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!

[CvP]

thanks Kiros72.

it is already working fine for me (4.0.3).

if possible, please list the following things when reporting someone:
- the browser
- the screen resolution

[katie hunter]

Hi Kiros =)

nice modification! but i am having a small issue, my super mods can't access the reported members, the ones that are places in (COPPA) Users Awaiting Moderation usergroup, my super mods can't access their profile or even see it, they get this message:

xxx, you do not have permission to access this page. This could be due to one of several reasons:

1. Your user account may not have sufficient privileges to access this page. Are you trying to edit someone else's post, access administrative features or some other privileged system?
2. If you are trying to post, the administrator may have disabled your account, or it may be awaiting activation.

Is this a bug?

So i mean any reported member who gets moves to the (COPPA) Users Awaiting Moderation usergroup and a super mod tries to access or view that member profile, they get this message and can't even see his page at all, only admin can.

[Kiros72]

That sounds like a permissions problem with your super moderators. I no longer have access to an up-to-date vBulletin site (not even for the 3 series), so I cannot direct you to the exact location, but try to look into the Usergroup settings inside your AdminCP.

You might have to either modify the settings for your super moderators or the "Users Awaiting Moderation" group. If you have further trouble with this, I'll need to handle it personally, so please PM me.

[iadmirevb]

I clearly can see two users with the same IP address, but the progrma doesn´t report it.

When someone logs in, does the program looks for a matching IP address?

Thanks

[Trek]

Originally Posted by sgfish

This is my error now. Hope someone can help.

Add this to the top of your config.php:

define('DISABLE_HOOKS', true);

This will disable ALL of your mods.

Log into the adminCP, uninstall/disable the mod you think is the problem.

Then comment the line out that you added above so it looks like:

//define('DISABLE_HOOKS', true);

And see if that fixes your problem.

[Andrei29]

Trek bro,

Thank u v much for helping me! i go try now. Sorry i think its my fault. This mod is meant for vb 3+ and i using vb 4. Sorry i hope can save it now.

May i know which part of the congfig.php should i add the line? Or just add at the top of the config.php ??

[Andrei29]

Hi trek bro!

you are my god saviour! Thank u my problem is solved! I am sorry i just realise i downloaded a mod which is meant for vb3 as i thought it was for VB4.

I am sorry to the developer Kiros bro as i think its my problem and not ur mod problem. Thank u very much trek bro!

[Kiros72]

Yes, thank you for the quick response Trek. Fish, please read that PM I sent you. More than half the time, the problem is that the administrator did not install it correctly (the physical files, to be exact). This has been confirmed to work on vBulletin 4, but please review the ReadMe file before attempting to install it again.

[Trek]

Originally Posted by Kiros72

Yes, thank you for the quick response Trek. Fish, please read that PM I sent you. More than half the time, the problem is that the administrator did not install it correctly (the physical files, to be exact). This has been confirmed to work on vBulletin 4, but please review the ReadMe file before attempting to install it again.

Yeah, just an FYI, I have this working on vb4.03 as well. I was just concerned with helping him get his forums back online. =)

[Andrei29]

Thank u very much Kiros bro and Trek bro. I will try to follow the instructions set by kiros to install on my vb 4 again. Thank u for helping me!