Hot Linking Issue

[some guy from mars]

I have already discussed this matter with Blue Host support and as always got informative and helpful advice but thought it would be a good idea to run this by the forum as well.

I currently have the Hot Linking Option turned ON; however, I am having problems with users at a forum in Brazil "linking" directly to specific images on my site. Entery after entry after entry shows up in my access logs with the users IP address and the ULR of the forum in question along with the URL of the image, but when I brought the matter to support this afternoon I was reassured that since HTTP code 403 is listed they are not stealing my bandwidth.

I tried deleting the image from my Image folder, uploading it and, at the same time, deleting the image from the same folder in public html. But all to no avail. Even though the image is gone and no longer in my site, the access logs still shows the forum linking to the image. And even though my bandwidth is not being stolen, I would like to prevent these entries from clogging up my access logs.

Where do I go from here? Do I start to ban every IP address associated with the links that shows up in my access logs? I already banned the IP address of the forum in question. I also sent an email to the adminstrator of the forum and got no response. Also, what does it mean to ban an IP? Is the user prevented from accessing your website. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks

[samholton]

The entries are still showing up in your log because the request is made for the image, even though it may no longer be there (you deleted it). These requests should be answered with a 404 - file not found. Yes, by banning an IP you are basically rejecting all requests to your site. Simply banning the IP address of the forum will not prevent all of the requests from showing up in your log. This is because the individual visitors to the forum are requesting the image, not the forum itself. You could probably write an .htaccess rule to looking at the referrer, and if it is the forum in questions, block the request.

--Sam

[Hercules]

Welcome to the internet!
The only thing you can do is to create an image of the same size which tells them to f#ck off in a polite way.
I created this one for my site: http://fotosoep.com/kuikens/deep.gif
The simple option is to replace that one with the one they are stealing.
But over time more and more sites will come ripping off your bandwith.
But Bluehost has an option for that.
Find out all the friendly sites that you will allow stealing bandwith (if any).
In the control panel go to Hotlink Protection.
Enter all your friendly sites with and without www (including your own site).
Enter the url of your anti deeplink image here: Url to Redirect to.
THIS IMAGE MUST BE ON A DIFFERENT WEBSITE!
And hit activate.
No more 404 errors in your log, and watch the deeplinkers crawl away back under their rocks.....