Administrative and Maintenance Tools - Moderate New Registrations Based On IP Geographical Origin

This mod will put any new registration into moderation so you can either approve or deny based on the physical location of the IP address. If the IP is located in a country that you white list, the registration will go through as normal.

This may be different for everyone else, but on my forums, I have yet to have a Russian IP sign up for anything other than posting SPAM. This plugin has moderated them all!

I hope to have time to eventually expand this to do other things. This works with 4.0.x.

You MUST download the zone files from this site:

http://www.ipdeny.com/ipblocks/

The free license does not allow me to include them with the product, plus it is better to download the latest files anyway.

No real screenshots to show here, sorry.

Changelog:

12/20/2008

• Coded the routine in, instead of using external whois program.
• Now compatible with Windows
• (39 download of 1.0)

2/11/2009

• 77 downloads at this point
• Rewrote application to use zone files rather than relying on Arin

To upgrade, READ THE README, and re-install product (select overwrite).

Don't forget to:

CLICK INSTALL!

[Jafo232]

If you can find the program called "whois" for windows, then this might work with it.

[BiZiMDiYaR]

Originally Posted by meissenation

If you analyze their IP address they will probably be from Russia or Turkey since it seems like most of the problems of the internet derives from over there. While not as effective, if you use a website like whatsmyipaddress.com and enter the IP address into the search box it will tell you an approximation of where the IP originates from.

In any case, sounds like a great idea but since I have Windows Server 2003 so it's no good for me.

Dear Sir,

I don't expect that you read this... but I still need to tell you this... TAKE care on your comments !!! If you call my family scum, that same to you and your familiy is scum for me also, take a look there and do NEVER ever make such remark again to catogorize a whole country, due to some persons. !

MODS, how to accept such comment ?? Doesn't anybody look ??? I hope his comment will be deleted very soon and edit mine pls !

Thanks.

[Jafo232]

Originally Posted by BiZiMDiYaR

Dear Sir,

I don't expect that you read this... but I still need to tell you this... TAKE care on your comments !!! If you call my family scum, that same to you and your familiy is scum for me also, take a look there and do NEVER ever make such remark again to catogorize a whole country, due to some persons. !

MODS, how to accept such comment ?? Doesn't anybody look ??? I hope his comment will be deleted very soon and edit mine pls !

Thanks.

No offense BiZiMDiYaR, but most of the SPAMMERS do come from those regions, and SPAMMERS are scum. If that offends you, then perhaps your country should take harsher steps against these people.

Meissenation did not say ALL people from these places are scum but:

If you analyze their IP address they will probably be from Russia or Turkey since it seems like most of the scum of the internet derives from over there

At least when a UK or US spammer is found, their ISP shuts them off, their Governments go after them, and they are hunted like dogs. In Russia and Turkey, nothing happens to them. This is a fact.

The reason I made this mod was not to start some international incident, but to try and shut out these idiot spammers in any way I can. Is that offensive? Surely not nearly as offensive as waking up in the morning and checking your FAMILY ORIENTATED forum to find that some Russian IP posted about 30 threads all containing XXX rated pornography. If it was up to me, the Internet should be cut off from these places until their Governments can at least make an attempt at policing its use.

[Jafo232]

Ok, I broke down and made a Windows compatible version. Should work on all platforms now for that matter..

[Marco van Herwaarden]

People please cool off. Unless your family are spammers (or other unwanted internet activity), then nobody insulted your family our your fellow countrymen.

Only thing that has been posted is the observation that a lot of "scum" on the internet originates from IP addreses in those countries.

Edit: In order to avoid misinterpretations we have changed the word "scum" to "problems". This should still leave the original mesage meaning the same, but avoiding words that might be understood in the wrong way.

[meissenation]

Originally Posted by BiZiMDiYaR

Dear Sir,

I don't expect that you read this... but I still need to tell you this... TAKE care on your comments !!! If you call my family scum, that same to you and your familiy is scum for me also, take a look there and do NEVER ever make such remark again to catogorize a whole country, due to some persons. !

MODS, how to accept such comment ?? Doesn't anybody look ??? I hope his comment will be deleted very soon and edit mine pls !

Thanks.

I apologize if you were offended by the statement as it shouldn't be offensive to anyone that isn't a spammer or hacker. My site, as well as many car-oriented websites, have been attacked a handful of times by the "Turkish Hacking Ring" and I forever will be turned off to the entire country thanks to the work of a handful of people.

Originally Posted by Jafo232

No offense BiZiMDiYaR, but most of the SPAMMERS do come from those regions, and SPAMMERS are scum. If that offends you, then perhaps your country should take harsher steps against these people.

Meissenation did not say ALL people from these places are scum but:



At least when a UK or US spammer is found, their ISP shuts them off, their Governments go after them, and they are hunted like dogs. In Russia and Turkey, nothing happens to them. This is a fact.

The reason I made this mod was not to start some international incident, but to try and shut out these idiot spammers in any way I can. Is that offensive? Surely not nearly as offensive as waking up in the morning and checking your FAMILY ORIENTATED forum to find that some Russian IP posted about 30 threads all containing XXX rated pornography. If it was up to me, the Internet should be cut off from these places until their Governments can at least make an attempt at policing its use.

That was the only point I was intending to make.

Originally Posted by Jafo232

Ok, I broke down and made a Windows compatible version. Should work on all platforms now for that matter..

THANK YOU SIR!!!!!

I understand Linux can be made much more secure, but it's much easier for me to fix a Windows box than a box with an OS I'm just not familiar with.

[Jafo232]

Originally Posted by meissenation

THANK YOU SIR!!!!!

I understand Linux can be made much more secure, but it's much easier for me to fix a Windows box than a box with an OS I'm just not familiar with.

Not a problem. You know how I learned Linux? I had an old PC laying around like many of us do and I installed a flavor of Linux on it. Linux is great for older machines! I then put it on my network and just tinkered. Next thing you know, I became a Linux nut when it comes to servers. I still use XP for my desktop though.. Much easier lol..

[Jim O]

Very helpful mod. For me, however, it's more helpful to create a simple list of excluded countries as I have an international membership. Most of my spammers seem to originate in Nigeria and China, with a few from Bulgaria and Russia. It's hard to eliminate Russia as I have a number of legitimate Russian users as this is a World War II site and the Soviet Union was a major combatant. In fact a very large part of my site deals with the war on the eastern front.

I've modified the code to disallow users from specified countries. It hasn't been fully tested as I haven't had any registrations yet from those countries but the changes are fairly simple and I suspect that it will work as intended. I'd be happy to share it with the developer's permission.

[Jafo232]

Originally Posted by Jim O

I've modified the code to disallow users from specified countries. It hasn't been fully tested as I haven't had any registrations yet from those countries but the changes are fairly simple and I suspect that it will work as intended. I'd be happy to share it with the developer's permission.

Not a bad idea, I think I will add it to the next version if I get time. To do it in the code, simply find this line in whois.php:

if (!in_array($country, $valid_countries)) { $userdata->set('usergroupid', 4); }

Change to:

if (in_array($country, $valid_countries)) { $userdata->set('usergroupid', 4); }

Now your include list becomes and exclude list.

Cheers.

[Jim O]

Yeah that's the basic change. I also prettied up the phrases and changed the variable "valid_countries" to "excluded_countries" just to make the code easier to understand.

Thanks again for the mod. It definitely should help.