Contact Form email confirmation missing in V8 and V9?

[TraceyHand]

I've been investigating this matter and I've noticed that the following segment is absent from Mailform.pl in both V8 and V9.

#
# Send the same message to the sender
# Withe a "thank you" prefix
#
$sTextMailBody = ACTINIC::GetPhrase(-1, 2379) . "\r\n\r\n" . $sTextMailBody;
my @Response = ACTINIC::SendMail($::g_sSmtpServer, $sEmailRecpt, $sSubject, $sTextMailBody, $$::g_pSetupBlob{EMAIL});
if ($Response[0] != $::SUCCESS)
{
ACTINIC::RecordErrors($Response[1], ACTINIC::GetPath());
$sError = $Response[1];
}

This means that, in these versions, no automatic email response is sent to the person who has submitted the contact form on the website.

It was present in V7 (I found it via http://community.actinic.com/showthr...m+confirmation ) but appears to be absent from MailForm.pl in V8 and V9 and I know the absence of the automatic response has been mentioned on the forums before

Any reason why it's been omitted from these versions? The Design > Text prompt is still there!

I've reinstated the missing code into the .pl file and my auto response is now working again but I'd be interested to know why it's been removed.

For anyone who wants to do it, you need to place it immediately ABOVE the lines

        #
        # Now bounce back to the mail page
        #

[Darren B]

OK

i have added this too, and in exactly the same place

Wonder why actinic removed it

D

[cdicken]

Tracey - I'll ask the developers about this one on your behalf.

[pinbrook]

This means that, in these versions, no automatic email response is sent to the person who has submitted the contact form on the website.

i thought this was intentional for anti-spamming purposes, however it would be better to offer the option of adding a no-reply address

[Darren B]

Maybe Jo but to be honest its hardly going to make a difference to a spammer whether he gets a reply or not

D

[pinbrook]

What i mean is the whole idea of a contact form is not to disclose your email address, but the actinic form does just this by sending an auto reply.

so if a spammer wants your address all they have to do is use your form.

But i think it goes further than that as V7 had a vulnerability whereby it could be used to spam from, maybe this fix stopped that and the auto reply.

[TraceyHand]

But i think it goes further than that as V7 had a vulnerability whereby it could be used to spam from, maybe this fix stopped that and the auto reply.

I did wonder about that, actually.
I'll be interested to hear Actinic's reasoning behind it..maybe there should be some way of getting the contact form to use a unique 'no-reply@' email address for the contact form autoresponse?

[Darren B]

Good idea

actually a revamp, which i have mention loads of times, like adding extra fields being more customisable rather the script hacks, captcha plus endless other bits

the script itself i believe is not secure, so if its found then it can be used

D

[cdicken]

But i think it goes further than that as V7 had a vulnerability whereby it could be used to spam from, maybe this fix stopped that and the auto reply.

Yep - the code was seen as a soft target by spammers who could harvest email addresses and then send emails as if they are from you. We had a number of complaints from customers about this, and so we removed it.

I do agree that it would be good to make this form more customisable though, with selectable options. I'll pass this on to the development team.

[Darren B]

Thanks Chris, to blame actinic is a bit of a poor show, as most emails are harvested from people that have no protection on there systems and end up giving out the contents of the address book. And once your email address gets out to one of these it is only a matter of time before it does the rounds

i can understand that this is just another way of getting the email address but hardly the biggest cause

Thanks again though

D

[TraceyHand]

hmmmm...
upgraded site to 9.0.1 and added in the code in my first post, to my mailform.pl (I hate not having a customer confirmation email sent out)

Since then, well in the last couple of days, since upgrading to 9.0.1 actually, I've had a load of contact form spam when I'd previously had none.
you know the sort, multiple links in the 'body' of the message (even to the point of filling in all my additional fields...url filled in, junk in the email and phone number field)

code from post 1 removed now so we'll see what effect that has!
Just thought I'd post it anyway