I'm using streambox VCR to capture audio files from various servers. However, I'm curious to know if the webmaster(?) can actually see that I'm downloading files and not just listening to them. Thanks, guys.
Probably not. This records the stream, and therefore looks the same to the servers. All they know is that there is a stream being, well, streamed. As long as you are firewalled up as well, there is no way they can know that you are also outputting the stream to HDD.
But any SENSIBLE webmaster would be watching out (via logging etc) for "streaming" content being "taken" at significantly faster rates than is normal for streaming... For example: I.P. address xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx has requested and is reading a DSL/256 rated file @ a rate far greater than required for streaming (and buffering) THEREFORE that file is NOT being streamed, it is being "captured". That is what I would do if I was a Webmaster that wanted to stop/"punish" such "abusers"... If I "detected" such a scenario as above, I would do one or more of the following: kill the download & ban the I.P. for a period. choke the download to that I.P. to a rate that would require DAYS to download, if the download then continued it is "obviously" not being streamed, so kill and ban as above. change the content of the download to be horrible/nasty etc (could be white noise or static at 0dB OR could be code to cause a buffer overflow exploit thereby installing a trojan etc etc) etc. etc. The possibilities are legion!!! As you are using StreamBoxVCR you don't have an EASY way to limit the rate at which particular downloads are taken... You could either: hack the code to introduce that function (assuming you are using StreamBoxVCR beta 31 which is hackable) OR introduce a bandwidth limiter to achieve the same result. I use the second method (as I have an existing machine on my network that performs bandwidth limiting/monitoring)..... BBC Radio uses RealPlayer Streaming, and they will drop a connection that is pulling data "too fast" Have Fun...
