Random idea -> Data to Images

[SJshah]

^ imgcentre will become the next rapidshare

SJshah Reviewed by SJshah on 6th Jan 2010. Random idea -> Data to Images Well I'm in the process of learning a new functional programming language called F#. One of the first things people tend to do when learning a new programming language is write little, often completely useless, programs to test and verify their knowledge of the language. Same with me. Since F# is very good with processing raw data I decided to make a data to image transcoder. So the program would read data (a file) and generate an image out of that data in a way that makes it possible to Rating: 5

[Danny1986]

I am sure Elio wouldn't mind that

[jayfella]

well you could also "split" the files into the maximum size allowable by the particular imagehost, which wouldnt require a huge amount of extra code (in c# anyway).

its actually a very good idea, though i suspect that it will get found out and peoples accounts will be closed. TOS will be broken, etc.

[Hyperz]

well you could also "split" the files into the maximum size allowable by the particular imagehost, which wouldnt require a huge amount of extra code (in c# anyway).

its actually a very good idea, though i suspect that it will get found out and peoples accounts will be closed. TOS will be broken, etc.

That is the plan (to split) but it isn't that straight forward as each image needs to to able to describe the whole situation. So each individual image needs to know the total amount of images, which part of that collection that image is, file name, signature (to be sure a image is a image containing data) etc.

Easily solved with:

let MaxFileNameSize = 0xff // 255
let mutable DefaultImgResolution = new Point(1600, 1600)
let HandShake = [| 0xffuy; 0x04uy; 0x09uy; 0x56uy |] // Unsigned byte array -> 255; 4; 9; 86

[<System.Flags>]
type AlphaFlags =
    | None = 0b00000000uy // Do nothing
    | EoF  = 0b00000001uy // End of File -> Stop reading

// =============================================

(* Calculate the amount of bytes the can be stored in an image of the specified resolution *)
let CalcImgBytes x y mult =
    match (x > 0), (y > 0) with
    | true, true -> (x * y) * mult
    | _ -> 0

(* Calculate the amount of images that will be needed to store the data *)
let CalcNumOfImgsRequired (dataBytes:int) (imgBytes:int) =
    (float dataBytes) / (float imgBytes)
    |> ceil
    |> int

(* Generates the header data that contains the needed info *)
let CreateHeader (part:byte) (totalParts:byte) (fileVersion:byte) (fileName:string) =
    if (fileName.Length > MaxFileNameSize) then
        let msg = "File name length must be " + string MaxFileNameSize + " or smaller and bigger than 0"
        let fn = "fileName"
        raise(new ArgumentOutOfRangeException(fn, fileName.Length, msg))
    else
        Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(fileName)
        |> Array.append [| (byte fileName.Length); part; totalParts; fileVersion |]
        |> Array.append HandShake
        |> Array.append HandShake
        |> Array.append HandShake
        |> Seq.ofArray

CalcNumOfImgsRequired ins't complete yet though. But yeh. About the ToS, if people upload the images without using an account it's VERY hard to detect.

Oh Btw, if I end up making this a public tool the transcoder will be fully open source since I could really use tips.

[Danny1986]

How about if we use ImgCentre?

Would you allow this Elio?

[ElementSnake]

Doesn't ImgCentre use enough Bandwith? Heard it was using around 3TB/Month.

[Danny1986]

Yeah, that is true, but I am sure if the word got around, Elio could make some cash from it, by incorporating his google ad code into the images everytime they are clicked/downloaded, which would mean he could upgrade, because he would be earning a lot of cash

Remember, the images are legal, so hopefully Google wouldn't go around checking them for illegal content

[Elio]

Yeah, that is true, but I am sure if the word got around, Elio could make some cash from it, by incorporating his google ad code into the images everytime they are clicked/downloaded, which would mean he could upgrade, because he would be earning a lot of cash

Remember, the images are legal, so hopefully Google wouldn't go around checking them for illegal content

No , if this gets out counter measures will be made and ip's found doing it banned

[Danny1986]

I think this will be great, especially because it is open source

Is it possible to make it even harder to detect by actually making it a real image, as opposed to all those lines on the other ones lol Or is that just a test image?

[jayfella]

^^ well not really because then it would become easily detectable. You have a kind of #eof signature at the end of the image. The data is usually added after the #eof but of course, is easily detectable.

(@ danny, not elio).