In 2007 I wrote an article entitled “Why I Embed My Images” that discussed how embedding images and other can provide greater security when you feel there is a risk someone might file a takedown notice. By separating your images from your server, should someone file a takedown notice over an image, your site will remain active and, with good backups, you can get your site back up more quickly.

It is a way to guard against misuse of the DMCA or fair use disputes.

However, since then I have backed away from that stance. Once I moved to my new VPS, I stopped hosting images remotely as I have a good relationship with my host and have no reasons to worry. That being said, in an effort to improve the efficiency of the site, I’ve also started toying with Amazon S3 to see if it can help improve the site’s speed (the images in this post will be hosted on S3 as part of the test).

It was at this point that I realized a problem. If I were malicious in my use of S3, or any similar service, it could be used as a method not to prevent complete site failure, but to avoid a DMCA altogether. It is possible, using these services, to trick users into filing complaints with the wrong hosts, delaying or even preventing anything from being done.

I immediately, using my own site as a test subject, began to seek a way around it and, fortunately, found a way to ensure that, no matter where a file is hosted, you’ll always be able to track down the host with reasonable accuracy.

The Nature of the Problem

If you right click on the images in this post and view their URL, you’ll see that they are hosted on a subdomain of Plagiarism Today named “files.plagiarismtoday.com”. This makes it appear, including to many automated tools, that the content is hosted on the same server as the rest of the site. The problem is that they are hosted on Amazon S3, clear across the country.

This trick is fairly trivial to do and only involves a minor tweak to DNS. There are many legitimate reasons for doing it, for example, hosting images on your domain while using a content delivery network to increase speed.

However, if a copyright holder decided one of these images were infringing, filing a DMCA notice would be difficult. The reason is that since the files are on a subdomain of plagiarismtoday.com most will assume it’s located on my server and act accordingly. This is due to a fluke in both the way we read URLs, where we routinely ignore subdomains, and the way networking tools routinely discard subdomain information.

Some copyright holders, especially those less familiar with DNS and networking, might not consider this and could inadvertently file a DMCA notice or other abuse complaint with the wrong host. This can result in a delay in getting a complaint resolved, in it being outright ignored or even causing it to be handled in a questionable way.

The good news is that there is a simple way around it and, as long as you are careful about how you gather your information, there is no need to make this mistake.

Dealing with Linked Files

When you’re dealing with an image file or any content that is linked into a Web page (not part of the actual HTML) it is important to make sure that you get the correct information about where that particular file is hosted, not just the page that it is on.

The solution is pretty simple:

1. Get the URL of the File: Rather than copying the URL of the page, right click the image or the link and copy the URL. Check and see if it is on the same site, a subdomain or another domain altogether.
2. Use Who Is Hosting This: Once you have the URL, delete the “http://” as well as everything including and after the first remaining “/” and process it through Who is Hosting This. Who Is Hosting This handles subdomains correctly, unlike Domain Tools, which strips out subdomain information in my testing.
3. Confirm the Results: You can then confirm the results by copying the IP address (you’ll have to actually copy the numbers on the site, not using the link) and then running it through Domain Tools. Once you’ve done that, you can then go forward and begin the work of finding the DMCA or abuse agent and contacting them.

Though this adds a few extra steps to the process, it is worth doing to ensure that you contact the correct party as doing so is the only way to guarantee the quickest and most reliable resolution.

Why This is Important

The reason that this is critical is because sending a DMCA notice to the wrong host, at the very least, will greatly slow down the process as the host has to research and figure out what is going on and then decide if they going to A) Disable the page anyway B) Forward the notice on or C) Do nothing.

Since the company that hosts the Web site does not host the image, their role under the DMCA is much less clear. Section 512(c), which usually deals with Web hosts and takedowns, only pertains to “the storage at the direction of a user of material that resides on a system or network controlled or operated by or for the service provider”. Since there is no storage, a regular DMCA notice doesn’t apply.

Section 512(d) does pertain to “information location tools” but in that case, it would be the site owner, not the host that is party for the notice. This section deals with sites, such as Google, that are “referring or linking users to an online location containing infringing material or infringing activity”. Since the host isn’t the one linking to the file, it is the user, the application of 512(d) doesn’t make as much sense.

This isn’t to say that hosts won’t deactivate sites or remove pages if the content is embedded or hyperlinked, especially if the site is spammy in nature or has other abuse issues, but the fastest way to secure removal of images or other media files is to go to the source.

It can be a bit tedious to do, but it is well worth the time.

Bottom Line

The simple truth is that the days of all of the content on a site being hosted on the same server have long since passed. Content embedding from photo sharing sites, video sites and elsewhere have made it much more difficult easily track down where a particular item is hosted.

Though sometimes, as with YouTube clips, where the content is hosted is obvious, other times, as with image hosts, it is much less clear.

Unless you are dealing with textual works, which are almost never embedded (unless you use a service such as Voxant Newsroom that embeds text via Flash and JavaScript), this is something you have to constantly watch out for.

Dealing with content theft issues is not difficult, but it does require a bit of detective work. However, knowing the challenges you face and the tools that can help you overcome them can keep the sleuthing required to a minimum.

Since locating a host is one of the most difficult parts of dealing with copyright infringement or spam, have repeatedly highlighted tools that have helped users detect who the host of a site is. I’ve specifically mentioned Who Is Hosting This?, a great tool to make finding the host as simple as possible, and Domain Tools, a site for finding out a wide variety of information about a site for those with more experience.

However, while doing research for another article, I ran across an old Firefox and IE toolbar by Netcraft, a British Internet services company that specializes in security, particularly with phishing-related issues.

Though it is called Netcraft Anti-Phishing toolbar, it provides a very unusual and powerful feature for those that deal with content theft and spam issues, namely on-the-fly hosting and country information about any given site.

In short, if you install the toolbar, for every site you visit, you’ll see the host of the site displayed in your browser toolbar, no need to use a bookmarklet or paste the link into another site.

Though the toolbar is primarily phishing oriented, providing information on the age of the domain, the estimated rank, a site report and a “Risk Rating”, it could also be very useful for those that are either curious about hosting matters or are constantly looking up hosting information for abuse complaints.

However, there are a few caveats to remember if you decide to install it.

Words of Warning

There are a few things to keep in mind as you use this toolbar and important considerations to weigh to decide if it is right for you:

1. Privacy Issues: The toolbar does do some very basic tracking in order to compile its rankings. Though Netcraft says none of this is personally identifiable, you may wish to read through their FAQs to ensure that you agree with their policies.
2. Some Inaccurate Results: Though any automated host detection system is going to make mistakes, Netcraft lacks some of the changes and improvements made by Who Is Hosting This in terms of detecting hosts that use other networks, such as Hostgator. This means that Netcraft will detect most networks well but isn’t a complete replacement for other services.
3. Strange Linking: Clicking the link in the toolbar doesn’t take you to the host’s home page or to a page about the host company, rather, it takes you to a generic page about the site itself.
4. Incompatibility: The toolbar is rather old, not updated since May, 2008 and doesn’t work out of the box with the new Firefox 3.1 betas. I was able to get it to work with Nightly Tester Tools and it seems to be moving along fine.
5. Screen Real Estate: Obviously, any tool bar you install is going to take away some from your browsing area. If you aren’t going to use this toolbar heavily or don’t need the extra security features, you probably won’t wish to bother with it.

None of these problems will likely be a deal-breaker for those that need either the security or the host detection elements of this toolbar, but they should be weighed carefully before hitting “install”.

Bottom Line

I’m likely going to keep the toolbar installed for a while. I am interested in host-related issues both as someone who files abuse reports and DMCA notices, but also for personal curiosity. I also like the fact that it plainly shows what country is hosting the site and the age of the domain.

All in all, with this toolbar, when I see a site I need to take some form of action against and I have the toolbar installed, I’m able to form the beginnings of the strategy right away. The information provided lets me determine if the site is a likely spam blog what country it is hosted in and, in most cases, who is hosting it.

Though it isn’t for everyone, for those that need this information, it is a powerful tool and a great time saver.

Sample Information

However, they also have a great deal of use when tracking down and stopping plagiarism, content theft or spammers. These bookmarklets, literally with the click of a mouse, can undo much of the dirty work that is required in the process of searching for and stopping infringement.

So what five bookmarklets are most commonly in the top of my browser? Here’s a quick rundown of my five favorite bookmarklets and how they can save you tons of headache when it comes to stopping misuse of your work on the Web.

Mahalo’s Plagiarism Detection Tool is one of the simplest bookmarklets imaginable. Previously covered here last year, the tool works by having you highlight text on a page, meaning your own content if you are searching for plagiarism of your work, and then clicking the bookmarklet to perform a Google search.

It is a simple tool that helps avoid some copy and paste work but also makes it great for quick anti-plagiarism checks. A great use, for example, is if you’re suspicious that a site is a spam blog or if you think you’ve read an article somewhere else before.

Certainly not a complicated bookmarklet, but one that is brilliant in its simplicity.

Need to know who is hosting a Web site? Considering sending a DMCA notice or filing a spam complaint? WhoIsHostingThis has a great bookmarklet to quickly locate the Web host of any page.

Though I previously covered WhoIsHostingThis earlier this year, I didn’t mention its very useful bookmarklet, which allows you to click the link on any page as you are surfing and then be taken to the best information they can provide about who is hosting that site.

Though WhoIsHostingThis is far from perfect, it works reliably enough for most Webmasters and it is by far the easiest solution available.

Stepping up both in terms of power and complexity from WhoIsHostingThis, Domain Tools offers a much more robust bookmarklet for determining who the host is of a site, as well as obtaining whois information for the domain and other networking tools.

Easy one of the most powerful bookmarklets on this list, it is also one of the most intimidating to new users. If you need help interpreting the results produced by Domain Tools, check out the “Finding the Host” page here on Plagiarism Today under the “Stopping Internet Plagiarism” heading.

Want to see how old a page is (approximately) or how long a piece of content has been on there? The Wayback Machine is one of the best and easiest tools you can use.

But while most who need to perform such searches are aware of the invaluable service the Wayback Machine can provide, few are aware that a programmer, Stephen Ostermiller, has created a simple bookmarklet for checking any page you’re on in the Wayback Machine.

The page also provides several other caching services including Coral Cache and Google Cache so you can check other sources for backup copies of a page.

Speaking of caching, before you file a notice against a Web page and get the infringing material removed, you may want to create a backup copy of the site should a dispute arise later.

WebCite is easily one of the best services for doing exactly that. Though it was designed to aid in the citing of sources for academic papers, its on-demand caching service is perfect for those that need to keep a copy of a page they expect to go down.

However, even better is that they offer a custom bookmarklet that not only lets you cache any page that you are visiting, but it emails you an alert when the caching is done, making it easy to keep a copy for your records.

It is the perfect on-demand caching solution for this purpose.

Conclusions

For me, my bookmark toolbar is very crowded. In addition to my other services, my anti-plagiarism bookmarklets take up a lot of room. I’ve had to find ways to organize them so I can have actual bookmarks available to me.

If you are serious about protecting your content or are routinely dealing with spammers, odds are you’ll find at least some of these bookmarklets useful.

In short, though bookmarklets can’t replace some of the more powerful anti-plagiarism tools, they can help make the process a great deal easier and can be very useful for “quickie” checks or information.

Since they are free and install with the click of a mouse, there’s almost no reason not to have them. If you don’t use them, you can always delete them and be done with it.

That alone makes them worth at least a try.

However, an up and coming service, first founded in August of 2007, called Who is Hosting This is looking to change that by making host location as easy as pushing a button and is earning a powerful reputation for effectiveness.

This holds a great deal of promise for non-technical users and the implications for fighting content theft are very large.

But does the service work and can it be relied on for consistent, accurate results? I decided to test and see how it handled a series of domains under my control.

How it Works

The idea behind Who is Hosting This (WIHT) is fairly simple. You take the domain you’re look for information on, punch it into the site and hit “Tell me”. The service, in turn, spits back a human-readable result providing with with the name and URL of the host.

Though the site doesn’t indicate how it determines who the host is, other than to say it uses “several methods” the FAQs seems to indicate that it bases much its determination on the IP address, which is similar to my method described in the video.

The site claims that its results are over 98% accurate and offers a form to report erroneous results.

There is little doubt that this is system is very easy to use. However, if it doesn’t live up to its accuracy standards, it goes from being a time saver to a time waster.

So the question then becomes, how accurate was it?

My Tests

To test the service, I ran through it a series of about a dozen domains that I know the hosting provider of. Most of these domains were my own, many used as test accounts for experiments, and others were design projects I had been involved with.

The results, over all, were very good. Of the domains I tested, only one produced an obviously incorrect result. In that case the site, which was hosted with Verio, showed up with the results to the right.

The results in that case were especially strange since Domain Tools reported the site as being hosted on NTT, the parent company of Verio. The reason for this particular result is unclear and I have reported it to the site.

Other than that one strange result, the results were dead accurate. Though, as mentioned in the FAQ, the site regularly returned the name of the main host, not the reseller, that is a limitation that virtually any automated host checking system, including Domain Tools, is going to have.

For the most part, I was very impressed with the results.

Limitations

The problem with WIHT, or any other similar system, is that the process of locating a Web hosts resists automation. Even the system I demonstrated, though seemingly more accurate, is not perfect in and of itself.

The more effort that spammers take to hide their hosting, the less these automated systems will work. Finding the host can be a complicated and difficult process even for the most experienced individuals and creating an automatic system that accurately detects the host 100% of the time is, unfortunately, impossible.

One has to decide if the time saved by using an automated system is worth the relative in accuracy of it. Fortunately, WIHT strikes a good balance for most users.

Though users very familiar with networking and locating the host will still likely prefer Domain Tools or even network-tools.com for their additional information and slightly more accurate results, regular users will certainly benefit from WIHT and the incredible simplicity it provides.

Conclusions

Finding the host of a domain is one part science, one part black magic and one part dumb luck. Though software and programs can make great strides in simplifying this process, without some serious changes to the structure of the Internet, it is unlikely that computers will be able to completely replace human experience.

With any automated system you use, you should do a “sanity check” on your results and make sure that it at least seems probably that the alleged host could be the company you’re looking for. If they can’t be, then do deeper searches or find someone to help you.

Fortunately though, most of the time, this site should return results that are more than accurate for your use. Even in the rare cases where it is not perfect, it will still point you in the right direction.

If you are uncomfortable with or inexperienced with using networking tools, you need to bookmark this site today. Better yet, use their bookmarklet or Firefox search plugin to simplify the process even more. You never know when it might come in handy.