Administrative and Maintenance Tools - Multiple Account Detection & Prevention

It happens all of the time. Some members will make multiple accounts to back their own opinion or get an extra vote in a poll. Here's a modification that will detect and prevent multiple accounts, as well as notify the administration about multiple accounts. Inspiration for this modification came from the work of MPDev (creator of the Multiple Account Login Detector) and randominity (creator of the Multiple Account Registration Prevention). This is basically a combination of those two modifications but with new and improved functionality.

This is not an update to the "Multiple Account Login Detector (AE Detector)" nor is it an update to the "Multiple Account Registration Prevention." If you have either one of these (or both of them) installed, you should uninstall them before installing this modification.

With the initial release of Multiple Account Detection & Prevention, I believe that I have fixed previous bugs/complications as well as improved the efficiency and logic of the code. This is my first publicly released modification. I would appreciate any comments and suggestions!

Confirmed! This works perfectly on all vBulletin 3.6, 3.7, and 3.8 versions.

Unfortunately, I cannot give support right now. I may be able to help periodically, but until my schedule yields some more free time, I won't be much support. Please check back in a week or two.

Basic Details
File Edits: None
Template Edits: None
New Files: 6
Hooks/Plugins: 3
Global Phrases: 36
Install Time: 2 Minutes or Less
Install Difficulty: None, Very Easy

Features and Settings
- Login Detection
- Registration Prevention (Multiple Methods)
- Ignore Child Accounts
- Ignored Users
- Ignored Usergroups
- Ignored ISPs
- Prevention Usergroup
- IP Address Based Prevention
- Extended IP Address Prevention
- IP Address Time Inclusion
- Banned Account Check
- Primary Banned Usergroup
- Cookie Expiration Time
- Cookie Refreshing
- Cookie Name
- Cookie Reset
- Multiple Account Reporter
- Reports via PM
- PM Report Recipients
- Reports via New Thread
- Forum for Report Threads
- Verbose Mode
- BB Codes: LIST, URL, CODE

How it Works
With every newly recognized login/registration, an account-counting cookie is set (or added onto) with the member's User ID. Depending on the settings, Multiple Account Detection & Prevention will analyze the cookie during login/registration to see if there are any multiple accounts.

Login Detection offers cookie-checking and reporting. Registration Prevention offers the same thing, plus more advanced features. First of all, when it prevents an account from registering, it actually moves the registrant to the Prevention Usergroup so that the administration can review the case. This also allows for customized privileges for recognized multiple registrants. Registration Prevention also has IP address detection which finds out just as much information about users. Depending on an administrator's preference, this modification can also reban a new registrant if one of their previous accounts has been banned. In fact, if the administration wishes, multiple registrants can simply be denied registration all together.

Whenever there is a detection/prevention, the modification will report the information to the administration through private messages, a new thread, or both (depending on settings). The Multiple Account Reporter can be any valid user.

Known Issues
- vB Optimise users: Reporting via thread seems to get messed up by vB Optimise, so try reporting via PM instead.
- PhotoPost vBGallery users: The registration handling appears to not work properly when PhotoPost vBGallery is enabled.

From what I can tell, these known clashes have been caused by the other modification's coding. The author of vB Optimise will not even work with me to fix it. Until they improve their coding, I'm not sure if I can do anything about these issues. As far as I know, administrators that do not use the above modifications will not have any problems.

Installation / Upgrade
Unzip the package (madp.zip), upload the files to your forum location, and import the product file (allow overwrite if upgrading). Please read the ReadMe.txt file that is packaged with the modification for more information.

Please remember to mark this modification as installed if you use it!
If you like it, nominate it for the Mod of the Month!

Thank you!

[Kiros72]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but if the users were already registered, then it wouldn't ban them to begin with. Only the Registration Prevention moves to a specific Usergroup, which is normally the Prevention Usergroup, but if Banned Account Check is enabled and you have the Primary Banned Usergroup set correctly, they will be banned and moved to the Primary Banned Usergroup.

It will not reban someone if they simply login - that feature may appear in version 2.0.

[GrendelKhan{TSU]

wow. looks great.
I wish I saw this earlier. will definitely try it out.

[Kiros72]

Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to give a small update on the progress of the next version.

Instead of having a decent amount of improvement (making it version 1.2.0), this next release will be a massive upgrade to version 2.0.0. Along with the other features that I previously noted, it will also carry database features, which offer even more flexibility and functionality.

I am currently finishing up a prototype for one of the login plugins. After I have finished the code and done sufficient testing, I'll reproduce the methods for the other plugins.

Basically, this means that I'm about a week (give or take a day) from releasing this major update.

Thanks, everyone, for your suggestions, requests, and support

[GrendelKhan{TSU]

Originally Posted by Kiros72

Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to give a small update on the progress of the next version.

Instead of having a decent amount of improvement (making it version 1.2.0), this next release will be a massive upgrade to version 2.0.0. Along with the other features that I previously noted, it will also carry database features, which offer even more flexibility and functionality.

I am currently finishing up a prototype for one of the login plugins. After I have finished the code and done sufficient testing, I'll reproduce the methods for the other plugins.

Basically, this means that I'm about a week (give or take a day) from releasing this major update.

Thanks, everyone, for your suggestions, requests, and support

cool! sounds great... guess I'll wait till the update. (give me time to do my own updates to forum first).

that said, quick question: do you know if it will be 3.8 Gold compatible?

[GhoHan]

Nice Modification Good Job

[Kiros72]

Originally Posted by GrendelKhan{TSU

cool! sounds great... guess I'll wait till the update. (give me time to do my own updates to forum first).

that said, quick question: do you know if it will be 3.8 Gold compatible?

I don't see why not. It seems to have some issues on vBulletin 3.6.x when it tries to reban a user, but other than that, it's fine with 3.6 and above. I plan on doing initial testing on the three latest major releases (3.6.x, 3.7.x, and 3.8.x) before the new version is released. If I finish everything early, I'll be doing extensive testing before it's released - otherwise, such testing will take place afterward.

Originally Posted by i-comers.com

Nice Modification Good Job

Thanks

[bigcurt]

Great. Thanks a ton for the work on this mod. Just to be clear, it does work with 3.6 right now other than re-banning an account? All I plan on using it for is reporting of a users multiple account anyway..that works OK right?

Thanks a ton again,
Curt

[Kiros72]

From how I've tested it, yes, it works fine. Just have the Banned Account Check disabled and you should be good to go. If any unknown issue arises, let me know and I'll track it down.

[RHWiRED]

Hi Kiros72, I'm receiving this error when a user see's the "Your registration is now complete" page.

Warning: strpos() [function.strpos]: Empty delimiter in [path]/madp/prevention.php on line 145

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at [path]/includes/class_core.php:3242) in [path]/madp/prevention.php on line 277

And yes, the folder is in the correct position (I'm not new to this )

[Kiros72]

Alright, I think I see what happened.

Upload this to overwrite the prevention.php file in the /madp/ directory. Let me know if it works.

[[ prevention.php was removed because the fix is now in the product ]]