How sessions work.

When a user logs in into virtually ANY known internet site, the server must have some good way to distinguish between authenticated and non-authenticated users. Next time an authenticated user makes a move, he must give some identification card to the server in order to be allowed to make a move. Normally, this ID is called session cookie. But all cookies can be easily replayed from another IP-address by an impostor. Whence the need to bound a cookie and a session to an IP address it was issued to upon authentication. We can call such bounding a "good practice"TM. But the IP-address itself can be forged in those cases, where the intruder needs not the server's reply to a request. Which happens precisely when a new posting is being made automatically.

When a session cookie is not obligatory bound to the IP-address it was issued to, you have Flickr.Com. Frankly speaking, you have a big hole through which numerous requests to the server can be made. Even when the intruder is alone, he can inflict much harm, but when virtually all users can theoretically act as intruders, no server will be able to withstand the load.

Let's study the 'Flickr Case' in more detail.

Flickr groups: what they are for?

Flickr groups are the best way to build circles of people with the same or similar interests in photography genres. They are also the only way for a photographer or a model to gain popularity. Statistical analysis tells us that the users not participating in any groups remain unnoticed for years. There are more popular and less popular groups. To be a regular member of a popular group has its advantages and disadvantages. One big disadvantage: almost nobody browses into the group's pool further than the 3-rd or 4-th page. And in a popular group your image may begin the day on a first page and find itself on the fourth page by the dusk. This quick flowing of images translates into fewer people discovering your images. One possible solution to this is to run your own group. In this case you can repost your own images so that they stay on the 1-st and the 2-nd page as long as you see fit. There is no need to have too many people in such groups: two or three thousands of active members will suffice. Seeing, how many groups today accept absolutely bad images of their members in order to make these members stay, your own groups can be an outstanding exception.

Here is how you can populate your new group in days.

1. Create a new Flickr group and set everything up.

2. Open your browser and log into your account at Newart.Photo. (If you are a status member, you can invite to many groups simultaneously, just open a new browser window for another Flickr group and repeat the following steps. If you are a Free site member, you can only invite into one group at a time).

3. Type the following into the address bar of your browser: https://newart.photo/venue/123456789@N22 where "123456789@N22" is the ID of the group you want to invite to*. Remember, that at all times you must be an admin of the group you are inviting to, or it simply won't work.

4. Follow the instructions on the subsequently opening pages to the letter (these were written especially for people who always push the buttons before they read what is written under them), i.e. supply some important strings of alphanumeric characters letting our software to invite on your behalf. Please, be advised that you are supplying the required alphanumeric strings at your own risk: we do not know and we do not care for any possible outcomes for your account in case you are going to invite too many people in too many groups. The very procedure is possible only because Flickr has designed it to be so. The Newart.Photo Internet site, on the other hand, is an example of "good design practices"TM when it comes to the safety of communication, therefore similar tricks are impossible.

5. Make sure you never log out and keep you current session with Newart.Photo server intact. All private info you supply is kept in the session only. We don't copy it nowhere, respecting your privacy therefore, if you lose your session cookie (for example, by cleaning your browser's user data), you'll have to start everything anew. This is going to be especially painful for a NEWART.PHOTO status member who wants to invite to a dozen of Flickr groups simultaneously, so don't lose your session with the NEWART.PHOTO server by all means! Make sure, you are on an Internet connection with a fixed IP-address because it is precisely this bound of the server session to the IP initiating this very session which makes the same trick impossible to play to our server.

The Flickr members to be invited have been pre-selected in various ways. Needless to say, Flickr has way more members' accounts "on file" then are actually active. Our own data proves the ratio of active accounts to inactive ones to be 1:50.

If, on the other hand, you want to completely bypass manual invitation, welcome to the fully automated invites of the currently active accounts of our choice (paid service).

Why a Third Party can invite to Flickr groups?

The answer is: because Flickr allows same cookies from different IP-addresses. When you check NEWART.PHOTO, you will see that our server reacts immediately to a change of an IP-address. Every time your IP changes, the server will ask you to log in anew, which is logic. This way, our server always knows which account does what, so that the accounts trying to automate some tasks could be limited. Therefore, when you receive a message from another NEWART.PHOTO user you can be sure that this message was composed and send manually by a human. Whence our requirement to our status members to reply to all messages received from other our status members. It would be impolite not to reply, when one can be 100% sure one receives a manually composed message from another human.

How can Flickr be taken down with only one bot?

Imagine, that some accounts on Flickr are members of more than 800 groups. They can invite to the majority of these groupd simultaneously. This will generate enourmous flow of notifications and in some cases e-mails sent to the invited Flikr users. The queue of notifications as well as the mail server queue will grow dramatically. This can bring the server infrastructure to a partial halt. When queues are cleaned, hundreds of group administrators will discover thousands of unwanted members who have already joined their groups using these invitations. These can be "cleaned" only manually when they show up. For many groups this would be the end of activity.

NEWART.PHOTO has also Its own mechanism of protection of POST-forms which makes a part of our offer to customer-companies. This offer was named "Session Server" and includes session-to-IP bound as well as POST-form protection. When applied together, these two technologies guarantee that your server is being used by identified humans only. When somebody, who is already identified, exercises too much of activity, the limitations come naturally into play and there is no possibility or a turn around able to bypass the limits. Our session server will pass all requests to your server which implements the business logic of your online application. Our session server guarantees that all requests reaching your server are 100% human-made. Thus, you can drop all the captchas and other verification stuff and fully focus on the efficiency of your business logic implementation. The session server cuts off all automated requests. In the logs you will discover only clean picture of what your users do.

How to order a customized session server for my company?

Call +491745341234 or write to newart.photo@ukr.net