fellow monks!

how can i use a CGI script to protect images from public access?
if someone knows the URL of the image, he can view or download it
so i hope to implement a method whereby only authorised members can view it
(what authorised members do with it afterward --copy, edit etc doesn't matter)
I have seen certain sites like photos.yahoo.com implementing this.
They generally append a session string behind the image like

http://somewhere.com/images/sample.jpg?abcdefg

hence, if u try accessing it by typing the URL alone http://somewhere.com/images/sample.jpg,
you will get a permisson denied error.

any leads are appreciated...thanks

In reply to restricting public access to images by uzzikie

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.