Load image for UIImageView from the net with security - iphone

Question

I'm trying to load an image into an UIImageView from the internet. This is no problem, but what I want is the image be secured with user credentials. So if you go to the direct link of the image, you get an login popup (secured directory).
How can I pass those user credentials so I can load the image from the net with user credentials?
The problem is that the image may not be accessed directly, but only via the iPhone app. If you have a better idea to maximize the security, let me know ;-)
Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

If you are using basic server authentication (which I think you are based on the "popup dialog"), I would recommend using ASIHTTPRequest http://allseeing-i.com/ASIHTTPRequest/How-to-use
It makes it very easy to download and make web requests. You can download the image and give the username and password by doing:
NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:#"http://user:passwd#yoursite.com/secret/"];
ASIHTTPRequest *req = [ASIHTTPRequest requestWithURL:url];
[req startSynchronous];
NSError *err = [req error];
if (!err) {
NSData *response = [req responseData];
UIImage* image = [UIImage imageWithData:response];
// do whatever you want with the image here, like put it into a UIImageView
}

Answer 2

I'm assuming you have access to the server side. Create a simple PHP script that takes in an HTTP POST request with the username and password, validates it and if it's valid, echoes back a JSON/XML/string with the link to the image or else echoes back a null value or something.
Call a POST request from your iphone using urlWithString and when you get a response, check to see if it's null, or if it has a link.
Handle the result accordingly (if null, tell the user that the login credentials are incorrect).
If not null, it's the image - display it. Hope this helps.