0

I'm designing a website that displays commercial images and want to avoid people saving the image on their computer. I realise that any security measure like this can be defeated by a determined attacker. I'm just looking for approaches the make things harder - enough to deter a casual attacker.

One idea I had was to serve valid images, with the pixel data encrypted, e.g. each byte XORed with X. JavaScript in the page would decrypt this and render the original image in a <canvas> block.

Can anyone recommend a library that helps implement this or a similar scheme?

6
  • 1
    Casual attackers can still just simply "print-screen" them.
    – gre_gor
    Commented Jul 10, 2020 at 21:49
  • @gre_gor - True, I guess that makes this pretty pointless. Gonna leave the question up in case I get any other ideas.
    – paj28
    Commented Jul 10, 2020 at 22:04
  • The canvas also has "Save image as" option on right click.
    – gre_gor
    Commented Jul 10, 2020 at 22:13
  • @gre_gor - Looks like a dead-end. I may use a Windows native app. Still not foolproof of course.
    – paj28
    Commented Jul 10, 2020 at 22:17
  • Even with a desktop app, no matter how much effort you put into disabling screen capture, there will be a way for the user to overcome it, especially if the user is a local Windows admin. You could consider adding a watermark (either heavy or light) on the displayed images if that doesn't obstruct the applications functionality and usefulness. This way, the users can't re-sell the images as their own.
    – Amin Dodin
    Commented Jul 12, 2020 at 19:45

0

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.