Attempts to hide images from download are futile

Today I ran across a website that uses a pretty neat trick to hide its images. It has an IMG with an SRC that links to a blank image, but the IMG has a ID tag that calls on the actual image. So whenever you try to “view image”, you always get the blank image.

This kinda trick is very common on the web, but this one was neat in that even “view image information” in Firefox Web Developer Toolbar couldn’t find the image.

But regardless, with a little snooping around, I found the image and downloaded their logo through their CSS, like I wanted.

So basically I am writing to say that attempts to hide images on your websites are stupid. In order for people to see your images, it has to download to their computer, so why bother hiding your images at all??

Even if you flash up your image, I can still get a flash decompiler and rip your images from there. So my message is: don’t waste your time… Anyone who really wanted to steal your images will take it. Don’t be an image hog…