Duplicate account detector?

Ingenious

Well-known member
I'm looking for a plugin that detects duplicate accounts (ie. by use of IP and cookies). I could have sworn there was one for Xenforo but I can't for the life of me find it in resources.

I used to have one running on vB and it was quite handy. I know it's not 100% effective but does throw up the odd member trying to do naughty things.

Can anyone help please?
 
The original creator said he stopped supporting the mod but allows others to continue the development for newer xenforo versions. Has somebody taken up this development challenge?
 
Extend in what way?
There are several ways to detect multiple accounts:
  1. IP addresses including IPv6, IPs used at browsing and posting
  2. cookies
  3. evercookie for banned users
  4. browser fingerprinting
  5. mac address through javascript
An IP address detection alone is not enough to be certain that the accounts are operated by the same user. There are other factors that a script can consider:
  1. similar usernames
  2. similar email address
  3. similar username of one account as the email address in another account
  4. similar DoB
  5. similar user profile fields
  6. same email domain
  7. similar contact details
  8. posts in same forums
  9. visits or posts to the same threads
  10. accounts give likes to each other
  11. accounts do not have conversations with each other
  12. one or more accounts have warnings / bans
  13. IP address is dedicated or not.
  14. Email address is active or not (if the site requires active email to post)
The outcome of the above calculation allows a script to define users that have a very high probability to be duplicate accounts.

When a duplicate account is found there are various actions that can be taken:
  1. alert staff
  2. merge accounts
  3. send warning
  4. ban accounts
  5. make account discouraged user
  6. disallow registration
  7. ban IP
  8. ban browser fingerprint
  9. give evercookie
  10. remove likes traded between the accounts
  11. assign the report to a moderator
  12. ignore the report
  13. ignore reports about the user forever
Or any combination of the above. We should be able to define how duplicate accounts are handled for various types of users.
Mind that there is a significant difference between a malicious duplicate account and a genuine user with a duplicate account.

With the vbulletin MAD addon the process was inaccurate and very labor intensive. Staff needed to review all reports, review accounts, contact users, warn, merge, close the report. I have many thousands of reports on my site, so thats an insane amount of work.

With the above functions its possible to automate the whole process.

I would love to see a complete solution for multiple accounts.
 
I would prefer automatic management is optional... as nothing beats a pair of eyes looking over things, or a simple PC to the users asking some questions to ascertain whether they're the same user or not.
Yes, you are right. There will always be instances where human eyes are necessary. Also for smaller boards its probably best to handle everything manually. For big boards its simply not possible and it would be optimal to automate all the obvious cases.

I will adapt the list above, so that it includes assigning a report to a moderator.
 
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