I have a website where I want to sell an ebook. 

What is the BEST way to protect my download pages so they are viewed
ONLY by people who payed with their credit cards? I am using
Paysystems.com as the 3rd party credit card processor and would like
an answer specific to them. Ideally this solution will deter 99% of
thieves and also prevent search engines from indexing this page.
Thank you
marketing dude

PS: What are the different ways my download page can be compromised
and how many of those ways can be eliminated with your solution?
(Bonus question with a special tip for a detailed answer)

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Request for Question Clarification by joseleon-ga on 13 Mar 2003 00:31 PST

Hello:
  The solution may depend on the structure of your site, but first you
must place your ebook outside the public directory, so it's not
available for download. After that you must create a script that
"checks" the user has paid for the book. This checking can be done in
very different ways, for example, after you process the credit card
you can mark the user as allowed to download, and the download script
will check the current user paid state and will allow download the
book or not. Of course, this needs to be explained more in depth, but
it will require some programming and 4 $ is to low to provide some
code. What do you think? I can provide detailed steps of what you will
need to do, but you will need to do it for yourself.

Regards.

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Clarification of Question by marketingdude-ga on 13 Mar 2003 09:53 PST

Hi Joseleon,
Thanks for responding. I understand most of what you said BUT I was
looking for information SPECIFIC to my 3rd party payment processor
www.paysystems.com as indicated in my question.

Could you please give me a detailed answer specific to using this
particular payment processor. (since each one is slightly different) I
don't have a problem if you recommend a suitable "off the shelf"
script/software either if you could find one for this particular
situation.
Thank you.

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Request for Question Clarification by joseleon-ga on 14 Mar 2003 00:22 PST

Hello:
  In that case I'm sorry, I cannot provide specific details about
paysystems.com, I don't know how it works and I would need to
subscribe to the service to get more information. They must provide
you with some technical details on how to use their service, in fact,
there is a FAQ that explains how to integrate their system in your web
by using a wizard. They are not going to protect your downloads, they
are just going to process the payment.

Regards and I hope you find the answer you are looking for.

marketingdude-ga:

www.paysystems.com is a payment processor, not a secure storage
system, ergo they would not be part of your schema to provide secure
access to your products.  paymentsystems will simply send you an
electronic signal (be it through HTTPS, e-mail, etc.) to let you know
that an individual paid a certain amount.  It is your websites
responsibility to secure your storage.

From your follow-up you sound like you are looking for a shopping cart
program.  There are several free "off the shelf" code fragments and
complete systems available on the web.  These codes will suggest, and
even provide methods to secure your directories, and content.

Two starting places http://www.sourceforge.net and
http://www.hotscripts.com

Regards,
T

marketingdude-ga:

You may not have noticed this when you posted your question, but
Google Answers offers a page of pricing guidelines for customers.  For
a question priced at four dollars, GA advises as follows:
 
"$2 - $5  ·  Can be answered with a single link or a single piece of
information. Sometimes, if a researcher is personally interested in
the question's subject, they may provide a longer answer.
          ·  Not appropriate for multipart questions. 
          ·  Only 60% of the questions asked in this price range are answered."
 
You will find the pricing guidelines at the link below:
http://answers.google.com/answers/pricing.html

We have a similar requirement and have successfully tested a solution
based upon ASP / SAFileUp.  Most ASP or .net hosting companies have
the SAFileUp objects installed.  There's a FAQ on www.softartisans.com
which shows you how to do a download protected by code to check the
user's authority - for example whether Session("Paid") is set to
true...

For Perl / PHP you can use similar logic and use their BinaryWrite
functions to output a file loaded from outside your public web area if
certain conditions are met.

Please post a clarification stating which platform you are using -
this would help other users give more definite advice.