Administrative and Maintenance Tools - Multiple account login detector (AE Detector)

Mod of the Month winner!
Top 10 most installed mods for vB3.6!

Same plug-in found here:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=107566

There are no differences as this plug-in works with both 3.5 and 3.6 versions of vBulletin.

If you are like me and migrated from .threads, a common modification was an "AE detector", a simple mod that saved a cookie of a history of ids logged into on your site. If someone logged into more than one account, you got a PM letting you know that your site was being accessed from multiple accounts.

Over the years this was very helpful in identifying users who were posting under multiple accounts (alter-egos!) and users who would return after being banned.

You might be wondering why I don't use the vbcookie call - well, thats because on logout all vB cookies are cleared, so we need to store a cookie that is not effected by the login/logout process.

New Installation
1. Add New Product with attached XML
2. Go to vBulletin Options -> AE Multiple Login Detection Settings and set your specific settings.

Time to install: Easy - 2 minutes.

Upgrade
If you installed this as a Plug-in manually, you can delete that plugin and install this Product, just make sure to go into the Options and set them accordingly.

I hope you find this useful and will click INSTALL if you use it; should it prove useful to enough people I can look at making this installation more automated without the need for edits and an Admin Options page.

To upgrade you will want to reimport this XML file and edit your options accordingly.

1.0.3
-----
. Added a check to ensure that users weren't deleted when reporting violations
. added htmlspecialchars_uni call to username

Note: I am unable to get the call to construct_phrase with $vbphrase['multiplelogin_alert'] to work reliably, as such the $message variable is still set manually inside the plug-in and not via the phrase. If anyone has an idea of why this might not always work, I'm all ears.

1.0.2
-----
. Updated to include exclusion groups, users
. Changed so PM is sent by ae sender id

1.0.1
-----
. Released as a Product (thank you PHPGeek2k3 for your help)
. Added option to post to a forum versus send a PM (or both)
. All settings moved into Admin Option

1.0.0
-----
Initial release.

[mfyvie]

Originally Posted by Bravo2007

do you have a beta for this that can be used?
looks awesome nice job so far

I understand that people will be very keen to get their hands on it. However, I have to make sure that everything runs properly on my system first, so I am taking extra care with this. If something doesn't work as designed it has the potential not just to alert the wrong users, but to wipe out or invalidate the existing cookie data that users of the existing version have been using.

Therefore I'm not prepared to let it out in the wild for a beta just yet until I have finished the few extra things I want to put into the backend. When it's just a matter of putting the front end on, then I'll probably let a few people who are willing to test use a beta.

I'll announce that on this thread when it is appropriate, but unfortunately I can't give a time for that at this stage :-(

[mfyvie]

Originally Posted by nocte

Imagine this situation (we accutally have this issue):

There?s a Club with a public internet terminal. Many forum users log in there.

The Club?s owner has an account too as well as many more fake accounts to promote his club.

Sometimes the owner uses his own PC ? so we can be quite sure that in that case all multiple accounts are fake accounts.

Sometimes the owner uses the public PC ? in that case we can?t distinguish between normal users and the owner?s fake accounts.

So let?s imagine the owner clears the browser cache on his private computer and logs in again with several of his accounts. In this case we have to wait and watch again for a while till we can guess whether he?s using the public or the private PC (in other words: if we can ban all multiple accounts or if there may be normal users among them)

Did I make myself clear? When public computers are involved it may be very comfortable to have system data as well.

OK, I can see your point here. Problems like that are very hard to track down. Having the IP address or extra information about the PC might not help in a case like that - they might be identical installations. One thing you might like is the logging feature, if the accounts are being created or used in quick succession this is much easier to spot in a log than by searching for and examining the profiles of individual users.

I've extended a few extra things based on suggestions. IP address first on cookie and last on cookie is now reported, as well as each individual first / last IP for a user on a given cookie. The browser user agent string is stored and reported, as well as the list of accepted languages from that browser. Screen resolution is a little harder to capture and requires the use of javascript. I don't really want to go down that road at this stage just for that information.

[nocte]

I've extended a few extra things based on suggestions. IP address first on cookie and last on cookie is now reported, as well as each individual first / last IP for a user on a given cookie. The browser user agent string is stored and reported, as well as the list of accepted languages from that browser.

thank you

[gim]

Very good!

[mfyvie]

Version 2.0 now ready for beta

Those of you who have expressed interest in beta testing the latest version I have been talking about will be pleased to know that it is ready for beta testing.

At this point only the "back end" is complete. But since the original version of this mod was only the back end, I can't see that anyone is going to complain because all the front end functions aren't complete!

If you would like to apply to become a beta tester the following conditions apply:

• Be able to read and follow instructions
• Upgrade to newer versions promptly if I send you an update
• Be willing to give feedback about the mod
• You should have a forum which gets quite busy. The busier and bigger the forum, the better this mod will be tested!
• Be willing to tinker around with the various settings, cross-reference the log files and generally investigate what is going on. If you love catching out lying users as much as I do, you are going to have fun with this mod

You can apply to become a beta tester by sending me an email (not a PM) via the send email function in my profile. That will be the first test of whether you can follow instructions, if you don't send an email, you failed that test .

I will then send you the file (it is still a single .xml file) and communication with the other beta testers will then be done by way of traditional email, since we don't need to clutter up this thread with the details.

Just to make something clear: Version 2.0 of this mod will be released separately. The original concept and a small amount of code from mpdev's original version have been used. I sought permission from him to redevelop and release this new version before I wrote a single line of code, and I reaffirmed that arrangement a few days ago just to be sure that I had his blessing.

Beta testers who will be upgrading from the original version will be happy to know that all the existing cookies out there (which I have named legacy cookies) will be imported and re-issued into the new format. This means that all that data you are currently tracking out there will not be lost!

I expect this beta test to last for about one month. Once I have enough testers I will not accept any more applications. I will update this thread when that happens.

[Fungsten]

You can apply to become a beta tester by sending me an email (not a PM) via the send email function in my profile. That will be the first test of whether you can follow instructions, if you don't send an email, you failed that test .

First bug. You are not accepting emails through your Profile.

[mfyvie]

Originally Posted by Fungsten

First bug. You are not accepting emails through your Profile.

That's very strange, I just checked and my settings definitely allow email from other members! If for some reason it doesn't work then send me a PM with your email address.

[oicyu8chu]

Very useful. Appreciate this.

Choo

[NeitherSparky]

I won't volunteer for beta testing because I don't think I could get results back to you quickly, as I only get one to maybe five or six new registrants per day and of course most of them are not registering a second account. But I wish you luck, because I want this mod when it is released to the rest of us. :up:

[Ceege]

Any update on this?