the user's browser,
after which it is usually most traceable. Using encryption on a
web page can be an effective means of protecting its media from
site grabbers and direct linking because the links do not get
deciphered until the page loads. That is, safe from direct
methods however modern site grabbers are being designed to use
Internet Explorer resources to preload and decrypt pages to
better locate the media on their pages.
Links to media can also be protected after a page has been
displayed by using a cloaking and referrer checking script. The
first and most universal script for this purpose is
Link Protect which can be used on
all types of web sites and servers regardless of what
programming language is used on the web page.
Protecting the actual media on the page is also possible. Images
can be encrypted and displayed using a
secure image viewer and other
media can also be encrypted and displayed using a custom viewer,
that is, if such a viewer is available. Solutions for displaying
encrypted media such as Flash, movies, PDF and PowerPoint are
continually being developed by many programmers on a per project
basis. When it comes to copy protecting that media those
developers will then use CopySafe Web
Protection
because it can be added to any web page ro copy protect any
media on the page.
Site grabbers, movie downloaders and search engines all work the
same. They all look for links on a start page and then explore
those links looking for more links and so on. Grabbers and
downloaders can be programmed to look for certain types of
files, all of which are easily locatable by the links that embed
them on the page.
From a single home page hundreds and thousands of web pages can
be spidered. All the spider needs is a link to a page from any
one of those other pages to realize that it exists and to grab
whatever information it wants.
Making a web page accessible to and friendly for search engines
is quite simple, just add a hyperlink to the next page and it
will be included. For most of a web site's content we need to
make it friendly. That way we get favorable search results, the
site gets traffic and everyone is happy.
But what if you have content that is not intended to be provided
to the public to use as they wish? What if you have data and
information that needs to be limited to company staff, club
members or otherwise select group? Now you may have a much more
difficult task.
Although most companies providing search engine services claim
to abide by privacy policies and that they abide by NOINDEX
settings in robots.txt files, please be informed that this is
not the case at all and that you cannot rely on ethics at all
when it comes to the Internet.
Upon finding a no-follow exclusion on a web site using their
known equipment, they can and more than likely will return using
a different identity and IP number, and while they may not
include that information in their public results, you can be
sure that it has been found and explored for whatever value it
may have.
ArtistScope being security conscious and tired of having its
services hacked by competitors and other idiots has been
tracking activity at those services for two decades using
a variety of known and in-house designed tracking systems.
Traffic is identified by origin, referrer, computer identity, IP
address, software used and more. Consequently we can identify
nearly every search engine and data miner in the world today,
and we can watch the traffic live and where it goes.
Without going to too much detail and identifying some of the
monkey brains that claim to do no evil, please be warned that
you do not have to submit a web site to a search engine for it
to be spidered, and a web page doesn't not even have to be
linked to another page or the Internet for it it be spidered.
All you have to do is visit that web page using your favorite
web browser... just be typing the URL directly into the address
bar. If developing web pages pre release of a product launch and
you don't want the information leaked, unless you take dire
measures to ensure that outside traffic cannot reach those pages
then you need to keep the web site offline and in an in-house
network (intranet) until you are ready to go live.
By adding a small image encrypted by CopySafe Web
software, you can protect all content on that page from
PrintScreen and screen capture. ArtistScope provides free
add-ons for adding
CopySafe Web protection to pages created by Drupal, Joomla, Moodle and
WordPress.
The
ArtistScope Site Protection Software (ASPS)
does not need to encrypt web pages or media to protect them most
securely, because ASPS copy protects
everything displayed on a web page when viewed using
the ArtisBrowser. ASPS can
protect the whole web site or only parts thereof. However to
use ASPS, one needs to use a dedicated or virtual server for
the permissions to install
ASPS software at system level.
ArtistScope provides free add-ons for adding ASPS
copy protection to pages created by DNN, Drupal, Joomla, Moodle and WordPress. Otherwise, for hosted web sites,
CopySafe Web can
be used.
Copy protecting images, PDF and video displayed on web pages can actually be more secure than desktop viewing, and when it comes to DRM, authors have much more control over settings with any changes having immediate effect.
There are now several options available for copy protecting images, PDF and video online that can be read from all devices including Windows, Mac, iPad, iPhone and Android phones: