I want to make my website inaccessible ... please help :)

[ryanhellyer]

Using Flash would be the first thing I would consider. Essentially all you need is a flash script that can read and output XML data - aka RSS feeds.

The idea being all HTML and content is served from one or more RSS feeds from your CMS - this would allow the client to add/edit content as normal.

Thanks. Good points.

I've now stumbled across a potentially annoying problem, and that is that a large proportion of our users don't have immediate access to Flash They do have access to it, but we would need to ask them to change to a different computer simply to use our service. They may even need to walk to a different building.

I'd like to make this as easy to use as possible for them to use, and forcing them to change computers could be quite annoying for them. Many of them tend to prefer to use specific computers and having to go use another one could really tick them off.

So I'm not sure the Flash idea will work unfortunately


At this stage, I think we've got it fairly well sorted. The Base64 encoding should be enough to confuse the heck out of them and then by loading it via Ajax from a dynamically changing URL and then combining it inside an iframe surrounded by some jumbled, meaningless code will hopefully be enough to stop them. And then by base64 encoding a simple transparent DIV on top of the content (inline styled) they'll hopefully not figure out how to bypass the system. If they do bypass it ... well, tough bickies for us I guess

[Stevie D]

Wouldn't that just encourage some people to bypass whatever you use to stop it printing so as to print their own copy anyway?

The more difficult you make it to copy, the more determined users will be to hack it, by-pass the protection measures you have and redistribute the content for free. Trust me, making things difficult for your users will minimise the chance you have of making any money out of the website - some people will do everything they can to scupper you, and others will simply refuse to use the site at all. Make the site worth using and people will be happy to use it.

At the end of the day, if someone is that determined to rip you off, they can re-type what's on the screen into their text editor of choice, and save and distribute it at will. If people can see your website then they can pass it on. There is nothing you can do to stop them, short of causing their computers to explode and blow them into a million pieces 30 seconds after completing the page load...

That is not an issue in this case. Disabled people would never be using our resource.

How do you know that? What is this mystical resource that you are creating, that you can guarantee that nobody with any kind of disability would want to access?

[ryanhellyer]

How do you know that? What is this mystical resource that you are creating, that you can guarantee that nobody with any kind of disability would want to access?

They are legally required to have good vision. If they didn't, then they wouldn't be allowed to use the IP block required to access our site (we will probably be blocking everything but a small set of IP addresses).

And even if we don't block other IP addresses, the content is only of use to those with good vision as they wouldn't have a use for the content anyway since it used for a job which legally requires good vision.

[AlexDawson]

They are legally required to have good vision.

I guess that leaves all us cross eyed individuals out in the dark then!

[Stomme poes]

Hey, that's a valid reason... one of the companies my husband worked for built these applications, and the companies buying the applications were required to have Javascript, in the contract. If you're selling something, esp for internal use or company-only use, you can demand pretty much anything in the contract.

I know someone who's translating a desktop application for a large company into a web applictation, one which currently only works in Chrome (I'm working on making it work on a few more browsers : ) and well, he can demand that everyone in the company uses Chrome browser. It's simply not something a general, public webpage can demand, most of the time (they seem to be able to demand Flash lawlz).

[Stevie D]

They are legally required to have good vision. If they didn't, then they wouldn't be allowed to use the IP block required to access our site (we will probably be blocking everything but a small set of IP addresses).

There are plenty of other types of disability that might affect the way a person can interact with their computer without them having poor vision...

[Raffles]

Writing everything to a <canvas> tag might make it more difficult, though you'd need to constrain your browser support quite a bit.

[Mat30]

Do you really need to publish this content in its entirety on your site?

If you expect people to pay for a copy, why not publish selected snippets? Whatever is enough to demonstrate its worth to them, but not so much that the more determined types will try to save it in one form or another and skip what's left? Would that work for you? Obviously, I can't second guess your market, but I think that it would be enough to prompt people to purchase.

[rochow]

Perhaps throw in some entities here and there, which are embedded via JS, and every say 3rd-6th (make it random) character is actually an image of the letter with no alt equivalent.

Throw some captcha lines all over it to make it more difficult for those auto-scan reader things.

[britta]

Why not make the full content accessible only to registered users who paid to view it? You can do that by making them create an account for the website and pay for your services. Users who didn't register can view only parts of the content.

[karmak]

Try Joomla or Drupal and make the pages viewable to whatever groups you like. Drupal has amzing security features...if you're prepared to undergo the learning curve and terminologies etc.