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!

[KellyT]

going toset options now

[KellyT]

Hi:

I installed and set options then tried to test it. registered with 2 different email addresses and two different usernames and it didn't seem to recognize this. Any suggestions as to what I might do to get it to detect multiple accounts?

[glennybee]

Thanks for this mod.

I was wondering if this is possible:

Can the mod be set so that it checks for multiple accounts, and reports via a thread, but doesn't take any action against the new account, unless they previously had a banned account, then they should also be banned?

I understand that two separate members may use the same PC (genuinely) so I'm willing to overlook this. But if a member registers and they have previously been banned, I would like the new account banned too.

Is this possible with this configuration please?

Thanks!

[Huendin]

Originally Posted by glennybee

Thanks for this mod.

I was wondering if this is possible:

Can the mod be set so that it checks for multiple accounts, and reports via a thread, but doesn't take any action against the new account, unless they previously had a banned account, then they should also be banned?

I understand that two separate members may use the same PC (genuinely) so I'm willing to overlook this. But if a member registers and they have previously been banned, I would like the new account banned too.

Is this possible with this configuration please?

Thanks!

I just came across this mod, and it is funny that you should ask this, because I was wondering the same thing.

What I think would work would be to simply select the option "Move to Usergroup, Except Banned Users" and put your normal member usergroup number in the field of "Prevention Usergroup". This way, all multiple registrations will end up in the normal usergroup, anyways, except banned/previously banned(if you select "yes" to the field "Banned Account Check").

I'm going to install this right now, and experiment with it tomorrow. It looks promising

Also, I'd like to ask.. in the field "Primary Banned Usergroup", can you put multiple usergroups?

[Stormlilly]

This is an awesome Mod which has been a huge benefit to our forum. Do you know if it will be compatable with version 4.0?

[high6]

Can you add the option to check ips on login? I noticed when looking through the code that it only checks cookie for multiple login. Also could you have it report accounts that are being logged in from several ips? Or is there another mod that does this?

[TheInsaneManiac]

Great work dude. How well is the IP functionality though cause I'm afraid I will take all the AOL and other dial up users with it.

Originally Posted by high6

Also could you have it report accounts that are being logged in from several ips? Or is there another mod that does this?

I like this suggestion, since looking at each individual account in the AdminCP to see if they have logged in from multiple IPs is a hassle.

[TheInsaneManiac]

In all the PMs I am getting _'s...

[DeanLag]

Originally Posted by TheInsaneManiac

In all the PMs I am getting _'s...

I'mgetting the same error. I believe its vBOptimise though. I disabling it and waiting for a report to show up.

[TheInsaneManiac]

Originally Posted by DeanLag

I'mgetting the same error. I believe its vBOptimise though. I disabling it and waiting for a report to show up.

Even so... Kiros said PMs would work with VBoptimize...

You should just register a second account to test.