Multiple account login detector (AE Detector)

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

1.0.1
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. 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
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Initial release.

[VBUsers]

does this work on 3.6 and if so what do i have to do?

[Neo_obs]

Originally Posted by bashy

testing with your own accounts will give you positive as its cookie based!!!


I have not had any issues with regards to any fales readings from this, i have used it pretty much from the start

The problem is I was on different computers and it still detected me being on the same computer. I run a school computer lab and we have 25 computers I created 25 accounts each on seperate computers. I hate to tell you but it does create false positives.

I would like to know how you can delete or flush the database either entirely or individually for each user.

[cyclical]

Originally Posted by MPDev

It only looks at userids as usernames can change; but generally speaking userids never change unless they are logging into other accounts.

I found another 2 false positives today...

I know for damn sure that people involved have never logged in from the same computer. They live about 70 miles away from each other.

UserIds don't change, but in my case they did because I had to re-install the forums and everyone had to re-register. (new user id's)..

[MPDev]

UserIds don't change, but in my case they did because I had to re-install the forums and everyone had to re-register. (new user id's)..

Well, if your userids changed; then you'll get reports but that is an exception based on problems with your site, not our plug-in.

I would like to know how you can delete or flush the database either entirely or individually for each user.

There is no database to flush and there is no way to create cookies on seperate computers.

does this work on 3.6 and if so what do i have to do?

I guess this has to be repated on every page; yes, it works on 3.6.

[PHPGeek2k3]

i have a possible solution to fix the problem with changing user-id's for those with that one exception.

I will code this out and send the possible code fixes to MPDev and see what he has to say.

Thanks
- James

[Thomas P]

Hello,

I'm a bit concerned about the server load on heavy trafficed forums with many, many people having duplicate accounts.

Does the thread creation process eat CPU?

When are the threads created exactly?

Thanks,
-Tom

BTW: Great hack, really deserves the MotM price

[PHPGeek2k3]

Originally Posted by Thomas P

Hello,

I'm a bit concerned about the server load on heavy trafficed forums with many, many people having duplicate accounts.

Does the thread creation process eat CPU?

When are the threads created exactly?

Thanks,
-Tom

BTW: Great hack, really deserves the MotM price

This hack only checks upon user logging into the forum. this should not affect your server load.

Thanks
- James

[Thomas P]

The hack's checks a cookie.

If it detects a duplicate account a thread is being created - this means more queries = more server load, depending on how many duplicate accounts are logging in during peak times.

So the question is: How many queries does the hack add to our forum on top of the others?

[MPDev]

No queries are performed unless a user is tripping the detector and then only those that normally account for adding a new post anywhere else in your forum.

[Thomas P]

Ok, thanks for the info


We have it online now and it is working very good.

Thanks, great job,
-Tom