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!

[Kintaro81]

How can I reset the past tracking data?
can be a solution change che name of the cookie?

[Ryloth]

i am interested to see if it will work on 3.8.3 as well. i just installed a fresh forum and am hesitant to install w/o confirmation of this working.

[Kintaro81]

Have you read the description?
"Confirmed! This works perfectly on all vBulletin 3.6, 3.7, and 3.8 versions."

[Ryloth]

Originally Posted by Kintaro81

Have you read the description?
"Confirmed! This works perfectly on all vBulletin 3.6, 3.7, and 3.8 versions."

Have you read the previous page? Or even the product xml? Or quotes from people w/ 3.8.3? Read before you type.

Originally Posted by MarkusB

hmmm its only me?

This mod worked fine for me until i made the VB update to version: 3.8.3 now no messages appearing any more.

Yes i deleted the relevant groups in "Ignored Usergroups" and marked No in the "Ignore Child Accounts" by my test

Any Ideas on that before i try to make just a new fresh install of this very superb Mod :up:

Edit: after a reinstall of this Mod still no chance to get it running correct.

cheers, Mark

[Kiros72]

Originally Posted by MarkusB

hmmm its only me?

This mod worked fine for me until i made the VB update to version: 3.8.3 now no messages appearing any more.

Yes i deleted the relevant groups in "Ignored Usergroups" and marked No in the "Ignore Child Accounts" by my test

Any Ideas on that before i try to make just a new fresh install of this very superb Mod :up:

Edit: after a reinstall of this Mod still no chance to get it running correct.

cheers, Mark

Are you absolutely certain that you didn't change any settings or install/uninstall any modifications immediately before or after you upgraded to vBulletin 3.8.3?

Originally Posted by Kintaro81

How can I reset the past tracking data?
can be a solution change che name of the cookie?

Yes, if you would like a "clean slate" all you need to do is change the cookie name.

Originally Posted by Ryloth

i am interested to see if it will work on 3.8.3 as well. i just installed a fresh forum and am hesitant to install w/o confirmation of this working.

This modification's plugins do not alter any database information, so it wouldn't do any harm to install it. I haven't known vBulletin to release any maintenance update that would affect thread-posting or PM-sending methods in such a way that the parameters or method names change. Seen as how I haven't had any other complaints that are related to this matter which I can recall, and over 500 people have it installed, I don't think that it's the upgrade to vBulletin 3.8.3 that did it. I could be wrong, but I'm more confident that it will work perfectly fine on vBulletin 3.8.3, just as it did on 3.8.2.

Originally Posted by Kintaro81

Have you read the description?
"Confirmed! This works perfectly on all vBulletin 3.6, 3.7, and 3.8 versions."

Thank you for noting that!

Originally Posted by Ryloth

Have you read the previous page? Or even the product xml? Or quotes from people w/ 3.8.3? Read before you type.

Unless I'm mistaken, there was only one person that claimed of a clash with vBulletin 3.8.3, which was on the previous page. And I'm not sure how the product XML file has anything to do with the compatibility of a new, minor maintenance release.

I'd like to assume that at least 1/5 of the 500+ installations is running on up-to-date vBulletin software. So that would be 100 people (maybe more, maybe less) that are probably running this with vBulletin 3.8.3. If only a single person posted anything about it, I'm doubtful that other people are having problems. My doubt is based on the numbers... But again, I could be wrong.

I'll be testing this as soon as I can get a vBulletin 3.8.3 test installation installed, which might take several days because the license needs to be renewed. Until then, feel free to install it and then uninstall it if it doesn't work properly. Also, please be patient.

Thank you,
Ben

[exportforce]

Any updates about the implementation of banning previous created accounts and banning multiple logins ?

[Kiros72]

Originally Posted by exportforce

Any updates about the implementation of banning previous created accounts and banning multiple logins ?

Not right now. I'm trying to get finances straightened up. The wake & funeral and other expenses cost about $8000, and my father didn't have life insurance, so I'm pretty much SOL at the moment and I don't have hours to dedicate to coding at the moment.

[pigsy]

I use Multiple Account Login Detector currently. I have two questions:

1. Am I right in saying this is improved over that because a) it checks for ip matches too; and b) it can catch users at registration and move to a usergroup or disallow registration.

2. If I install this it will have to set its own cookies; does that mean it will take some time to be as effective as the Multiple Account Login Detector - because it tracks by cookie, and when first installed users dont have this cookie installed.

I'm just deciding whether its worth upgrading - thanks!

[synseal]

Thanks for this, working perfectly on 3.8.2, installed

[pigsy]

Any reply to my question above - thanks! (apologies for the reminder!)