Some Things Master Form V4 Can Do That V3 Can Not

Form Hijacking Attempt Notifications

When Master Form V4 detects an attempt to hijack its forms by using the sophisticated "inserting header line breaks" exploit, you'll be notified — and the compromised email will not be sent anywhere else.

Use the new control panel to specify the email address these and other administrative notices shall be sent to.

It is automatic protection.

JavaScript Output for Content Syndication

The feature causes Master Form V4 to convert the content of form fields you specify into JavaScript code when they're written to a file. This allows others (or yourself) to import the contents of the file into their (or your) web pages with just a JavaScript tag, like:

<script 
   src="https://example.com/file.js" 
   type="text/javascript" 
   language="JavaScript">
</script>

This is an excellent way to post site news, specials, daily thoughts, and other things to be updated without the hassle of modifying the page itself.

The JavaScript method can also be used in conjunction with a comment form to allow website visitors to publish their own thoughts. The latest comment can be posted below the previous comments, or each new comment can replace all others before it.

Global Maximum Form Data Size

This is a security feature to limit how much information can be sent to your server with any one form submission. Specify the limit in the control panel.

While individual upload file sizes can also be limited, the CGI program needs to process the information to determine the size of the individual files.

A cracker could overload the server's processing capacity by uploading huge files, even files using forms the cracker itself creates for the purpose.

The number provided in the control panel as the upload data size limit is designed to prevent server overload using the file upload exploit. Master Form V4 does this by checking the total submitted data size *before* it processes any of the submitted data.

Emailing To A List Of Addresses

This is a powerful feature. One little placeholder in the Bcc line of the email template can cause the email to be sent to every address contained within a file.

The file can be any plain text file on the server.

It might be a file exported from Excel or other desktop computer software, a file Master Form V4 itself builds from form submissions, or even files of complete emails that Thunderbird, Eudora, and other email programs maintain as their email folders.

Do you see possibilities?

Some uses I had in mind when I developed the feature are:

Devise a double opt-in subscription system. (Example set of files soon to come.)
Maintain a list of folks who want to be notified when a certain web page changes, or a price changes, or software is updated (hint to self).
Send an email to all addresses in the "Friends and Family" folder of your email program.
Send a periodical email, like an ezine or product updates, to a small list. (Lists larger than 400-1000, depending on your server's speed and resources, may time out the browser/server connection.)
Send an email when your blog is updated to those who asked to be notified.

The email address importing placeholder doesn't have to be in the Bcc line of the email template. It can also be in the email body. Thus, it can be used to extract email addresses from files and then emailed to you. The emails arrive all one line, comma-separated.

Received Line Pointing To Form User's IP Address

The "Received:" lines in email headers are a track record of which servers received the email when the email was en route to its destination. While the domain names and some other information can be spoofed, the IP address of the sending server, under usual circumstances, can not be spoofed.

This allows spam to be traced to the ISP it was sent from. Some spammers insert extraneous received lines to obfuscate the real ones and to confuse automated tracers. Few can hide from manual tracing by experts.

Some webmasters like to send an acknowledgement email to those who use their forms. That's okay. Master Form V4 makes it easy to do that.

But when the email sent to the form user quotes part of the contents of the form, it becomes a spammer magnet.

In those situation, where an email is sent to an address provided on the form, containing other content provided on the same form, then it may be prudent to include a received header line pointing to the IP address of the user.

The Master Form V4 Manual at /mfv4 contains an example of how to do that.

Those are five Master Form V4 features that V3 doesn't have.

This page has links to purchase and to download. It also has links to demonstrations and to complete downloadable example file sets.

Additional demonstrations and example file sets will be added intermittently.

Will Bontrager

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