How Do You Keep Banned Members Banned?

[420]

1) When we ban normally it says "ban by IP" yet people just take out new accounts and come back with the same IP. Are we missing something in the method or is there anything we can do with the package we have - something we're missing?

2) Even when we ban by IP using the matrix table we occasionally see someone get back in with a new user name and it's shows up on the search by IP as the same IP of the matrix banned number.

3) Are there flags or alarms we could use to alert us when certain IP addresses come back?

4) Can we ban proxy IP automatically - some sort of proxy IP detection?

5) Are their third party add-ons or stand alone software available, more effective in handling this sort of continual problem?

Thanks for your valuable time and energy.

[Speysider]

1) They are probably logging out of the forum to create new accounts. I would suggest this hack to prevent them doing this: No Logout for Banned Users

3) There is a duplicate account detector that uses cookies, but I'm not sure you can detect duplicate accounts using IP's with it.

4) Don't bother trying to ban proxy IP's.

5) If you keep getting banned members making new accounts, then they are evading your ban, so all you can do is keep banning the accounts, or report them to their ISP.

I wouldn't really bother with IP Bans anymore. People can just get new IP's by disconnecting their router and restarting it after 10 seconds and get a new IP.

[420]

I really appreciate your reply - thanks so much.

So essentially, if someone is savvy enough to unplug their router and clear their cache & cookies, there's not really a way to keep them out?

How do others deal with this problem? We try to be kind and give warnings an explain the reasons but sometimes feel an anonymous power from behind their computer.

What other tactics do people use to minimize this disruption - if banning technologies isn't the answer?

[Speysider]

Yep, just by disconnecting your router, waiting 15 seconds and plugging it in again just clears their IP ban with a new IP.

I use Logician's Hellban hack. However, you will have to PM him on theadminzone.com, that's how I got it. I usually just use bans (permanent bans) and anyone I have banned doesn't come back until the ban expires.

If you still can't keep out dupe accounts, then find out the ISP of the user and contact the ISP about it.

[mahz]

Speysider's mod is too easy to get around because the intuition of how to get around it is directly built in to get around it.

I also don't recommend banning by IP. Not in 2010. It's a waste of time.

I recommend https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=207966 or any variation of it.

Upon registration, vBulletin will search for all the users who have used the IP that the current person registering is currently using.
It will then check if any of those users are in the BANNED usergroup.

If there are no user matches, or if no user matches are in the banned group then the plugin will continue to check for set cookies which belong to banned users.

Works great because it's a more covert way to keep track of ban evaders. I have it make a new thread in a Moderator-only "Ban Evaders" subforum when it detects an evader.