CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phpsecurity
Tahola
Tahola

Reputation: 1015

Secure image download (by url) with php

I would like to allow users to download images from URL (same as you can see on imgur.com), i know how to do it with copy() or curl() or file_get_contents but is that 100% secure ?

What is the most secure way to do it ?

Thanks

Upvotes: 0

Views: 847

Answers (1)

Mike Samuel
Mike Samuel

Reputation: 120506

Is that 100% secure ?

No. Nothing is.

If you're trying to prevent eavesdropping, where an attacker can figure out what a user is downloading, then using https for everything on the download page should be sufficient for almost anything web related.

Even with https, an attacker might be able to tell. If there's one particularly large file, simple traffic analysis (looking at how much is downloaded) will tell you when it's downloaded.

If you allow uploading of SVG images, then, since they can contain and run scripts, they can phone home when downloaded and displayed.

You might also want to check out Tor which provides better browser based anonymity. It's plugin-based, but if you can suggest that your users use it, it can provide an additional layer of protection -- even if an eavesdropper can tell what is being downloaded it will be much harder to tell who is downloading it.

Upvotes: 2

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