Administrative and Maintenance Tools - Duplicate IP Report by BOP5 (Checks for users sharing the same IP Addresses) VB3/VB4

Brought to you by BirdOPrey5
www.Qapla.com

Version 2.1.2 - Fixed MySQLi bug - Introduced GOLD/Premium Version
Version 2.1 - Added BBCode to Banned Users and Post Count Options, better debug info
Version 2.0 - Added report for Registration (User) IP Address Checking

Check out the GOLD Version for these additional features:

• Run reports directly from the Admin CP anytime you want
• Post daily report as a "New Post" into an existing thread rather than a "New Thread" each night
• Access to another Gold Mod- Recent Registration Check- will block spammers and scammers trying to register multiple accounts from the same IP address

This mod will run a nightly scan of your "post" and/or "user" table. It will report if it finds any users sharing the same IP address. You choose in the options how many days back you want to look. (Max of 5000 days, but please use more reasonable limits.)

If any "duplicate use" is found the IP addresses, usernames and optionally the posts themselves will be reported.

See a real report: Report Demo at Qapla.com

The report takes the form of a new thread posted to the forum of the Admin's choosing (A private forum for mods or admins is strongly recommended.)

There are options for whitelisting (ignoring) specific IP Addresses and/or userids so if you or your mods post as other users you can prevent that from being reported. If you use the Zoints Anonymous Posting mod you will want to put that userid on the whitelist else the report will out whoever posted "Anonymously."

NOTE: There are PERFECTLY valid reasons 2 or more users may share the same IP address. This report in and of itself is not proof of malicious activity. Users that connect by mobile devices, work in same offices, or go to the same schools for example would likely share the same IP address on some posts. So would too any users connecting from the same home or public Wi-Fi network.

As of version 2.0 there is a report for both the "post" and "user" table. The "user" table will find when 2 or more users register with the same IP address.

Tested and working on VB 3.8.7 and VB 4.1.12/4.2.0 and should work on all 3.7 / 3.8 / 4.x versions.

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Please "Mark as Installed" if you use this.
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[BirdOPrey5]

Originally Posted by Bubble #5

Is there a way to have it send an e-mail to the admin, instead of posting a thread?

Would be so much easier to manage, and would catch most peoples attention sooner.

An email option is a good suggestion I will try to add in a future version. The debate whether a post or email is better is just going to be personal preference. I like keeping records as posts since I have a forum for all sorts of automated reports- but I can certainly understand the desire to have it by email instead.

Originally Posted by iraqiboy90

Let's say;
- I have 200 users
- There are many duplicated IPs
- No more posts has been added or registration for a week.

then, does this mod create the same report 7 times?

ps. I have the gold version

In this respect the Gold and Free versions work the same.

Yes and no... The same posts will be re-reported if they are within the look back window of both reports, but each day that goes by the oldest duplicates will fall off the report. So if your post look back window is 7 days on the day 1 report you will see all duplicates in the last 7 days. But by day 4 you'll see only 3 days of duplicates as by your example there have been no duplicates for 4 days at that point.

Honestly... If you have all that many duplicates there's a problem... If your site is small then people are definitely using "Alter egos" - If you have a very busy site your look-back window would be a lot shorter, just because there are too many posts to query at once. So on a super busy forum I would image a look back window of only say 3 days instead of 7 or 30. A 3 day window means about 33% of the reports are new each night.

For example on my OT forum which has about 100 active members on any given day and maybe 300 unique members in a month, I do a post look-back of 7 days. After cleaning up all the initial multiple-accounts found by this mod, sometimes weeks go by with no duplicates reported- what is is just the occasional mobile users who wind up on the same IP.

Originally Posted by iraqiboy90

In other words; The same report 7 times....
Is there any option to exclude those numbers/IPs from showing on further reports if nothing new happens to them?

Whitelisting specific IPs or usernames are an option but no way to not show duplicates previously reported if they fall in the same look-back window.

I suppose you can edit the scheduled task to run once a week instead of every night, then set a look-back window of 7 days, so each time it runs it is completely fresh data that will only be reported once, but in that case you could go an entire week before being notified about a duplicate account.

[Bubble #5]

All of these reports are being moderated.

How do I stop them from being moderated?

Didn't see a setting...

[djbaxter]

Originally Posted by Bubble #5

All of these reports are being moderated.

How do I stop them from being moderated?

Didn't see a setting...

I have this installed on 4 forums. On one of them, I have the same problem - all posted reports are placed in moderation. I have checked, double-checked, and triple-checked all settings I can think of and I can't find anything different for the one with the moderated posts. Moreover, two of those forums are on the same server - one works without moderation; the other puts all reports into moderation.

I'm bewitched, baffled, and bewildered.

Even the add-ons in the two forums on the same server are largely the same. If anything, the one that works properly may have a few more add-ons.

Totally stumped.

[Bubble #5]

Sounds like a [S]bug[/S].... I mean, unspecified feature somewhere


It does drive me crazy how it fills the moderation section up, and the weird thing is that it doesn't do it everyday. Some days it posts like it should

[BirdOPrey5]

It is anti-spam software moderating posts, either a 3rd party mod or if you have an Anti-Spam Service enabled in options.

If a 3rd party mod you should be able to whitelist the user who makes the posts.

[djbaxter]

Originally Posted by BirdOPrey5

It is anti-spam software moderating posts, either a 3rd party mod or if you have an Anti-Spam Service enabled in options.

If a 3rd party mod you should be able to whitelist the user who makes the posts.

I am the user making the posts (and an Admin) but none of my other posts get moderated.

[BirdOPrey5]

It's possible it doesn't like the IP address saved for the post and basing moderation decision on that. If you search the PHP file for

127.0.0.1

You can replace it with any ip address you want, see if that helps. If it does I will make it a user option.

[Bubble #5]

Originally Posted by djbaxter

I am the user making the posts (and an Admin) but none of my other posts get moderated.

Same here djbaxter, which is how I first noticed the problem. It didn't make any sense that user ID 1 would be moderated I checked and I am using two spam mods; Spambot Stopper (https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...pambot+stopper) and Spam-o-Matic (https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...pambot+stopper). I have disabled Spambot Stopper to remove it from the equation, and when I looked through Spam-o-matic I did notice that it has a moderation feature, so I turned that off. I'll see if that helps.

[thunderclap82]

Any way to set this to check weekly? I looked in the scheduled tasks and it appears I can only do daily or monthly by choosing a specific date.

[BirdOPrey5]

There is a "Day of Week" option drop-down in the Scheduled Task editor.