Attention flickr users

[karohemd]

This photo is visible to all:


That's interesting, because this photo is marked as private on flickr.
It's also disconcerting, as I previously thought that setting a photo private will make it invisible to anyone else and checking friends or family will make it visible to flickr users that are defined as friends or family. This might be the case within flickr but not for links posted on external sites.

I just checked the flickr FAQ and it says:
What if I don't want everyone to see my photos?

That's not a problem. Every photo comes with its own privacy settings. You can make a photo available to everyone (That's public, and includes people visiting the site who aren't Flickr members), only make it visible to people who are your friends, just to your family, to both your friends and family, or you can keep an image completely private.

It doesn't mention that copied links will still work...

Comments

[bibliogirl.livejournal.com]

Yes.

[dougs.livejournal.com]

I can see most of a green pepper, halved.

[the-lady-lily.livejournal.com]

Yes, although it took me a while to recognise the green pepper without all of the top on it.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

It's rather freaky, isn't it?

[queenortart.livejournal.com]

yup

[ev1ldonut.livejournal.com]

FYI...

The privacy settings on LJ photo hosting do exactly what it says on the tin. Priveate means private, friends means friends, etc.

I use it. :)

[faerierhona.livejournal.com]

*nods* the thing is, so do Flickrs...

How on earth would the flickr site know if someone looking at the picture was a friend of yours, or even you? NO website will do that for you except on their own. Flickr have no idea who the people looking at the link are, if they are your listed friends and family, or if they are King Kong looking for a bit of Faye Ray porn, and I think the general assumption is that you wouldn't put as link up to a picture you don't want everyone seeing.

Which does, of course, raise the question as to whether other people can link to your work or not. If so, and if you cannot change those settings, I would seriously consider setting up your own photo website

[ev1ldonut.livejournal.com]

LJ uses the same security as the posts. If you aren't logged in (ie. you don't have a cookie telling LJ who you are), then it treats you as an unregistered visitor. Even if you give someone the direct copied link to a private photo, they still won't see it. If you give a friend the direct link to a photo that they have permission to see, they still won't see it unless they are currently logged into LJ on that machine.

I tested this quite a lot, for exactly the reaons you mention.

[faerierhona.livejournal.com]

what about on the LJ scrapbook? If I have a photo in there can I link to it even if I mark the gallery as private? Or is that what you mean? Not sure if you meant the above with regards to posts or links :-)

The other thing is, can you have a photo appear on another site (for example DJ) that is in an LJ Scrapbook? What happens then with regards to visibility?

[ev1ldonut.livejournal.com]

On the LJ scrapbook or linked from there, it applies to anywhere. If the gallery a photo is in is marked as private then no-one else can see the gallery, but you can still link to the photos directly from elsewhere. However, if you mark the photo itself as private, then no-one can see it except you, posts or links or anything.

You can have an LJ scrapbook photo appear on another site, but you have to make the photo public. If it isn't a public photo then they'll just get the "image missing" little red cross icon. If they try to go to the photo URL directly then they'll just get the standard "you don't have permission to access ... on this server" error page.

[faerierhona.livejournal.com]

*nods* that is MUCH better

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

That's how I thought the flickr privacy worked, too but evidently, it's not the case.
Good thing that the flickr photo URLs are quite obscure (loads of numbers/letters rather than flickr/photos/karohemd/stuff/pic1.jpg which you could use to trace back).

[dr-wez.livejournal.com]

How on earth would the flickr site know if someone looking at the picture was a friend of yours, or even you?

By using a similar cookie-based mechanism to LJ. If you don't have a cookie to authenticate you, or if wouldn't grant you access, then you don't get access. This takes care of the links-from-other-sites case, too.

[faerierhona.livejournal.com]

*nods* I was corrected already :-)

[dr-wez.livejournal.com]

Aha. Silly me. :)

[jonnyargles.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, Ozzy - your leather thong posing secret is safe with me and the other 250,000 flickr users.