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!

[BadgerDog]

Hi ...

I'm currently running "Multiple account login detector (AE Detector)" on my v3.67pl1 site for last two years. Seems to work fine except AOL proxies always light it up like a christmas tree.

Could I un-install the above and move to this, or is my version of vBulletin too old, like me ..

Thanks for any feedback.... :up:

Regards,
Badger

[Kiros72]

I have tested an earlier version of this modification with vBulletin 3.6.0 and it worked just fine. In theory, this latest version should work perfectly fine with any vBulletin version from 3.6 to 3.8.

If you have any problems, I can help you out. Also, if you install this modification and then chose to uninstall it, the IDstack cookies will remain intact, so you'll be able to switch back to the AE detector if you'd like. The only way that the cookies will lose their tracking information is if you do a cookie reset with my modification, but there's no real reason to use that nowadays.

[BadgerDog]

Originally Posted by Kiros72

I have tested an earlier version of this modification with vBulletin 3.6.0 and it worked just fine. In theory, this latest version should work perfectly fine with any vBulletin version from 3.6 to 3.8.

If you have any problems, I can help you out. Also, if you install this modification and then chose to uninstall it, the IDstack cookies will remain intact, so you'll be able to switch back to the AE detector if you'd like. The only way that the cookies will lose their tracking information is if you do a cookie reset with my modification, but there's no real reason to use that nowadays.

Thank you ... :up:

Appreciate your feedback and offer to help very much.....

I will install it and see what happens. I guess I bette un-install my current "Multiple account login detector (AE Detector)" first.

Regards,
Badger

[BadgerDog]

A follow up....

Un-installed my current "Multiple account login detector (AE Detector)"

Installed v1.1.1 of your mod on v3.67pl1 and it went smoothly....

Checked options and decided to turn "Silent Mode" ON for now, until I understand how the mod works better. So, I'll just read reports for a bit before turning if OFF....

BTW, you have some of the most thorough and well documented instructions, plus on-line "?" help by field assistance I've ever seen in any mod. Thank you for that. :up:

I already have over 6,000 members and we get about 1,100 logging in every 24 hours. Because we are a "collectors" oriented web site, we get a lot of father, son, wife type members with different user names, yet they all use the SAME computer, so at this point I'm trying to be safe than sorry and not screw up their access. I guess I need to go through the members list and find those folks, adding them to the "ignored users" list by individual ID?

Finally, I left the following OFF because that was your default setting, plus I'm not sure I fully understand the impact of turning them ON yet, but I'll work on that...

IP Address Prevention
Whether or not to check for matching registration IP addresses for new registrants if no cookie is found. Yes No

Extended IP Address Prevention
Whether or not to check for matching IP addresses even after cookie information is found and used.

Looks like a great mod... appreciate your efforts ... :up:

I hope it works well with my v3,67pl1 as I have far too much customization to upgrade at this point.

Regards,
Doug (Badger)

[Kiros72]

Originally Posted by BadgerDog

A follow up....

Un-installed my current "Multiple account login detector (AE Detector)"

Installed v1.1.1 of your mod on v3.67pl1 and it went smoothly....

Checked options and decided to turn "Silent Mode" ON for now, until I understand how the mod works better. So, I'll just read reports for a bit before turning if OFF....

BTW, you have some of the most thorough and well documented instructions, plus on-line "?" help by field assistance I've ever seen in any mod. Thank you for that. :up:

I already have over 6,000 members and we get about 1,100 logging in every 24 hours. Because we are a "collectors" oriented web site, we get a lot of father, son, wife type members with different user names, yet they all use the SAME computer, so at this point I'm trying to be safe than sorry and not screw up their access. I guess I need to go through the members list and find those folks, adding them to the "ignored users" list by individual ID?

Finally, I left the following OFF because that was your default setting, plus I'm not sure I fully understand the impact of turning them ON yet, but I'll work on that...



Looks like a great mod... appreciate your efforts ... :up:

I hope it works well with my v3,67pl1 as I have far too much customization to upgrade at this point.

Regards,
Doug (Badger)

Thank you for the complements

I would like to point out that if you have "Silent Mode" enabled, you will not get any reports. That's what is silent about it. If you want to get these reports of multiple accounts, turn "Silent Mode" off.

Since your site has numerous families in the community, I suggest creating some Usergroup ("Family Members") and adding this group to known family members as a Secondary Usergroup. Then you can add this Usergroup ID to the ignore list.

In a nutshell, there are IP address options because some members may clear their cookies or use a different browser in order to register another account. Without the IP address checks, a user could get away with this, but with the checks, they have far less of a chance unless they go weeks without logging in or have a very dynamic IP address.

Good luck, and please let me know if my modification works well on your vBulletin 3.6.7 PL1 board

Edit:

My bad. "Silent Mode" will only send reports rather than taking action. Thank you for bringing that up in an email

[titodj]

Ok it seems to be working now.. at least part.
It detects and post the multiple log in's, but it does not place the new created accounts in the specified usergroup.

This are my settings...

* Move to Specific Usergroup
* Silent Mode Off
* Prevention Usergroup 42 (dupped acc group)

Am I missing something?

[BlueNinjaGo]

Installed and it works great.... Excellent!

[Kiros72]

Originally Posted by titodj

Ok it seems to be working now.. at least part.
It detects and post the multiple log in's, but it does not place the new created accounts in the specified usergroup.

This are my settings...

* Move to Specific Usergroup
* Silent Mode Off
* Prevention Usergroup 42 (dupped acc group)

Am I missing something?

Please turn on verbose mode and post one of the prevention reports here along with your vBulletin version.

[titodj]

this two had an acc and just opened a new one.

vBulletin 3.7.3 Patch Level 1

[ :: Verbose Information :: ]

[ Cookie Information ]

Cookie Used: IDstack
Raw Data: ,44465,
Clean Data: 44465

[ Capture Information ]

Caught by: Cookie

[ Verbose Messages ]

[ Dev Information ]

Verbose Message Bitfields: 0

[ :: Verbose Information :: ]

[ Cookie Information ]

Cookie Used: IDstack
Raw Data: ,20560,
Clean Data: 20560

[ Capture Information ]

Caught by: Cookie

[ Verbose Messages ]

[ Dev Information ]

Verbose Message Bitfields: 0

[Kiros72]

Alright, now were those login detections or were they registration preventions?

Login detections are just detections at the moment. Only registration prevention will actually do something about it.

By the way, I'm not sure if you're suggesting that the two detections above are related, but it looks like they are totally different.