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!

[Alan_SP]

Originally Posted by fortforum

I know. But hey, we are running discussion boards, not protecting the CIA db, right?

I never meant that evercookies will help protect my users' data, but to protect discussions from people who are rude, who insult everyone, who only post inflammatory posts and all in all are making trouble for everyone else.

These users are banned (at least on my forum) and some of them keep getting back over and over again. Of course, they style is obvious and they get banned again quickly, but why not have ability to block their registration automatically?

[Markos]

this needs a good work over as some of it doesn't work

[fortforum]

Originally Posted by Markos

this needs a good work over as some of it doesn't work

What part of it are you refering to? I run 3.8.7 and i see no malfunctions.

[Alfa1]

It does not reliably define if the user is in the 'banned' usergroup. Which is the most important part.

[fortforum]

Originally Posted by Alfa1

It does not reliably define if the user is in the 'banned' usergroup. Which is the most important part.

Realy? All the alarms i got seems to be accurate. Can you describe the details here please? I don?t use the default group.

[Alfa1]

For me its always stating that the user is in group 8 (banned)

[fortforum]

Weird. I get this message upon multiple regs:

A new account by the name of <786> has been registered. The new account has been moved to the Prevention Usergroup.

And when i check that group: Voil?. All the baddies in one place. Perfect.

[Alfa1]

And what does the report say about the banned usergroup found?

[Markos]

i run 4.1.10 and it doesn't work very well on it would like a update for it to work better on vb4

[fortforum]

Originally Posted by Alfa1

And what does the report say about the banned usergroup found?

I don?t use that function. I prefere to have manual control over the banning process.