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!

[BlueNinjaGo]

Originally Posted by 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!

This has been answered in the thread already. And if you check by IP address as well, it'll start working automatically.

[Kiros72]

Originally Posted by 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!

1. Yes and yes. It also has faster function calls (like explode() instead of split()) and personally, I think I have improved upon the logic of the original modification from MPDev. Also, there are far more options like the one that I discuss in the second portion of this response.

2. Nope. I made this modification to be backwards compatible, meaning that if someone had MPDev's login detector, MADP will use the cookies (named IDstack) that have already been set by it. This happens by default. However, the administrators can change the cookie name to be something else and the effect of such would be a "clean slate" for everyone. But it will resume tracking each login and registration. Remember, this is completely optional. By default, it will use the IDstack cookies that MPDev's login detector uses.

Originally Posted by synseal

Thanks for this, working perfectly on 3.8.2, installed

Glad to hear. Hope you enjoy it as much as everyone else is

[pigsy]

Fantastic! Thanks Kiros you just saved me reading over 372 previous posts

[tnedator]

By tracking "each login and registration", does this mean that on a clean install, each time an existing member logs in for the first time after this mod is installed, they will get a cookie with their login info, and then from that point forward if they were to create a second account, the mod would catch it?

[dadoc]

I have installed this and I am using 3.7.0

It did work and was able to open it within the CP

Now I have an error when I try to log in to my CP

This is the error

Warning: require_once([path]/madp/detection.php) [function.require-once]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in [path]/includes/functions_login.php(185) : eval()'d code on line 3

Fatal error: require_once() [function.require]: Failed opening required '/home/crimecas/public_html/forum/madp/detection.php' (include_path='.:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php') in /home/crimecas/public_html/forum/includes/functions_login.php(185) : eval()'d code on line 3

It is rather urgent that I can get access to my CP
I hope that anyone can help me.
even if you need access to my site I can give you tha?

Please Help

Regards
Ryan

[Kiros72]

Originally Posted by pigsy

Fantastic! Thanks Kiros you just saved me reading over 372 previous posts

Not a problem

Originally Posted by tnedator

By tracking "each login and registration", does this mean that on a clean install, each time an existing member logs in for the first time after this mod is installed, they will get a cookie with their login info, and then from that point forward if they were to create a second account, the mod would catch it?

Exactly, yes. As long as they use the same browser and don't clear their cookies, it will catch the second account, and the third one, and so on. If you enable IP address detection, they may be caught if they still have the same IP address.

Originally Posted by dadoc

I have installed this and I am using 3.7.0

It did work and was able to open it within the CP

Now I have an error when I try to log in to my CP

This is the error

Warning: require_once([path]/madp/detection.php) [function.require-once]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in [path]/includes/functions_login.php(185) : eval()'d code on line 3

Fatal error: require_once() [function.require]: Failed opening required '/home/crimecas/public_html/forum/madp/detection.php' (include_path='.:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php') in /home/crimecas/public_html/forum/includes/functions_login.php(185) : eval()'d code on line 3

It is rather urgent that I can get access to my CP
I hope that anyone can help me.
even if you need access to my site I can give you tha?

Please Help

Regards
Ryan

Once again, this is the classic symptom of missing files. Make sure you upload everything in the /upload/ folder to your forum root. That means, if your forum is at www.example.com/forums/, then you should have the files uploaded at www.example.com/forums/madp/ because the /madp/ folder is within the /upload/ folder. Read the ReadMe.txt please.

[tnedator]

Thanks Kiros for the nice mod. I was able to successfully trigger an alert PM with some test accounts. This is going to be a handy mod.

[Kiros72]

Originally Posted by tnedator

Thanks Kiros for the nice mod. I was able to successfully trigger an alert PM with some test accounts. This is going to be a handy mod.

Glad to hear that

[Ryloth]

I will confirm this does work on 3.8.3 just fine. I have been running it for a few days now and have caught a few people. Works well.

[Kiros72]

Originally Posted by Ryloth

I will confirm this does work on 3.8.3 just fine. I have been running it for a few days now and have caught a few people. Works well.

Goodness, thank you! I knew there was something I was forgetting to do

That's a relief ^_^