Implemented Report IP Address Of Senders Of Contact Us Form Users

This suggestion has been implemented. Votes are no longer accepted.
I'd like to see this too. Since I keep getting messages via the Contact Us form from a certain person making claims against a member for piracy, but won't leave a valid email address for us to enter into a conversation with them to find out more information. At least having the IP means we could check to see if it's coming from an existing user of the site.
 
..it would be nice to see Contact Us send us all the info it gathered on the sender.

What I do with all Contact Us messages before I consider opening them for real is to right click on them in the list of emails, then look at their Properties, and then click on Details, and then Message Source.

With most of them that is enough for me to decide to delete them or ignore them. If I want to explore further I may look for the line in the Message Source that is something like.. Received: from 5.34.9.100

Then I can look up the location of that IP and find I am dealing with someone lying their heads off about who/what they are and so on. Or as you say you could check it against the member database.

Hope the info helps in some way.

Steve
 
Azhria - what a shame! I guess that is down to how you are choosing to view your emails perhaps? You may want to try something that does show you IP addresses and so on if you want to see them as it seems.

I wonder how you check nasty looking ones without facilities like those. It sounds like you may be using some form of limited Webmail service that just lets you do very basic things.

The info I gave was based on the options when using Windows Live Mail and your list of incoming mail. I've been using those options for decades though and they were in all the earlier mail readers I used too.

Steve
 
I don't use webmail, I download to Outlook. Other emails I can view the information on - these ones I can't.
 
Well, to clarify when I say I can't view the information - it doesn't give anything other than the email address (which isn't valid) the email address it's sent to and the time it was sent. No IP address registered. Luckily, my host was able to track an IP via the server, but I'd prefer an easier method than having to get someone else to do using whatever witchcraftry he performed on the server to find it :D
 
As I say, Windows Mail Live always shows me every detail of the mail if I right click the message in the list, then choose Properties, then Details, then Message Source. The source code of the message shows a lot of detail and I've always found IP addresses fine for Contact Us messages. So, you should be able to do the same if you choose to. The mail software is free and so on.

I did just try Outlook.com and that seems to let you right click on an email and then choose Show Message Source. I can't view a Contact Us message that way at this moment to see if it somehow hides some of the information, if it does I would think it weird and I would use something else. In the messages I could try it on it said: sender IP is ... and then showed the IP of the sender of the message.

You mention witchcraft for looking at the logs for your system. You really should be able to view/download these yourself and I would look into how to do that as it tends to be very simple and as you say it is another way of getting info on who is doing bad things on your system.

I hope something I've mentioned proves helpful, or that someone else has other ideas.

Steve
 
Azhria - I like the dog quote... but all hosting firms normally give you access to your system logs and knowing a time when something happened simply allows you to just look at the IP address/action that caused it. Not only that.. but it gives you other info too. Like their browser info, which can help you spot them when they use other IP addresses and so on. You can download and search the logs for anything you want.

If your system ever gets attacked, and sadly it can often happen, then being able to check your logs and see what happened may be the only simple way for you know what to do to reverse the attackers actions. That has certainly happened to me and the logs showed me exactly what they did, and allowed me to spot other things they had done on other days.

These ideas are just advice based on my experiences and what I believe other Website owners tend to do, you can of course take it or leave it.

If that add on puts the info of the sender into the message then please remember that means it may be best not to include the message in any reply you ever send out to a Contact Us message.. otherwise you are giving away info on your systems and checks and telling the person what IP address you have for them. If they are attempting to give you a fake IP you would be confirming if it worked and so on.

Just thoughts.. and I wish you a great day.. and I will stop writing now.. :)

Steve
 
DragonFlames said:
Azhria - I like the dog quote... but all hosting firms normally give you access to your system logs and knowing a time when something happened simply allows you to just look at the IP address/action that caused it. Not only that.. but it gives you other info too. Like their browser info, which can help you spot them when they use other IP addresses and so on. You can download and search the logs for anything you want.

If your system ever gets attacked, and sadly it can often happen, then being able to check your logs and see what happened may be the only simple way for you know what to do to reverse the attackers actions. That has certainly happened to me and the logs showed me exactly what they did, and allowed me to spot other things they had done on other days.

These ideas are just advice based on my experiences and what I believe other Website owners tend to do, you can of course take it or leave it.

If that add on puts the info of the sender into the message then please remember that means it may be best not to include the message in any reply you ever send out to a Contact Us message.. otherwise you are giving away info on your systems and checks and telling the person what IP address you have for them. If they are attempting to give you a fake IP you would be confirming if it worked and so on.

Just thoughts.. and I wish you a great day.. and I will stop writing now.. :)

Steve
Click to expand...
I appreciate your replies, I do.. .and I know how to do it myself - really I do :D My witchcraft comment was me being "funny". I've been in the forum business a long long time ;)
 
DragonFlames said:
but all hosting firms normally give you access to your system logs and knowing a time when something happened simply allows you to just look at the IP address/action that caused it. Not only that.. but it gives you other info too. Like their browser info, which can help you spot them when they use other IP addresses and so on. You can download and search the logs for anything you want.
Click to expand...
She has full SSH access to her VPS (it's not a shared host) and since it's running NGINX as the HTTP server, cPanel is not an option. She can view that info easily, but it's even easier for her to just drop me a note to take a look. :D
 

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