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!

[razorripper]

ok i messed up big time.

i forgot to upload the files - i uploaded the product and turned it on. now i am not able to log in.

what do i do ... plz help.

[Kiros72]

Originally Posted by sexgosex

i really need it. but may really not work for 3.8 0...........sorry

I'll ask a friend to test it on his vBulletin installation (3.8.1).

Originally Posted by Alfa1

I am not getting any reports.

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

Originally Posted by razorripper

ok i messed up big time.

i forgot to upload the files - i uploaded the product and turned it on. now i am not able to log in.

what do i do ... plz help.

Just upload the files to the proper place, and everything will work. The proper place is the forum root. Do not upload the "upload" folder, but do upload everything that is inside the "upload" folder to the forum root.

[behcet]

Thank you.

[wipedout]

Would Love a 3.8 upgrade.

[Kiros72]

Alrighty, I checked with a friend that has vBulletin 3.8.1 installed. It works just like it should on vBulletin 3.8.

[gmerin]

Originally Posted by Kiros72

Alrighty, I checked with a friend that has vBulletin 3.8.1 installed. It works just like it should on vBulletin 3.8.

on my v.3.8.1 it makes the admincp and modcp blank. i have to disable it in order to be able to get to the admin panel again.

lemme edit this: i uninstalled and reinstalled and it's ok now.

[Kiros72]

Originally Posted by gmerin

on my v.3.8.1 it makes the admincp and modcp blank. i have to disable it in order to be able to get to the admin panel again.

Completely blank? Or do you mean that it won't let you login?

What other modifications do you have installed?

[Hornstar]

Hey what kind of information does Verbose Mode include?

Also I would love for the report to include the IP they accessed the account on, since I am finding it hard to link these 3 accounts together that the report showed. and so far I have not found any IP linking them together.

[Kiros72]

Verbose mode doesn't currently include the IP address information, but I'll include it in my next release. If you cannot find a match of the member's IP addresses, then it's likely that they're either using proxy servers or they have a dynamic IP address. In this case, all of their IP addresses would be different anyway. If they were caught by cookie, then you know that they're using the same computer.

[Hornstar]

I am not sure if this is a bug, but I noticed when searching for IPs my username is showing up on many of the accounts. and I am linking that IP back to the post that was made by this hack.