[thelist] disabling web text copy & paste

steven streight vaspers at inbox.com
Fri Oct 23 11:13:38 CDT 2009


Barney Carroll:

Thanks. But I'm on your side. I'm totally opposed to disabling back buttons and copy and paste and other browser controls. I'm a web usability analyst.

:*)

Steven E. Streight 
www.pluperfecter.blogspot.com


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> -----Original Message-----
> From: barney.carroll at gmail.com
> Sent: Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:18:53 +0100
> To: thelist at lists.evolt.org
> Subject: Re: [thelist] disabling web text copy & paste
> 
> Copy+Paste is an OS standard and the front-end layer of a site shouldn't
> be
> able to interfere with such things. The ability to do such a thing is
> malicious from a usability perspective, and can be used for nefarious
> purposes as it intrudes into the user's greater context.
> 
> Having said all that, Flash can define the clipboard without user input.
> You
> would want to capture the keyboard event of Ctrl/Command+C and then order
> Flash to replace the clipboard with an empty string. Sidestepping simple
> selection and interrupting the context menu's copy ability is impossible
> as
> this interaction sits outside of the scope of Flash or DOM events.
> 
> At the end of the day nothing will stop the determined user being able to
> access content they have downloaded, so if you are coming at this from a
> genuine security angle I would say accept the risks or don't make the
> content available at all.
> 
> Regards,
> Barney Carroll
> 
> barney.carroll at gmail.com
> 07594 506 381
> 
> 
> 2009/10/23 steven streight <vaspers at inbox.com>
> 
>> @lee kowalski
>> 
>> Wow. That was a lot of honest information. I agree with you that
>> disabling
>> copy & paste seems self-defeating, when bloggers like to quote at least
>> a
>> portion of text, then link back to the source, which drives traffic to
>> the
>> original site you got the copy from.
>> 
>> Thanks for the work-arounds. I'm sure they'll come in handy!
>> 
>> :^)
>> 
>> 
>> Steven E. Streight
>> www.pluperfecter.blogspot.com
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> --
>> 
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>> 
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> 
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