Matt's Script Archive
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This article relies on references to primary sources or sources affiliated with the subject, rather than references from independent authors and third-party publications. Please add citations from reliable sources. (April 2010) |
Matt's Script Archive is a collection of CGI scripts written in Perl. Started in 1995 by Matt Wright (at the time a high school student in Fort Collins, Colorado), the archive contains about a dozen free scripts, designed to be easily added to a site and configured.[1] One of the scripts, FormMail, is claimed to be the most popular CGI script on the World Wide Web,[citation needed] with over 2 million downloads since 1997.[2]
As the scripts grew in popularity they were criticized for being insecure. The FormMail.pl script, in particular, was exploited by spammers to send junk email.[3] SecurityFocus put attacks based on FormMail.pl third in their list of the Top Attacks for the 1st Quarter of 2002.[4] As Perl 5 became more mature, norms in the community changed to encourage use of modules such as CGI.pm and code safety features such as strictures and taint checking; the scripts in Matt's Script Archive, however, did not follow these changes, and as a result (and also because Matt Wright wrote much of the code when he was a less-experienced programmer) tend to be buggy. Experienced Perl programmers usually recommend against the use of these scripts, and the London Perl Mongers started an effort called nms to write drop-in replacements for them. Matt Wright himself has recommended using the nms scripts, saying:
I would highly recommend downloading the nms versions if you wish to learn CGI programming. The code you find at Matt's Script Archive is not representative of how even I would code these days.[5]
Most of the scripts at Matt's Script Archive ceased to be updated after 1996, with the exception of major security flaws or bugs.[citation needed]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ "World Wide Mart: History". https://worldwidemart.com/history.html. Retrieved April 23, 2011.
- ^ "Matt's Script Archive: FormMail". http://www.scriptarchive.com/formmail.html. Retrieved April 23, 2011.
- ^ "Are Spammers and Hackers Abusing Your FormMail.pl Perl Script". webgear.datacreek.net. http://datacreek.net/webgear/tips/fmailspam.html. Retrieved April 23, 2011.
- ^ "The nms Project". 2004-12-28. http://nms-cgi.sourceforge.net/news.html. Retrieved April 23, 2011.
- ^ "Matt's Script Archive: nms". http://www.scriptarchive.com/nms.html. Retrieved April 23, 2011.
