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!

[BadgerDog]

Anyone have a fix for this error constantly appearing in our PHP Logs, generated by this mod?

[24-Dec-2011 13:21:08] PHP Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_VARIABLE in /usr/www/apache/forums/madp/prevention.php on line 308

Thanks ..

Regards,
Doug

[whiteduallyil]

Thought I would tell you guys that I have tested and this works great on 4.1.9 i love it on my forum that run 3.7.4 and had to try on my new forum and it works.

[NathanLedet]

This is working on our 4.x forum - however, I cannot change the name of the cookie away from IDstack. Anything other than that breaks it.

Once i put it back to IDstack, it worked fine.

[fortforum]

I´m very sad that the discussion on this mod has died. It´s very very good stuff, so please please make it live again.

[Alfa1]

This should be included to the stock software.

[fortforum]

Originally Posted by Alfa1

This should be included to the stock software.

For sure. I have tested about a hundred mods on different boards, and this one is just so good. I see people asking for evercookies, but i don?t think those are ethically sound. Who are we to put un-removable stuff on peoples machines?

More features are always welcome, but to me it?s good enough. I have tried to dodge it, and it is ofcourse possible, but it get?s most of them. Why hasn?t this one been up for MOTM? To me it?s a winner.

Very very nice to have on-board, and a big thanx to the Kieros72. Hopfully he will be out of he?s university misery by now. We love you man, please come back.

[Alan_SP]

Originally Posted by fortforum

For sure. I have tested about a hundred mods on different boards, and this one is just so good. I see people asking for evercookies, but i don?t think those are ethically sound. Who are we to put un-removable stuff on peoples machines?

Ethics also depends for what you use evercookies.

If you target people who are known trouble makers (and banned users usually are, at least on my forum) and keep making troubles for all users, why not weed them out with everycookies?

[Alfa1]

Yes, thats a good point.

If evercookies are only placed on the computers of banned members, then thats a good function to have.

It needs to be considered that technology is moving forward, more and more people have automatic cookie removal and use dynamic IPs. i.e. it becomes harder to keep banned members out. Even with this awesome addon.
So it would certainly be useful to add more detection methods.

[fortforum]

Originally Posted by Alan_SP

Ethics also depends for what you use evercookies.

If you target people who are known trouble makers (and banned users usually are, at least on my forum) and keep making troubles for all users, why not weed them out with everycookies?

I know. But hey, we are running discussion boards, not protecting the CIA db, right?

[DEGE]

I think that this standard version can be used by whoever wants and another version (with evercookies) can be released parallely for whoever (like me) wants it.

Everyone does what he/she feels right for his/her forum. No one is able to speak for the other since they should be in the other's shoes to do so. So, that said...

When is the evercookie version going to be released? Are you planning so? Do you need some help? Is anybody willing to help?

Regards everybody