Joomla 3.3 session and securimage captcha - joomla

Question

I am building a form for my module and the final step is to pass a captcha check for security. I have downloaded the latest version of securimage. The captcha displays correctly and new captchas can be generated. However, after the form is posted, the advised technique on checking that the captcha was entered correctly never returns true.
index.php:
<form method="post" action="tmpl/form/contact.php" name="contactform" id="contactform">
<img id="captcha" src="securimage/securimage_show.php" alt="CAPTCHA Image" />
<a style="text-decoration: none; font-size: 10px; margin-top: -10px; " href="#" onclick="document.getElementById('captcha').src = '/securimage/securimage_show.php?' + Math.random(); return false">Refresh</a>
/**input here **/ name="captcha_code"
contact.php:
define( '_JEXEC', 1 )`;
define( 'JPATH_BASE', realpath(dirname(__FILE__))."/../../../..");
define( 'DS', DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR );
require_once ( JPATH_BASE .DS.'includes'.DS.'defines.php' );
require_once ( JPATH_BASE .DS.'includes'.DS.'framework.php' );
$mainframe = JFactory::getApplication('site');
$mainframe->initialise();
$user = JFactory::getUser();
$session = JFactory::getSession();
jimport( 'joomla.application.module.helper' );
$db = JFactory::getDBO();
$db->setQuery("SELECT params FROM #__modules WHERE module = 'module'");
$module = $db->loadObject();
$moduleParams = new JRegistry();
$moduleParams->loadString($module->params);
include_once $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . 'securimage/securimage.php';
$securimage = new Securimage();
if ($securimage->check($_POST['captcha_code']) == false) {
echo '<div class="error_message">' . $errorcaptchainvalid . '</div>';
exit;
}
After searching for what the problem might be, I found this possibility from http://www.phpcaptcha.org/faq/:
If the variable names are the same this may be due to a problem with
the PHP session that is used to keep track of the user and what their
code is. It is possible that the session was not started or more
likely that the session name being used in securimage_show.php differs
from the session name used in the script that does the code
validation. It is common for other software platforms (forums, content
management systems, form processors etc.) to use a session name other
than the PHP default. If this is the case, you must determine what
session name is used by the software and use the same session name in
securimage_show.php and securimage_play.php.
A non-default session name can be passed to Securimage so it can share
a session with another software platform with the following code:
$img->session_name = 'your_session_name';
This would explain why I'm having no luck with my captcha. I have tried editing the above files but I don't know how sessions are set up in Joomla! or how to get around this problem. Is the problem likely to be the session variables?
securimage_show.php:
require_once dirname(__FILE__) . '/securimage.php';
$img = new Securimage();
if (!empty($_GET['namespace'])) $img->setNamespace($_GET['namespace']);
$img->show();
securimage_play.php
require_once dirname(__FILE__) . '/securimage.php';
$options = array(
'use_database' => true,
'database_name' => '',
'database_user' => '',
'database_driver' => Securimage::SI_DRIVER_MYSQL
);
$img = new Securimage();
if (!empty($_GET['namespace'])) $img->setNamespace($_GET['namespace']);
$img->outputAudioFile();

Answer 1

Your halfway there - the problem is the way Joomla handles sessions. Instead of placing the form in an article, try embedding form through an iframe and it should work fine.