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!

[MindStar]

Originally Posted by Kiros72

Great thinking, MindStar. However, everyone please remember to use the actual User ID that you have the reporter set to if it's different than 1.

No problem, glad to be able to give something back. Your Add-on has proved invaluable for keeping the trouble-makers at bay on my forum

[Hornstar]

does this new update contain the fix that mindstar posted?

[dannyb2100]

Thanks for the update
Keep up the good work.

[digicom]

Much Apprciated For Update Kiros :up:

[duditas]

Thanks for the update.

Kind regards

[Sixpackmark]

ello kiros, am havng fatal error after the update.

Tried to test using two login dummy account, Fatal Error shows up after pressing the login. On second attempt it didn't showed up and login properly and didn't detected/created an alarm as well.

Fatal error: Cannot pass parameter 2 by reference in /home/mydomain/publichtml/boards/madp/detection.php on line 279

[Kiros72]

Okay, thanks Mark. I think I know what's causing it.

The fix should be up in a minute.

[Kiros72]

Originally Posted by hornstar1337

does this new update contain the fix that mindstar posted?

The latest version contains a fix that is very much like what Mindstar posted. It fixes the issue that his post addresses.

Unfortunately, I don't have a diagnostics system for the AdminCP setup yet, so I cannot include his suggested SQL anywhere in the modification. So I'm afraid that system administrators will have to run that query at their own risk.

Anyway, version 1.1.3 is out now and it fixes the issue that Mark brought up.

[MindStar]

Originally Posted by Kiros72

The latest version contains a fix that is very much like what Mindstar posted. It fixes the issue that his post addresses.

My bad. in $threaddm->do_set(<PARAM>, <VAL>) <VAL> is passed by reference so you have to pass the value in a variable

[-=Leb=-]

your mod is working perfect on 3.8.2.

BTW, thx one more time for the great work