Is people ripping fonts used in testers a big problem? It'd be a fun project to make that a complicated as possible for them.
Hi Roel
It's not just testers. Even big font resellers -as far as I know- are having difficult time protecting their fonts. Again to my knowledge there isn't a reliable way to protect webfonts. When you see them you can download them. I saw a lot of them and it's insanely easy: F12.
One way that should and would work is what MyFonts is doing and that is image rendering. but you can download those fonts too.
Is it possible to obfuscate a web font specimen, using simple cipher? A=G B=W C=X etc. I wouldn't propose doing that on the web for non-specimen use because that's awful. But if you're just using it to displaying a specimen, the words contained in the specimen don't matter in terms of search or comprehension. The quick brown fox becomes Plo kmijn uhbyg gbv. Every day, you scramble the cipher, change specimen text and regenerate the scrambled web fonts. Not unbreakable for sure but it might be more difficult for automated tools to keep up with new font releases. Even if the cipher gets cracked every day, sometimes it might fail on a letter. Unless there's a human checking that the letters are all in place, the automated ripping tool becomes unreliable since a font with a misplaced letter is essentially useless.
Is it possible to obfuscate a web font specimen, using simple cipher? A=G B=W C=X etc. I wouldn't propose doing that on the web for non-specimen use because that's awful. But if you're just using it to displaying a specimen, the words contained in the specimen don't matter in terms of search or comprehension. The quick brown fox becomes Plo kmijn uhbyg gbv. Every day, you scramble the cipher, change specimen text and regenerate the scrambled web fonts. Not unbreakable for sure but it might be more difficult for automated tools to keep up with new font releases. Even if the cipher gets cracked every day, sometimes it might fail on a letter. Unless there's a human checking that the letters are all in place, the automated ripping tool becomes unreliable since a font with a misplaced letter is essentially useless.
If I understand that correctly, I did something similar once. It was an offline PC application and protecting the font was not the matter, but protecting the text was. So they didn't want to do encryptions and stuff like that. I proposed we could change the font and you type some gibberish things and they "see" it like a proper sentence. If they copy that it is not usable. And because it was Persian, I had to replace an entire character glyphs (initial, medial, final and isolated) with another character glyphs so you can type easier.
I don't quite remember, but I think we had some problems with ligatures cause the glyphs had changed. Altogether it was an easy and simple solution for that case.
But if it is going to be used to protect fonts, I don't actually know how to decipher them to the correct glyphs each time. It is better for Latin fonts, I think. And the big problem is after all of that, the user would have the entire glyphs and he could edit the font and move the glyphs to the right spot and boom there is your font!
Another Idea would be removing some glyphs. Is that so bad? I managed to remove enough glyphs so my own "invented" Persian pangram would show up correctly
P.S: I have seen some strange scripting in Persian fonts, but they can't do that on the web, only with programs, I think Tasmeem from WinSoft is doing something strong to do this kind of "protection".
Comments
It's not just testers. Even big font resellers -as far as I know- are having difficult time protecting their fonts. Again to my knowledge there isn't a reliable way to protect webfonts. When you see them you can download them. I saw a lot of them and it's insanely easy: F12.
One way that should and would work is what MyFonts is doing and that is image rendering. but you can download those fonts too.
So bring it on if it is exciting enough
So they didn't want to do encryptions and stuff like that. I proposed we could change the font and you type some gibberish things and they "see" it like a proper sentence. If they copy that it is not usable.
And because it was Persian, I had to replace an entire character glyphs (initial, medial, final and isolated) with another character glyphs so you can type easier.
I don't quite remember, but I think we had some problems with ligatures cause the glyphs had changed. Altogether it was an easy and simple solution for that case.
But if it is going to be used to protect fonts, I don't actually know how to decipher them to the correct glyphs each time. It is better for Latin fonts, I think.
And the big problem is after all of that, the user would have the entire glyphs and he could edit the font and move the glyphs to the right spot and boom there is your font!
Another Idea would be removing some glyphs. Is that so bad? I managed to remove enough glyphs so my own "invented" Persian pangram would show up correctly
P.S: I have seen some strange scripting in Persian fonts, but they can't do that on the web, only with programs, I think Tasmeem from WinSoft is doing something strong to do this kind of "protection".