# Stolen Bandwidht. How do I find out who is doing it to me? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 24, 2006, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stolen-bandwidht-how-do-i-find-out-who-is-doing-it-to-me/341371 "2006-01-24T09:42:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![akohl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6a8cbe/32.png) [@akohl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/akohl)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2006, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stolen-bandwidht-how-do-i-find-out-who-is-doing-it-to-me/341371/1 "2006-01-24T09:42:01Z")
I work with a website. We have stats from a free program called webalizer. Webalizer tells us that one of our biggest referers is: [http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm](http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm). I figure someone is using one of our website’s pictures on his profile page or something like that. Actually, I don’t need to know who the person is. I just need to know which file he / or she is using so that I can replace it with a different image file (same name) that displays the words, “don’t steal bandwidth” or something like that. Of course finding out the myspace page using our picture would be good. Maybe they are actually refering users to our site, rather than just taking a picture. How would I go about figuring that out? ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2006, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stolen-bandwidht-how-do-i-find-out-who-is-doing-it-to-me/341371/2 "2006-01-24T09:48:52Z")
Webalizer isn’t reporting detailed enough statistics, but your web server should be logging everything behind the scenes. Download the actual web server logs and you should be able to see exactly what file is being accessed and what the full referer is. If you need more details, please tell us which hosting provider you use and which web server (e.g. Apache 2.0 or IIS) they’re using. ---
**Author:** ![scm1001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c4cdca/32.png) [@scm1001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scm1001)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2006, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stolen-bandwidht-how-do-i-find-out-who-is-doing-it-to-me/341371/3 "2006-01-24T12:01:37Z")
oh and dont forget to replace that picture with something offensive temporarily to get the stealing site into trouble . ---
**Author:** ![akohl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6a8cbe/32.png) [@akohl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/akohl)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2006, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stolen-bandwidht-how-do-i-find-out-who-is-doing-it-to-me/341371/4 "2006-01-24T13:26:16Z")
> [@Reply](#): > > If you need more details, please tell us which hosting provider you use and which > web server (e.g. Apache 2.0 or IIS) they’re using. It must be a windows server since the urls are .asp > [@Reply](#): > > Download the actual web server logs and you should be able to see exactly what file is being accessed and what the full referer is. I’ll ask the department with ftp access. Would that be like one text file per day? ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2006, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stolen-bandwidht-how-do-i-find-out-who-is-doing-it-to-me/341371/5 "2006-01-24T20:21:43Z")
I believe this nefarious practice is called [Deep Linking](http://wordworx.com/). ---
**Author:** ![Capa84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8edcca/32.png) [@Capa84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capa84)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2006, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stolen-bandwidht-how-do-i-find-out-who-is-doing-it-to-me/341371/6 "2006-01-24T21:26:04Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > I believe this nefarious practice is called [Deep Linking](http://wordworx.com/). And the best way to take care of it is to change the source image to goatse ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stolen-bandwidht-how-do-i-find-out-who-is-doing-it-to-me/341371/7 "2006-01-25T02:50:08Z")
I vote for _tubgirl_ ---
**Author:** ![threemae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f9b8f/32.png) [@threemae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/threemae)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stolen-bandwidht-how-do-i-find-out-who-is-doing-it-to-me/341371/8 "2006-01-25T03:05:18Z")
> [@Capa84](#): > > And the best way to take care of it is to change the source image to goatse Jesus H. Christ. Some mod needs to put a warning on that one in case some idiot like me comes along and puts, “goatse” into Google Images. If you don’t know, you don’t wanna know. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stolen-bandwidht-how-do-i-find-out-who-is-doing-it-to-me/341371/9 "2006-01-25T03:10:13Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > I vote for _tubgirl_ Hey, Tub Girl isn’t as bad as she once was! “Are you hun?” ---
**Author:** ![audiobottle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bc8723/32.png) [@audiobottle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/audiobottle)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stolen-bandwidht-how-do-i-find-out-who-is-doing-it-to-me/341371/10 "2006-01-25T03:19:53Z")
> [@threemae](#): > > Jesus H. Christ. Some mod needs to put a warning on that one in case some idiot like me comes along and puts, “goatse” into Google Images. > > If you don’t know, you don’t wanna know. A word of warning: don’t do the tubgirl either. Wow. ---
**Author:** ![JustAnotherGeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/58f4c7/32.png) [@JustAnotherGeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JustAnotherGeek)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stolen-bandwidht-how-do-i-find-out-who-is-doing-it-to-me/341371/11 "2006-01-25T03:49:58Z")
I blame you all. oh, ow. I _knew_, I just _KNEW_ I would regret looking those up. Things that make you go: blaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhaaaaaarrrrrrrrrgggggghhhhhhhhyyyyyeeeeeeeecccchhhhhh ::shudders uncontrollably for hours:: ---
**Author:** ![AWB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bb73d2/32.png) [@AWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AWB)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stolen-bandwidht-how-do-i-find-out-who-is-doing-it-to-me/341371/12 "2006-01-25T03:51:37Z")
> [@audiobottle](#): > > A word of warning: don’t do the tubgirl either. Wow. Oh… my… God! I was warned. Now how am I supposed to get to sleep? Bleah! ---
**Author:** ![wolf\_meister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf_meister/32/15202_2.png) [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stolen-bandwidht-how-do-i-find-out-who-is-doing-it-to-me/341371/13 "2006-01-25T05:36:13Z")
Here’s a less drastic alternative. I recently had a bandwidth thief using my morse code graphic as a background to his site. (It makes an ugly background by the way). Anyway I was afraid that since parts of the graphic were covered by other graphics and text, I wanted to make sure I got my message across. So, I made an MS Paint graphic with “Bandwidth Thief” typed in size 12 font in all different font styles, colors, etc. Here is something similar to what I did. [![](http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y151/wolf_meister/thief.gif) ](http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y151/wolf_meister/thief.gif) I did NOT use the suggestions at the bottom of the graphic, but it all depends upon how much this guy is getting you steamed. Perhaps other Dopers might offer some suggestions. Now if I might ask a question for other Dopers: The bandwidth thief in my situation was linking to (let’s say morscode1.gif) and so I made the real graphic morscode2.gif _and_ changed the HTML accordingly. However, some browsers require you to click the refresh button to see an update to a page. So, when I put that nasty graphic for the thief to hotlink, I added a message at the top of it stating “If you are seeing this graphic and are at [mywebsite.com](http://mywebsite.com) then click the refresh button on your browser.” Is there a way to refresh someone’s browser to avoid their seeing tubgirl, etc if they are truly at your website and want to see the _real_ graphic?