[SOLVED] Confirm e-mail exists on user registration

[webref.eu]

Once a user has registered on my site, I want to send them an e-mail to validate their e-mail address exists.  What techniques are normally used to achieve this?  Please let me know any suggestions. 

 

Thanks

[RussellReal]

what you could do.. is just on register.. put into the database table..

 

md5(rand(0,55)."{$password}{$username}");

 

 

then mail that string to the user in a GET variable in the url like

 

http://site.com/auth.php?authcode=76298389a98nc9001208723

 

then when they click it

 

have a field in the database

 

`authenticated`

 

then update the row which authcode equals the authcode specified

 

UPDATE `members` SET `authenticated`='TRUE' WHERE `authcode` = '{$_GET['authcode']}'

[webref.eu]

OK, that seems like a possible technique.  Does anyone else have any thoughts or comments? 

 

Rgds

[sloth456]

seems like a pretty good technique.

 

You know how to implement this right?

[Maq]

User interaction is the most definite to checking whether an email exists and is valid.  But some other things you could do...

 

1) Use regex to check if it's a valid format.

2) Read this article.  I haven't tried it but it looks like it contains code to see if the user has a valid email address.

[bluesoul]

User interaction is the most definite to checking whether an email exists and is valid.  But some other things you could do...

 

1) Use regex to check if it's a valid format.

2) Read this article.  I haven't tried it but it looks like it contains code to see if the user has a valid email address.

 

The method presented in the article is shaky at best, in that a lot of bogus registrations are still going to pass on through.  I find it a bit humorous that two of the three bogus emails he mentions, donald@duck.com and emailthis@hahaha.com, would pass the test he wrote.  So 33% of the time, it works every time.

[webref.eu]

seems like a pretty good technique.

 

You know how to implement this right?

 

I hope to be able to work it out step by step.  I was just hoping to invite others thoughts and comments before I spend too much time on one particular technique. 

 

Rgds

[Maq]

User interaction is the most definite to checking whether an email exists and is valid.  But some other things you could do...

 

1) Use regex to check if it's a valid format.

2) Read this article.  I haven't tried it but it looks like it contains code to see if the user has a valid email address.

 

The method presented in the article is shaky at best, in that a lot of bogus registrations are still going to pass on through.  I find it a bit humorous that two of the three bogus emails he mentions, donald@duck.com and emailthis@hahaha.com, would pass the test he wrote.  So 33% of the time, it works every time.

 

I was a bit lazy with the link as a mentioned I have not tried it.  It came up top 10 on Google so I thought it may be good.  It was primarily supposed to give you more so an idea rather than a solution but w/e.  I do strongly suggest that you use multiple techniques to filter out the most emails, there's almost always going to be a couple that squeeze by but there's nothing you can really do.

 

As bluesoul said:

 

So 33% of the time, it works every time.

 

Words from a statistical genius

 

 

[webref.eu]

what you could do.. is just on register.. put into the database table..

 

md5(rand(0,55)."{$password}{$username}");

 

 

then mail that string to the user in a GET variable in the url like

 

http://site.com/auth.php?authcode=76298389a98nc9001208723

 

Thanks for this suggestion, this is what I'm implementing. 

 

Rgds