Tracking user IP addresses for duplicate accounts
Hi again! Another challenge I have is on one site, users keep signing up multiple times with more than one account. That's a problem, as multiple accounts is against our site's TOS since we frequently have votes that are one-vote-per-account. Our legacy system that we killed when we moved to Drupal had built-in IP logging every time a user logged in, so we could go in and check IP addresses in case we suspected a duplicate user. We could also see the IP address someone signed up from, and match that against any recently logged IPs. Does anyone know of a similar tool for Drupal, or is this another module I'm going to have to write myself? :-) -- Larry Garfield AIM: LOLG42 larry@garfieldtech.com ICQ: 6817012 "If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it." -- Thomas Jefferson
Larry Garfield schrieb:
Hi again!
Hello,
Another challenge I have is on one site, users keep signing up multiple times with more than one account. That's a problem, as multiple accounts is against our site's TOS since we frequently have votes that are one-vote-per-account. Our legacy system that we killed when we moved to Drupal had built-in IP logging every time a user logged in, so we could go in and check IP addresses in case we suspected a duplicate user. We could also see the IP address someone signed up from, and match that against any recently logged IPs.
Does anyone know of a similar tool for Drupal, or is this another module I'm going to have to write myself? :-)
Sorry, no technical answer, just some thoughts on this one. That would mean, that people voting from their office or from their home with many people behind one IP-Address (Home-Routers are really cheap these days). That would not mean one vote per account, but one vote per company or per home. Since this really isn't unusual it's the question if you really want it that way. Just my thoughts, Robert Giebel
On Thursday 13 March 2008, bobman wrote:
Does anyone know of a similar tool for Drupal, or is this another module I'm going to have to write myself? :-)
Sorry, no technical answer, just some thoughts on this one. That would mean, that people voting from their office or from their home with many people behind one IP-Address (Home-Routers are really cheap these days). That would not mean one vote per account, but one vote per company or per home. Since this really isn't unusual it's the question if you really want it that way.
Just my thoughts, Robert Giebel
Yes, that's an issue, which is why we enforce it manually. It's imperfect, but it's been reasonably reliable in the past. We rarely have multiple members from the same company; if two users have the same IP routinely, 95% of the time they live together and will confirm that when we ask them. -- Larry Garfield AIM: LOLG42 larry@garfieldtech.com ICQ: 6817012 "If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it." -- Thomas Jefferson
On Thu, 13 Mar 2008 04:02:01 -0500 Larry Garfield <larry@garfieldtech.com> wrote:
Hi again!
Another challenge I have is on one site, users keep signing up multiple times with more than one account. That's a problem, as multiple accounts is against our site's TOS since we frequently have votes that are one-vote-per-account. Our legacy system that we killed when we moved to Drupal had built-in IP logging every time a user logged in, so we could go in and check IP addresses in case we suspected a duplicate user. We could also see the IP address someone signed up from, and match that against any recently logged IPs.
Aren't most of those things logged by the stat module already? If you don't need to prevent creation of new account upfront it'd be easy to build up a query to get a list of suspects from what's already logged. -- Ivan Sergio Borgonovo http://www.webthatworks.it
On Thu, Mar 13, 2008 at 6:02 AM, Larry Garfield <larry@garfieldtech.com> wrote:
Another challenge I have is on one site, users keep signing up multiple times with more than one account. That's a problem, as multiple accounts is against our site's TOS since we frequently have votes that are one-vote-per-account. Our legacy system that we killed when we moved to Drupal had built-in IP logging every time a user logged in, so we could go in and check IP addresses in case we suspected a duplicate user. We could also see the IP address someone signed up from, and match that against any recently logged IPs.
A related but different tool is the single login - http://drupal.org/project/single_login but, I don't think it does exactly what you need :(
Does anyone know of a similar tool for Drupal, or is this another module I'm going to have to write myself? :-)
I think that's the case that you'll have to write it. You probably know, but in some cases there are whole companies, ISPs, and even countries behind a single IP. I guess that your audience is focused enough that you won't worry about that, but it should be a "Note:" in the README of any module like this. Regards, Greg -- Greg Knaddison Denver, CO | http://knaddison.com World Spanish Tour | http://wanderlusting.org/user/greg
Quoting Larry Garfield <larry@garfieldtech.com>:
Hi again!
Another challenge I have is on one site, users keep signing up multiple times with more than one account. That's a problem, as multiple accounts is against our site's TOS since we frequently have votes that are one-vote-per-account. Our legacy system that we killed when we moved to Drupal had built-in IP logging every time a user logged in, so we could go in and check IP addresses in case we suspected a duplicate user. We could also see the IP address someone signed up from, and match that against any recently logged IPs.
Does anyone know of a similar tool for Drupal, or is this another module I'm going to have to write myself? :-)
I'm going to suggest you do a browser search looking for ``ip address'' at http://drupal.org/project/Modules/name. There are many interesting hits that you may want to employ; including http://drupal.org/project/restrict_by_ip. Earnie -- http://for-my-kids.com/ -- http://give-me-an-offer.com/
participants (5)
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bobman -
Earnie Boyd -
Greg Knaddison - GVS -
Ivan Sergio Borgonovo -
Larry Garfield