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!

[mark370]

Excellant work Kiros72 many thank's for the update, and like many other's have said this mod has proved itself to be invaluable to our forum's to keep the trouble-maker's away so your update comes very welcome

ps. thank's MindStar

[711]

This mod looks like a very nice alternative to Multiple Account Login Detector (AE Detector) and Multiple Account Registration prevention add-on.

I would love to start using this mod, however all of my forums make extensive use vBGallery.

Originally Posted by Known Issues

- PhotoPost vBGallery users: The registration handling appears to not work properly when PhotoPost vBGallery is enabled.

Any chance on getting those conflicts resolved?

Thanks

[Kiros72]

Originally Posted by 711

This mod looks like a very nice alternative to Multiple Account Login Detector (AE Detector) and Multiple Account Registration prevention add-on.

I would love to start using this mod, however all of my forums make extensive use vBGallery.



Any chance on getting those conflicts resolved?

Thanks

Right now, I'm working on a project for someone and it might take me several days. After I'm done, I can look into the coding of vBGallery to see if anything can be resolved.

However, if you just want to prevent multiple registrants by disabling their registration, then that will still work. The issue arises in the register_addmember_complete hook, so moving multiple registrants to a Usergroup won't work correctly.

[Alfa1]

Originally Posted by Alfa1

I am not getting any reports.

I am also not getting any moderated members.

Originally Posted by Kiros72

What are your reporting settings? What about your ignore settings?

I have not uninstalled the AE detector, but disabled it in the product manager. Is this a problem?

Settings:
Enable multiple account login detection? yes
Registration prevention: Move to Usergroup, Except Banned Users
Silent Mode: Yes
Ignore Child Accounts: yes
Ignored Users: 1
Ignored Usergroups: 5,6 (staff)
Ignored ISPs: aol.com
Prevention Usergroup: 4
IP Address Prevention: yes
Extended IP Address Prevention: yes
IP Address Time Inclusion: 90
Banned Account Check: yes
Primary Banned Usergroup: 8
Cookie Expiration: 700
Cookie Refreshing: yes
Cookie Name: idstack
Cookie Reset: no

Multiple Account Reporter: 7849
Report by Private Message: no
Report by New Thread: yes
Forum to Post New Threads: 146
Verbose Mode: yes
BB Code: LIST: yes
BB Code: URL: yes
BB Code: CODE: yes

Do you need anything else?

[BlueNinjaGo]

Originally Posted by Alfa1

I am also not getting any moderated members.

Silent Mode: Yes

If you have silent mode on, you will only get notified (thread or PM).... You won't get any moderated members.


Silent mode = reporting only.

[Alfa1]

I am not getting threads either.

[Megatr0n]

Kiros72,

I had to uninstall your hack because I kept getting this error when trying to login after installing:

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/smiggy/public_html/forums/madp/detection.php' (include_path='.:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php') in /home/smiggy/public_html/forums/includes/functions_login.php(185) : eval()'d code on line 3

[Kiros72]

Originally Posted by Alfa1

I am also not getting any moderated members.


I have not uninstalled the AE detector, but disabled it in the product manager. Is this a problem?

Settings:
Enable multiple account login detection? yes
Registration prevention: Move to Usergroup, Except Banned Users
Silent Mode: Yes
Ignore Child Accounts: yes
Ignored Users: 1
Ignored Usergroups: 5,6 (staff)
Ignored ISPs: aol.com
Prevention Usergroup: 4
IP Address Prevention: yes
Extended IP Address Prevention: yes
IP Address Time Inclusion: 90
Banned Account Check: yes
Primary Banned Usergroup: 8
Cookie Expiration: 700
Cookie Refreshing: yes
Cookie Name: idstack
Cookie Reset: no

Multiple Account Reporter: 7849
Report by Private Message: no
Report by New Thread: yes
Forum to Post New Threads: 146
Verbose Mode: yes
BB Code: LIST: yes
BB Code: URL: yes
BB Code: CODE: yes

Do you need anything else?

My modification should, in theory, work fine if MPDev's AE Detector is disabled; however, you may want to uninstall it if nothing is working out. There are a few things that you must make sure of. Is the reporter setup with the correct ID (7849)? Does the forum (146) exist and does it allow the reporter to post in it? If you're going to be testing it, you're going to want to remove ALL Ignored Users and Ignored Usergroups. Also, please make sure that your Cookie Name is set to IDstack instead of idstack (notice the capitalization). I doubt that this would be effecting it, but I'm unaware if browsers would make an issue about this or not.

Please list all of the modifications that you currently have installed.

One more thing, enabled reporting via private messages and set the recipients correctly. The PM reporting uses less resources and is more fool-proof than reports posted by thread.

Originally Posted by Megatr0n

Kiros72,

I had to uninstall your hack because I kept getting this error when trying to login after installing:

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/smiggy/public_html/forums/madp/detection.php' (include_path='.:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php') in /home/smiggy/public_html/forums/includes/functions_login.php(185) : eval()'d code on line 3

Looks like you need to upload the files in the correct directory. The /madp/ folder and all of the files within it should have been uploaded to your forum root.

[Megatr0n]

Oh right.

[Alfa1]

Originally Posted by Kiros72

My modification should, in theory, work fine if MPDev's AE Detector is disabled; however, you may want to uninstall it if nothing is working out. There are a few things that you must make sure of. Is the reporter setup with the correct ID (7849)? Does the forum (146) exist and does it allow the reporter to post in it? If you're going to be testing it, you're going to want to remove ALL Ignored Users and Ignored Usergroups. Also, please make sure that your Cookie Name is set to IDstack instead of idstack (notice the capitalization). I doubt that this would be effecting it, but I'm unaware if browsers would make an issue about this or not.

Please list all of the modifications that you currently have installed.

One more thing, enabled reporting via private messages and set the recipients correctly. The PM reporting uses less resources and is more fool-proof than reports posted by thread.

I have followed your suggestions and will await to see if any reports by PM or thread appear. If not, then I will send you my list of installed modifications.