How can one detect if a server/script is accessing their site through cURL/file_get_contents()? (excluding user-agents and IP addresses)

Posted by navnav on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by navnav
Published on 2012-06-05T02:15:06Z Indexed on 2012/06/05 4:40 UTC
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php

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curl

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file-get-contents

I've come across a question where a user is having difficulties accessing an image through a script (using cURL/file_get_contents()):

How to save an image from url using PHP?

The image link seems to return a 403 error when using file_get_contents() to request it. But in cURL, a more detailed error is returned:

You were denied access to the system. Turn off the engine or Surf Proxy, Fake IP if you really want to access. Proxy or not accepted from any Web tools Intrusion Prevention System.

Binh Minh Online Data Services @ 2008 - 2012

I also failed to access the same image after fiddling around with a cURL request myself. I tried changing the user-agent to my exact browsers user-agent which can successfully access the image. I've also tried the script on my personal local server, which (obviously) uses the same IP address as my browser... So as far as I know, user-agents and IP addresses are out of the situation.

How else can someone detect a script performing a request?

BTW, this is not for anything crazy. I'm just curious xD

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