stop people viewing source and css

unwashed potato! · 6 May 2007 at 10:44

Been doing a site for smone last month or so. Had lots of emails with her, all of which have had almost immediate reply, i finally finish the site, ask for the final payment which is only £35, and she disappears and has for a week now. Im not a really paranoid person as im sure she is just having a personal problem but got me thinking that she could get me to do a site, when its done copy the source and css and then bugger off paying me nout.

So is there a way i can protect these from being viewed? just incase say for future work when its a lot of money and obviouls ydon't want someoen doing this

thanks guys

Bry · 6 May 2007 at 10:52

i have often wondered this before.

JonB · 6 May 2007 at 11:02

The only way I could think of is to stop anyone directly linking, viewing or saving the image files for the site via some kind of fancy .htaccess scripting? No-idea where you would have to begin though, sorry!

nav... · 6 May 2007 at 11:12

only solution... don't upload it to the internet to begin with.

next best solution, get a contract signed stipulating that you own copyright to all content created until full payment is received.

Moredhel · 6 May 2007 at 11:16

The browser has to see the HTML and CSS to be able to render it, there's no way around that. You can never stop someone viewing it short of not putting it on the internet to begin with.

riddlermarc · 6 May 2007 at 11:41

The browser will only render the HTML/CSS so the potential code stealer will not be able to see and server-side code such as PHP,ASP etc - I suppose it depends on what sort of work you have produced. I know the code I produce at work (ASP.NET) would not be able to be reproduced just by looking at the client-side HTML.

Does the client have access to the actual source?

unwashed potato! · 6 May 2007 at 11:54

riddlermarc said:
Does the client have access to the actual source?

no but most of the site is html/css apart from some php in it for deals section and user account.

Im sure she hasn't done this but its just for future so that no one can

meghatronic · 6 May 2007 at 12:07

Has she paid some money already?

The best way around this was a trick a friend used to use. He'd send his clients an interactive flash version of the site so they could debate layout,colours etc... He made it just using a collection of screenshots etc.

He'd then, upon final payment, release the full code and site to them.

Goksly · 6 May 2007 at 13:06

Yeah I'd go with the "just send screen shots" approach - unless the website was very heavily server side coded in which case I'd let them just view the site.

paulsheffII · 6 May 2007 at 13:52

I put time dependent code in everything I do that isn't being managed by an account director.

I got ripped off a while back by a company who had to return to me a couple of weeks later with their tails between their legs when the flash files I'd created for their site started coming up with a professional but quite clear time's up message...

Arf.

tom_e · 6 May 2007 at 13:59

theres always getting them to pay upfront or at least part of the cash upfront

meghatronic · 6 May 2007 at 14:11

paulsheffII said:
I put time dependent code in everything I do that isn't being managed by an account director.

I got ripped off a while back by a company who had to return to me a couple of weeks later with their tails between their legs when the flash files I'd created for their site started coming up with a professional but quite clear time's up message...

Arf.

Surely code, such as this, is easy to remove by them?

tom_e · 6 May 2007 at 14:22

jdickerson said:
Surely code, such as this, is easy to remove by them?

Not if they dont know how

meghatronic · 6 May 2007 at 14:40

blitz2163 said:
Not if they dont know how

Hehe. Any tips then?

Beansprout · 6 May 2007 at 14:42

jdickerson said:
Hehe. Any tips then?

The online Ioncube encoder is great - cheaply mangle PHP files so they're not editable by anyone - so you're not handing clients the source code.

Mangle is, of course, the technical word for the process

Craig321 · 6 May 2007 at 14:52

Mammalian said:
Been doing a site for smone last month or so. Had lots of emails with her, all of which have had almost immediate reply, i finally finish the site, ask for the final payment which is only £35, and she disappears and has for a week now. Im not a really paranoid person as im sure she is just having a personal problem but got me thinking that she could get me to do a site, when its done copy the source and css and then bugger off paying me nout.

So is there a way i can protect these from being viewed? just incase say for future work when its a lot of money and obviouls ydon't want someoen doing this

thanks guys

Couldn't you just take the site offline until they pay you

?

JonB · 6 May 2007 at 15:19

I didn't think of that one. For all the sites I do, I insist that I host them. That was I have total control if they try to screw me!

blade007 · 6 May 2007 at 19:00

it's only a week, though, mate ... give her a courtesy call

toosepin · 6 May 2007 at 20:14

I don't recommended it, but if you are paranoid - you could use:

http://www.ioncube.com/html_encoder.php

Jono · 8 May 2007 at 10:16

Go with screenshots and a nice image map for navigation

That'll screw her up.