Suggestion: Multiaccount preventions system

[m4d]

Hi,
i recently saw a bit of drama around the HOTY contest so i'm here to suggest the way to block multiaccounts (and to prevent useless wars between moderators and hack creators)

1) Registration IP
- Limit the account per registration IP
- Add one "referral" field per account, in case of brothers (if they are not you already know who bans)

2) Blacklist throaway mails
You can blacklist the throwaway domains here is a pretty complete and maintained list -> https://github.com/ivolo/disposable-email-domains/blob/master/index.json

3) Limit the vote per number of messages and creation time
if you establish a minimum number of messages (eg. only users with >50 messages && subscribed from > 3 months can vote) you are sure that:
- Only active users are voting
- If someone uses tor or proxies to create new accounts you can detect them because they will probably spam to reach 50 messages

Note: this will be effective if you introduce all of the 3 suggestions, only one or two can still leave holes

Q: What if i lose my password account and for some strange reason i lose my email too?
A: Ask a moderator to deactivate your old account and create a new one.

 

[m4d]

Note2 : there is a bug in the system that blocks spammers from sending link: the limitation is applied to messages and edits, NOT topics, this results in me with 1 message (this is the second one) able to create a topic with 1 link inside but i can't edit it (to fix the title) because the edit will find the link and block it.

 

[Nihilego]

1) Registration IP
- Limit the account per registration IP
- Add one "referral" field per account, in case of brothers (if they are not you already know who bans)

We already IP ban people who abuse alt accounts, and... unfortunately so many people have dynamic IPs or use VPNs/proxies nowadays that they're quite easy to get around. I'm not sure how a referrals field would mitigate the issue of this blocking family members from registering - could you expand a bit on that?

2) Blacklist throaway mails
You can blacklist the throwaway domains here is a pretty complete and maintained list -> https://github.com/ivolo/disposable-email-domains/blob/master/index.json

We already have a fairly extensive list of blocked throwaway email servers. However, it may not have been updated in a little while so we'll take a look at updating it using the link you provided - thanks for that.

3) Limit the vote per number of messages and creation time
if you establish a minimum number of messages (eg. only users with >50 messages && subscribed from > 3 months can vote) you are sure that:
- Only active users are voting
- If someone uses tor or proxies to create new accounts you can detect them because they will probably spam to reach 50 messages

I can't say I like this. On one hand, yes, this would block the same people from voting over and over again; on the other hand, I believe that anyone who has (for example) enjoyed a hack produced on PC should be able to have their say on it without contributing extensively to the community beforehand. A tiny limit, like the 5 posts needed to post links, might be a bit more reasonable.

Q: What if i lose my password account and for some strange reason i lose my email too?
A: Ask a moderator to deactivate your old account and create a new one.

The administrators already have ways of handling this.

Note2 : there is a bug in the system that blocks spammers from sending link: the limitation is applied to messages and edits, NOT topics, this results in me with 1 message (this is the second one) able to create a topic with 1 link inside but i can't edit it (to fix the title) because the edit will find the link and block it.

Interesting. Thanks for letting us know.

 

[m4d]

We already IP ban people who abuse alt accounts, and... unfortunately so many people have dynamic IPs or use VPNs/proxies nowadays that they're quite easy to get around. I'm not sure how a referrals field would mitigate the issue of this blocking family members from registering - could you expand a bit on that?

Sure, A register to the forum with IP xxx.xx.xxx.xxx the only way to create another account with this IP (keeping the already registered one active) is to "link" the 2 account with a ref on the first account. In this way in case one of those IPs has a bad attitude (like is not really a brother but just a guy with 14142421 accounts linked to one to mass-spam or mass-vote you can just ban at cascade and remove all the people linked to the first profile)

In this way you already got rid of who is not able to change IP with proxies of VPNs

I can't say I like this. On one hand, yes, this would block the same people from voting over and over again; on the other hand, I believe that anyone who has (for example) enjoyed a hack produced on PC should be able to have their say on it without contributing extensively to the community beforehand. A tiny limit, like the 5 posts needed to post links, might be a bit more reasonable.

50 is of course just a placeholder what i can suggest is something around 10 and 20 just to be sure, make 5 comments is way too easy