Lesson #33 Member Protection for Windows NT
Written By Titmowse

Ask the average adult webmaster which server they prefer and they’ll answer “Anything but Windows NT!” The server of choice among Internet pornographers is UNIX.

Unfortunately we can’t always get what we want and some of you will be stuck hosting your site on a Windows NT server. Windows NT isn’t so bad but it does have its disadvantages, especially when it comes to protecting your content from hotlinkers. Good old htaccess simply won’t work on Windows NT. Until recently, it was almost impossible to protect your content if you had a site hosted on NT.

It would be nice if we lived in a world where everyone was honest, but we don’t. There are webmasters who are more than ready to steal your content via hotlinks. As well, there are surfers who just love to try and sneak into your site without paying. These thieves cost you money and bandwidth. On a UNIX server, you can shut out the majority of robbers with a simple little htaccess file. On Windows NT, the process of protection is markedly more difficult.

Fortunately, now, there are solutions to the problem of content theft and member area protection for sites hosted on a Windows NT server. Here are some of those solutions:

Authentix
(http://www.flicks.com)
Not only is this easy to install but it's also compatible with the majority of the online billing scripts available to the adult webmaster. Form based or cookie-free authentication. Our very own C-Pimp highly recommends Authentix and he knows his stuff!

ColdLink
(http://www.coldlink.com)
Coldlink works without http-referer headers, cookies or javascript. Coldlink is spoof proof! Coldlink transparently maps and rewrites protected URLs in real time. Your pages work even when they’re linked from the search engines or bookmarked by your legitimate surfers. Coldlink kills hotlinks URLs in five minutes and it’s completely transparent!

AeroTags TagsLock CGI v. 1.10
(http://www.tagslock.com/tagslock_cgi.htm)
This server-side software is written in Perl. It stops programs like Teleport Pro and Offline Explorer. It does all this without compromising the quality or your site. The TagsLock library of functions will convert original HTML into protected HTML. TagsLock will prevent email harvesting, block framing, encrypt files, disable offline viewing and disable right mouse clicking.