How to prevent screen capture?

[mahendra_g]

Hello

I am developing web based application.
I want to put restriction like ,No body can capture my application's screen with any tool .

Please suggest is it possible ?

if Yes,please suggest the way to do this.



Thanks
mahendra

[gsmurthy30]

I think this is not possible. Even if other tools are blocked from caturing your screen to, yet you cannot prevent 'Print Screen' keyboard event from capturing your screen.

[mahendra_g]

I am creating an application which needs to block print screen and screen capture. The print screen can be blocked by registering the hot key but now i am trying to find any message/method called on application when other applications try to grab pixels from its window. I am trying to do this in VC++
Dose it possible?

[gsmurthy30]

Essentially you need to capture the mouse move over your window. i think you could do it. then you need to get access to the clip area which would be put in some kind of buffers. if that clip area is hovering over (i.e overlapping) your window extents, then you need to make them blank pixels (that essentially means make them white coloured pixels).

[gsmurthy30]

one more way of blocking your window capture...

When you sense that mouse action is with MOUSE_DOWn, and MOUSE_DRAG kind of attributes, simply draw your window extents lying within the Dragged rectangle in Black pixels/White pixels/etc whichever suits you.

[ProgramArtist]

Hello

I am developing web based application.
I want to put restriction like ,No body can capture my application's screen with any tool .

Please suggest is it possible ?

if Yes,please suggest the way to do this.



Thanks
mahendra

I don't think that that is possible at all.
If you have a web based application you have to consider: Your application will run in a browser.
You neither know the browser (which one) nor the operating system (platform).
There are many, many ways to capture the screen of your browser:

• Built in capture functions from the browser
• get the browsers (main) window handle and get the content via calls to the API
• using capture tools (there are thousands in the www)
• using operating system capabilities (like PrintScreen key in MS-Windows as an example)
• Writing an own browser (remember: There are open source browsers which can easily be used as a base)
• using a digital camera and make a picture of your display (yes that can be done!)
• ...

That's why I think: It's not possible to prevent the user from capturing the screen of any web based application.

With regards
Programartist

[Zaccheus@Work]

Not being funny here but ... what if someone takes a photo of the screen with a digital camera?

.... oh edit: ProgramArtist beat me to it.

[Igor Vartanov]

I am developing web based application.
I want to put restriction like ,No body can capture my application's screen with any tool .

While you're desperately trying to sucсeed with this, afraid your competitors surely steal all your potential clients.

[srelu]

Print screen is a facility offered by the operating system. Messing up the user's computer is something you can do, technically speaking but you shouldn't try it, morally speaking.

If I notice a software doing things it shouldn't, I will uninstall it in that very moment, regardless of how important is.

Didn't you notice ? No serious software provider do such things. Do you think they are so bad they cannot implement such obstructions if they want ?

Images are protected by copyright laws. You better relay on them.

If I want a screen capture so badly, I only need the GetDCEx to get a DC for the whole screen and the BitBlt to transfer the image. You can do nothing to stop that.

p.s. Based on what you wrote so far in this topic, I bet you'll ignore my advice. And, based on my previous sentence, I also bet your software will not have success.

[Kendo2]

To add capture protection to your web application you could use the Copysafe Web solution. They provide a plugin for users to install before accessing your protected pages. How you close some back doors like preventing access to media links will be up to you. For example, if displaying Flash or other video media then it's not recommended to to use static files unless they are encrypted and domain locked. Instead use a media server and the optiosn available from that end to prevent direct access and ensure that the stream is played from your web page only.

Another alternative is using a new web browser specially designed for displaying copy protected web pages... try ArtistScope Web Reader from http://web-reader.artistscope.com

[paprica]

I'd say this can't be done with a web based application