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!

[-=Leb=-]

hx for the excellent update. I'm testing it right now, so far everything seems to be running good

[apiasto]

hi kiros,is this the one in which ban users wont be allow to register?i see the attachment.lets say if i choose move to usergroup except ban user.will this option disallow ban user to register? thanks

i am down with this mod of yours so i am gonna put it for MOTM

[Kiros72]

Awesome stuff.

Yes, "Move to Usergroup, Except Banned Users" means that regular multiple registrants will still be registered and moved to the Prevention Usergroup, but those registrants that have one or more banned accounts will be completely disallowed from registration - they will receive an error message and no account will be created. "Disallow Registrants, Except Banned Users" is the opposite, where banned users will be rebanned and everyone else that tries to register a multiple account will be disallowed entirely.

Though remember, you must have the Banned Accounts Check enabled and the Primary Banned Usergroup set correctly if you want this modification to correctly identify banned users.

[Forum-Germany]

Hello.

Since the update I have 2 options under Settings. Is it correct?

Thank you.

[Kiros72]

Yes, you should have:

Multiple Account Detection & Prevention Options
Multiple Account Detection & Prevention Reporting

The first one controls the main internal operations of the modification, while the other one has all of the reporting settings.

[apiasto]

thnx alot kiros for the effort,i m gonna install update n check it out

[apiasto]

i dont know if its a problem or i did something wrong in setting.it is showing in the pm notification the same user's name twice

Multiple login detected from ******.

Other recognized logins for this user are:

1. ******

its showing from and other the same name,i thought if same person logs in with a different name then it will report it.any idea,thnx

by the way i did change the cookie name

[Kiros72]

Could you please enable Verbose Mode, then copy and paste the report here? If you want to censor out the usernames, please just rename them separately (i.e. SomeGuy1, SomeGuy2, etc.) so I can tell if it's identifying reporting incorrectly. You can also censor your Cookie Name if you'd like.

[princeedward]

Originally Posted by Kiros72

It's probably compatible with vBulletin 3.6.x, but no one has confirmed it yet. My advice is to give it a shot if you'd like to, but backup your database before installing it (just in case).

Thanks for this Bro...it looks that it's working okay to my vB 3.6.8 PL2 at this moment...just tested it to my own account...want to test it once more to any of my staff to make sure...

one more thing...
can you throw some point clue about good vb option setup to make it work "no auto action to any users being caught"...but just only to detect them and report to forum report area...i just want to do the action manually maybe...if i'm going to banned that user or not...

looks really great mod...million thanks and happy new year...

[Kiros72]

Edward, just enable Silent Mode and you should be good to go. It won't matter what Prevention Method you use - as long as it's activated. Same thing with the Login Detection, but that currently only has two options anyway.

Right, so just make sure Silent Mode is enabled, as well as both the Login Detection and an active Prevention Method. It should then just report everything to you rather than taking automated actions.