The Daily Sucker

Submitter comments: None.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: Sorry for not posting suckers for the last few days, but I threw my back out. I’m sure 90% of you completely understand my predicament.

I was going through my log files when I noticed a lot of visits from a site I’d never seen before — EEE shop. I went there and discovered they were using the same web template I’m using (except I give credit in the footer). They even used the same stylesheet, which is fine except there are references to graphics from this site (WPTS).

I have an htaccess file that blocks downloading graphics and using them on another site. Since the files don’t download, I don’t lose bandwidth. I decided to be clever and put in a replacement image when someone tries to download my graphics. It’s one simple line added to .htaccess

RewriteRule \.(gif|jpg|png|mp3|mpg|avi|mov|swf)$ /images/wpts-rip.jpe [L]

Here’s the replacement image:

Their site’s been this way for a couple of days. They probably haven’t noticed because they’re loading the site from cache <grin> and they’re seeing the old site.

If you want to block people using your bandwidth, this article explains how.

OF COURSE, THEY FIXED IT. YOU CAN SEE HOW SIMILAR OUR SITES ARE. THANK GOODNESS FOR WEB TEMPLATES.

EEE Shop