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!

[Kiros72]

If you want to use the IP Address Prevention, then you can also make use of the Ignored ISPs field. By default, "aol.com" is already there. Basically, anyone's IP address that resolves to being from AOL will be ignored from the IP address checks.

You can add or remove ISPs in the Ignored ISPs section if you want, but I strongly recommend keeping "aol.com" in there.

[Kiros72]

Hey, everyone. I need to make a small announcement.

Due to some personal issues, I cannot work on this modification as much as I intended - at least for the next week or two. I was planning to have version 2.0.0 finished up within the next 3 or 4 days, but I'm going to have to postpone this.

Sorry about the inconvenience. Version 1.1.1 will still be supported.

[tmc]

I'm wondering if this will still work with the old cookies from the mods that inspired this? I've been using the AE detector + MAD but I'm having a few issues and have looked through this code and I don't detect any problems with the IDstack cookie not being compatible. Thought I'd ask though.

Also, small bug, although it won't matter anyway:

$pmdm->set_info('reciept', false);

... has a typo. It's set to 'false' so I guess it doesn't matter much.

[Kiros72]

Yes, this will work perfectly fine with the old cookie. Just make sure to keep the Cookie Name set to "IDstack" (without quotes).

Heh, I wouldn't really call that a bug since it doesn't affect anything. But thank you for finding that typo! I'll fix it up in the next version.

[vithorius]

Sweet hack...! :up: :up: :up:

[glennybee]

Hi,

I installed this mod yesterday, thank you!

The threads that are being generated that inform me of a detection aren't displaying any information.

Attachment 93314

This is my settings.

Registration Prevention - Move to Specific Usergroup
Silent Mode - No
Ignore Child Accounts - Yes
Prevention Usergroup - 4
IP Address Prevention - Yes
Extended IP Address Prevention - Yes
IP Address Time Inclusion - 60
Banned Account Check - Yes

Attachment 93315

I was using the AE Detector before and worked ok but I want something that will check new members against previously banned members.

Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks!

[Kiros72]

That's strange. I've encountered this before while I was in the beta stages of coding version 1.1.0. I can't exactly remember the exact cause of it, but I know that this can also happen because of phrasing errors.

Do you still have the AE Detector installed?
Do you have a good bit of modifications installed?
What version of vBulletin are you using?
Do you know if this only happens for logins or for registration preventions?

You might want to try fiddling with the reporting options. For instance, disable verbose mode and enable private message reporting (also set your username for the recipient).

[digicom]

i have had this installed since it was released and was working fine until today and now i having same issues as glennybee The threads that are being generated that inform me of a detection aren't displaying any information

glennybee;1722109]Hi,

I installed this mod yesterday, thank you!

The threads that are being generated that inform me of a detection aren't displaying any information.

[Kiros72]

Hmm... I'm sorry to hear that.

I know that version 1.1.0 is working fine on my vBulletin 3.8.0 RC 2 installation.

I'll look into version 1.1.1 a little later today. In the meantime, try to uninstall/reinstall or at least try it with verbose mode disabled.

[glennybee]

I'm using v3.8. I suppose I do have a lot of mods but it's not extensive.

I did have AE Detector but I uninstalled it before installing this mod.

I disabled prevention and I am still getting blank reports and members are being moved to the moderated usergroup.