Annonymous messaging system for my website.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’ve implemented a basic system to allow visitors to post anonymous messages. I am not a web programming expert but I’ve attempted to cover the basics of security - Parametrized queries to avoid sql injection, html entities replaced with the equivalent codes (for example - ‘<’ replaced with ‘<’ using php’s htmlentities function)

I’ve implemented it on a ‘test’ page at first. Feel free to try it out. If you’re a web developer (I know there are a few on the dope) please suggest further ways to improve security.

Note: I am aware of the risk of people posting crude messages. I am prepared to take that risk on the basis that I’ll remove anything I deem inappropriate. Also due to the htmlentities thing nobody would be able to post clickable links.

There are ‘better’ places to put this kind of post but I feel I can trust the dope a bit better than, say, reddit or stackoverflow.com, both of which are likely to have a few mischievous accomplished website vandals. Basically if you can ‘break’ the website in a non-melicious way (for example if you were somehow able to gain access to the database you might add a record saying ‘I got in here and I shouldn’t have. you might want to fix this’. A malicious person might instead choose to delete entire databases)

forgot the link!

http://notails.com/index_test.html
Once I’m confident this is secure I’ll make it the front/landing page. (Also rearrange the visual structure a bit)

2

Also, forgot to mention. I’ll probably delete silly/test messages when/if I make it the front page.

3

Altered it so it shows times in your local time zone (hover over messages to see that information)

If anyone is going to leave a message can you check the time it reports is accurate for your time zone?

4

I went to test it, but I don’t see a form of any kind in your link. And the links that are there go to competed websites.

5

It’s a single edit box underneath the four link pictures. I need to come up with a solution to displaying the page on low resolution screens or un-maximized browser windows. I disabled the scroll bar because it caused an ugly visual jump when the page loaded. Still looking for a better way to deal with that.

6

I’ve turned scroll bars back on for when the content is too big for the browser window.

I’ve put the main 4 links in a 2x2 arrangement to make the content shorter.

Edit: For those that have tested it today: Is it showing your local time correctly in the message info? (Hover over messages to see the info)

edit 2: If you don’t see the messages bit at all it might be because you have javascript disabled.

7

Have now made it ‘live’ on http://notails.com