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8 Ways Not to Protect your Precious JavaScript code

Ever since the emergence of web scripting, creative webmasters developing beautiful JavaScript for their sites wished to protect their precious code from others stealing their hardwork. Most likely you will be protected automatically by Copyright laws. For some good collection of articles on Copyrights relating to Web can be found here . However people can still steal your idea and make their own version of it.

So how will you protect your JavaScript Code?
The well-known answer to such a requirement will be as plain as
"If browser can read it, I can".

Even though there is no simple and 100 foolproof solution for this, we try to find out a solution that works for you and your specific needs. Below we list the popular ways people follow to "protect" their JavaScript code.

1. JS in New Window

Method Description
In this method JS is loaded in a new window, with toolbar disabled.

Workaround
Right click and view Page Source on the new window.


2. Disable Right Click

Method Description
Disable right click by JS code.

Workaround
Disable JS temporarily and view the source code.

3. Layering

Method Description
Use JS across multiple layers of frames/iframes to confuse the viewer

Workaround
Not difficult for a determined mind.


4. Remote JS

Method Description
Hide java Script in Remote Server

Workaround
Get the source location and open the file in browser.


5. Encoders

Method Description
Encode the script using an encoder

Workaround
It can be stolen and used. A correct set of decoders could even decode it to near perfection.


6. Obfuscate

Method Description
Obfuscate the script with various tools
List of Free Online JavaScript Obfuscators

Workaround
Can still be decoded.

7. Using REQUEST_URI or HTTP_REFERER

Method Description
Use PHP variables to restrict the access of the JS.

Workaround
Does not work for all cases.


8. JavaScript to write JS

Method Decryption
Dynamically use JS to write JS path using innerHTML.

Workaround
You can copy the JS code and make it work the way you want and steal the remote JS code.


However your JavaScript still will not be 100% protected so long as you are sending the JS to a browser and browser can read it. Even people use packet sniffers to get your script.

Following are some of the practical things you could do to ensure moderate security.

1. Use layers of obfuscation and encryption to make sure that no one can modify your code easily.
2. Combine 2 or more methods mentioned above to make it difficult to get your code.
3. If possible use server side PHP/JSP/ASP code and use AJAX interface for calling those methods.
4. Make your code check for time, so that any one stealing it will not be able to use it for long. Combine this trick with the first one to make sure they cannot change it.



Resources
List of Free Online JavaScript Obfuscators
Copyright on Web: Related articles
Review of Professional JavaScript Obfuscators
Thread regarding Protecting JS code

posted by Evening Moon @ 1:22 AM 0 Comments

Free CD DVD Tools

This small articles lists most of the freely available CD,DVD and Blu-ray tools . Some of them comes as Free edition of a more powerful product. However the following free tools should suffice all the practical requirements.

Free CD DVD Data Burning or writing Tools
(See here for complete List of Free CD DVD Data Burning or writing Tools)


1. Imgburn

This lightweight tool can be used for the following operations:·
Read - Read a disc to an image file·
Build - Create an image file from files on your computer or network - or you can write the files directly to a disc·
Write - Write an image file to a disc·
Verify - Check a disc is 100% readable. Optionally, you can also have ImgBurn compare it against a given image file to ensure the actual data is correct·
Discovery - Put your drive / media to the test! Used in combination with DVDInfoPro, you can check the quality of the burns your drive is producing

2. AVS Disc Creator

Completely free and can write Blu-Ray discs too apart from CD and DVD

3. Express Burn Burning Software for Windows

Express Burn is a free CD burning program for Windows that lets you create and record audio and data CDs under Windows.Express Burn Pro having more options however is not free.

4. CDBurnerXP

CDBurnerXP is a free application to burn CDs and DVDs, including Blu-Ray and HD-DVDs. It also includes the feature to burn and create ISOs, as well as a multilanguage interface. Everyone, even companies, can use it for free. It does not include adware or similar malicious components.

5.ISO Recorder
ISO Recorder is a tool (power toy) for Windows XP, 2003 and now Windows Vista, that allows (depending on the Windows version) to burn CD and DVD images (DVD support is only available on Windows Vista), copy disks, make images of the existing data CDs and DVDs and create ISO images from a content of a disk folder.

Free CD Rippers
(See here for complete List of Free CD Rippers )

These programs allow you to copy audio files from Audio CDs to your hard disc.The files are usually copied via digital audio extraction (DAE), which means that the copy you extract will be identical to the original. Most, if not all, of the software will also allow you to convert the music to a different format.

1. CDex Open Source Digital Audio CD Extractor

Open Source Digital Audio CD Extractor

2. Audiograbber

Audiograbber is a beautiful piece of software that grabs digital audio from cd's. It copies the audio digitally-not through the soundcard-which enables you to make perfect copies of the originals.

3. Exact Audio Copy

Exact Audio Copy is a so called audio grabber for audio CDs using standard CD and DVD-ROM drives.


Free Virtual CD or DVD creators or emulators
(See here for complete List of Free Virtual CD or DVD creators or emulators)

The free CD or DVD emulators allow you to create/emulate virtual CD or DVD drives in your hard disk. To the operating system, this appears as though you have another one (or more) new DVD or CD drives. Instead of placing a physical CDROM or DVD into this virtual drive, you "mount" an ISO image of the real CD or DVD using the drive.

1. DAEMON Tools

DAEMON Tools is a free CD-ROM / DVD-ROM emulator that allows you to mount your ISO images in a virtual CDROM / DVD drive.

2. Microsoft Virtual CD Control Panel

Microsoft Virtual CD-ROM Control Panel is a free CD-ROM emulator that allows you to mount ISO images of CDROMs in a virtual drive.

3. MagicDisc

MagicDisc is freeware. It is very helpful utility designed for creating and managing virtual CD drives and CD/DVD discs

Free CD DVD Authoring Tools
(See here for complete List of Free CD DVD Authoring Tools)

Authoring is the process of collecting audio, video, menus, subtitles, etc into an interactive branching structure that will eventually become a playable DVD. You need DVD authoring software to make a playable DVD.

1. DVD Flick

DVD Flick aims to be a simple but at the same time powerful DVD Authoring tool.

2. DVDStyler

DVDStyler is a cross-platform DVD authoring application that makes possible for video enthusiasts to create professional-looking DVDs.


Free CD DVD Audio Disc Burning or writing Tools
(See here for complete List of Free CD DVD Audio Disc Burning or writing Tools)

Most of the above listed CD DVD tools has also options for writing Audio Discs.

1. Burrrn

Burrrn is a little tool for creating audio CDs with CD-Text from various audio files.

posted by Evening Moon @ 11:16 PM 0 Comments

Artistic Licenses : For those who create, own and steal images online

Last week we saw Jamime Thomas, a single mother of two losing an online piracy case paying 220K for uploading 24 songs onto an online file sharing site.In this digital age of World Wide Web, emergence of a plethora of Image Search Engines has enabled users to search for digital images, photos, etc and copy them to your local hard disk. However you must not forget the fact that many of the pictures easily available online, are highly protected by various copyright laws and you could be prosecuted or fined heavily just for downloading and using those pictures. Given all these, we need to make sure the pictures we download from net are really “FREE”?

How to ensure “FREE”ness

If you own a website and is in the habit of searching and picking up images to beautify your site, you should be careful. You need to know whether the content is copyright protected or copyleft. The following steps will help you in doing so.

Locate the Copyright Statements

Before copying and using images from any site we must look for Copyright statements for the site. Unless the statement says that the images are free for use you should not copy or use them. There are a number of “Free Licenses” which allows users, fully or partial usage of the content. Some of the most important ones are discussed later in this article.This is a perfect sample for a Free Image Site: http://www.2learn.ca/copyright/images.html#1
More can be found here: Free Images For your Website

Hints for locating the Copyright link

If you are not a “regular copyright statement seeker”, the following links will help you in locating it.

1. All Rights Reserved
2. Read Me
3. Who are We
4. Copyright and Privacy
5. Contact Us
6. Site Info
7. About Us
8. Terms of Use

Absence of Copyright

Absence of Copyright Statements does not mean No Copyright. Many websites do not have copyright statements. This in no sense means that you can copy and use the images. All intellectual properties belong to the author or the creator and unless clearly stated you cannot use them even they are accessible in public domain. Even if the site clearly says all the images are free for use, it is the users responsibility to make sure that the contents are original and truly belong to the site.


Popular Licenses for Artistic works and Images on Web

Sites providing FREE content usually adopt a well known “Public License”. Most of such licenses are formalized to protect both the creator and the users of the content. The following are the most popular licenses used by FREE content providing web sites.

1. Creative Commons(http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/meet-the-licenses)

The Creative Commons (CC) is a non-profit organization has released several copyright licenses known as Creative Commons licenses. These licenses, depending on the one chosen has different levels of restrictions. They have a number of variations of the license and details of each of the licenses can be found here .

Creative Commons licenses which are very different and to say that a work “uses a Creative Commons license” doest not mean that the work is “Free”.You must look for which type of Creative Commons license is used.

These are the various CC licenses as per current date

Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives (by-nc-nd)

This license is the most restrictive of our six main licenses, allowing redistribution. It allows others to download your works and share them with others as long as they mention you and link back to you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.

Attribution Non-commercial Share Alike (by-nc-sa)

This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. Others can download and redistribute your work just like the by-nc-nd license, but they can also translate, make remixes, and produce new stories based on your work. All new work based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also be non-commercial in nature.

Attribution Non-commercial (by-nc)

This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.

Attribution No Derivatives (by-nd)

This license allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to you.

Attribution Share Alike (by-sa)

This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial reasons, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. This license is often compared to open source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use.

Attribution (by)

This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered, in terms of what others can do with your works licensed under Attribution.

2. GNU General Public License(http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html)

The GNU GPL can be used for general data, which is not software, as long as one can determine what the definition of “source code” refers to in the particular case. As it turns out, the DSL (see below) also requires that you determine what the “source code” is, using approximately the same definition that the GPL uses.
Official statement goes like:

“You may make, run and propagate covered works that you do not convey, without conditions so long as your license otherwise remains in force. You may convey covered works to others for the sole purpose of having them make modifications exclusively for you, or provide you with facilities for running those works, provided that you comply with the terms of this License in conveying all material for which you do not control copyright. Those thus making or running the covered works for you must do so exclusively on your behalf, under your direction and control, on terms that prohibit them from making any copies of your copyrighted material outside their relationship with you”


3. Design Science License (DSL)(http://www.gnu.org/licenses/dsl.html)

Design Science License (DSL) is a copyleft license for free content such as text, images, and music. The DSL was written by Michael Stutz.Under this license, permission is granted to distribute, publish or otherwise present verbatim copies of the entire Source Data of the Work, in any medium, provided that full copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty, where applicable, is conspicuously published on all copies, and a copy of this License is distributed along with the Work.
Permission is granted to distribute, publish or otherwise present copies of the Object Form of the Work, in any medium, under the terms for distribution of Source Data above and also provided that one of the following additional conditions are met:
(a) The Source Data is included in the same distribution, distributed under the terms of this License; or
(b) A written offer is included with the distribution, valid for at least three years or for as long as the distribution is in print (whichever is longer), with a publicly-accessible address (such as a URL on the Internet) where, for a charge not greater than transportation and media costs, anyone may receive a copy of the Source Data of the Work distributed according to the section above; or
(c) A third party’s written offer for obtaining the Source Data at no cost, as described in paragraph (b) above, is included with the distribution. This option is valid only if you are a non-commercial party, and only if you received the Object Form of the Work along with such an offer.
You may copy and distribute the Work either gratis or for a fee, and if desired, you may offer warranty protection for the Work.
The aggregation of the Work with other works that are not based on the Work — such as but not limited to inclusion in a publication, broadcast, compilation, or other media — does not bring the other works in the scope of the License; nor does such aggregation void the terms of the License for the Work.


4. Free Art License(http://artlibre.org/licence/lal/en/)

With this Free Art License, you are authorised to copy, distribute and freely transform the work of art while respecting the rights of the originator.This license can be applied to digital as well as to non-digital art. You can freely distribute the copies of these works, modified or not, whatever their medium, wherever you wish, for a fee or for free, if you observe all the following conditions:
- attach this license, in its entirety, to the copies or indicate precisely where the license can be found,
- specify to the recipient the name of the author of the originals,
- specify to the recipient where he will be able to access the originals (original and subsequent). The author of the original may, if he wishes, give you the right to broadcast/distribute the original under the same conditions as the copies.
It was born out of observation of the world of free software and the Internet, but its applicability is not limited to the digital media. You can put a painting, a novel, a sculpture, a drawing, a piece of music, a poem, an installation, a video, a film, a recipe, a CD-rom, a Web site, or a performance under the Free Art License, in short any creation which has some claim to be a work of art.

Apart from the well-known licenses there are many licenses used by various sites. You must make sure you read the full Copyright statements for a site before "Stealing" images ....


Conclusion

Know about Copyright Laws and Public Licenses restrictions before you search, copy and use images to make sure that you don’t end up in any unwanted legal soup.

Resources

Image Search Engines
Official US Copyright
Famous Copyright Court Cases

posted by Evening Moon @ 8:25 PM 0 Comments

First Post

Testing ...............

posted by Evening Moon @ 11:41 PM 0 Comments