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Protect Streaming Video from being stolen

by Profit-smart
4 replies
Just had a vague idea, and our resident coder is out of touch today. Would any of our wonderful warrior developers be kind enough to tell me if what Im proposing is possible?

Basically, what I was thinking of is this.

You can stream videos fairly easily, and can even hide the file location inside of a flash player. But with enough digging, its not very difficult to find the file location and pull it out.

*however* what if you password protected the video file itself? A simple script would feed the password to the video; however if someone managed to root out the file location and download the video they would be unable to open it.

I'll assume (again, I'm not a developer) that you could easily setup a password string of a few hundred characters; and in that way stop most attempts at bruteforcing the file open.

Anyways, is the idea technically possible?

Ie: Password protect the video file, feed the password to the video from a script on a secure server. If someone downloads the video, through whatever means, their left with a file asking for a password.
#protect #stolen #streaming #video
  • Profile picture of the author theIMgeek
    No matter how much security you put on the file itself the fact remains: if a video can be watched, it can be screen captured.

    One thing I've done is have the flash player submit only an ID code (not the whole url) and let the server dish up the appropriate file. If you want to get fancy, those ID codes could have a limited window of use.

    -Ryan
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  • Profile picture of the author m4rx
    I agree with RJP. I have never done this, nor really had to deal with it, but theoretically, you could use a PHP/asp whatever script to get the video via an ID code.

    Something like video.php?id=vid&userid=something(ip maybe).

    Then inside the script have it select the video, and put the user in a table that will keep them from downloading the video after a set time.
    userid:5
    ip:192.289.29.12
    time_viewed:123456789(unix time)

    and use the php script to see if the time window has passed.

    There really is no real way to protect anything online, chances are, someone is going to get it no matter how locked down your security is.

    --m4rx
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    • Profile picture of the author LocoDice
      Maybe I am being cynical, but if something like this at all was possible youtube would have already done it.

      Where ever there is a lock, there is a key.
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      • Profile picture of the author BrianLeanza
        In my opinion - even if it was technically easy - this is simply not worth the effort.

        However, look at it from a different angle: change things around so you benefit even if the video is 'stolen'. In plain words: brand the video by adding something that has the potential to lead the watcher to your site.

        For instance: have the URL of your website visible on your video.
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