Member keeps joining under alternate names

[kpatch]

Forum URL: myhourglass.proboards.com/

There's a "member" who has been joining under multiple names for a couple years. I can tell by the IP and location (172.xxx.xxx and Minnesota), and the fact she doesn't vary the name all that much until recently. I ban the global IP each time (I check all three ban boxes) but it doesn't help.

Any ideas? Thank you.

[🎶Sossity🎶]

Mar 23, 2024 17:00:17 GMT -8 kpatch said:

Forum URL: myhourglass.proboards.com/

There's a "member" who has been joining under multiple names for a couple years. I can tell by the IP and location (172.xxx.xxx and Minnesota), and the fact she doesn't vary the name all that much until recently. I ban the global IP each time (I check all three ban boxes) but it doesn't help.

Any ideas? Thank you.

Hi
There some restrictions you can invoke. They are listed in the link, below. But, sounds like Approving / Denying New Members - Restricted Registration might be the option for you. 

support.proboards.com/thread/660597/managing-membership-registration-options

[Kami]

As an added layer of protection, in case they decide to switch things up name-wise or move and get a new IP or something, you can also create a member group and set that member group to be automatically assigned to new members. You can then set it so that group is excluded from being able to post anywhere but a specific board so you can basically put them in quarantine just until they can prove they're legit.

[kpatch]

I'm just weary of servicing this person who thinks it's fun to keep joining under different user names. I actually do have the forum set so that I have to approve registrations but that doesn't at all address my issue. The issue is if I'm banning the global ID, how do they keep joining?

[Kami]

Mar 24, 2024 6:33:39 GMT -8 kpatch said:

I'm just weary of servicing this person who thinks it's fun to keep joining under different user names. I actually do have the forum set so that I have to approve registrations but that doesn't at all address my issue. The issue is if I'm banning the global ID, how do they keep joining?

The global ID is simply the email they used to register the account with ProBoards as a whole. In a normal circumstance, when you first create an account on any PB-hosted forum, a global ID is generated using the email address you provided for that account. Joining other forums, or creating multiple accounts on the same forum, are then added to the global ID like keys on a keychain, provided you use the same email when registering the additional accounts

That does, unfortunately, mean that a new email = another opportunity to create an account.

If you're banning by all three available options (IP, username, global ID), then basically this person is very dedicated to rejoining your forum because they are changing their IP and creating a new email every single time.

The bad news is, while many strides have been made over the years regarding personal use of the internet, and many advances in what type of things you can do with an internet connection, there is a limit to how much we (as in, The People On The Internet) can do when it comes to preventing people from being pests. Email addresses and IP addresses are the strongest level of ban that is possible across the whole of the internet, barring a hardware ban (which cannot be done unless the user consents to downloading a software that does this, which wouldn't fly for basic access to a website by a majority of users). If you have a problematic user that is even minorly internet-savvy that understands that, then it becomes a battle of who will give up first: the pest or the person trying to get rid of it.

Case in point: according to the news a popular adult entertainment website recently decided to ban a particular, specific state to protest some legislation recently passed there. Anyone that access this website with their location being that state (gleaned by the info associated with their IP address) is blocked and instead sees a notice explaining why.

Even so, a tech savvy individual who understands how IP addresses work would be able to circumvent this block with fairly little effort (which the company knows but basically is hoping is annoying enough to get people to vote for certain things). If a large corporation that is many times larger than PB with much, much more revenue to invest in solutions is stuck with banning people by (a very wide) IP address ban for their needs, there's really not much else that can be done.

This is why PB provides additional options that can be enabled in the event that a problematic user or users is able to bypass the first gate of protection, to help you quickly weed out the user(s) and mitigate any content they might make.

Sorry this is a bit lengthy, but if you've stuck with me here are a few tips moving forward in addition to the ones already suggested:

- if you notice that this user's IP addresses start with the same numbers except the last few, you can use a wildcard ban to ban a broader range of IPs: eg if only the last 2 numbers change, like xx.xxx.x.ab, then banning xx.xxx.x.* with an asterisk standing in for the last two numbers will ban ALL addresses beginning with xx.xxx.x. You can place the asterisk anywhere you'd like, leaving off any of the numbers that normally follow (eg xx.*) but the higher the wildcard, the greater chance of blocking entire regions / legitimate users.

- you mentioned they use very similar usernames; if you notice a pattern, you can add the part of the name that is consistent to your "reserved names" list and no account will be able to be created with that set of characters in that specific order in any part of their username (eg if they do alice1, alice2, then you can reserve "alice"; if they do xx00pat123, 123patxx00, then you can reserve "pat"). the caveat again is that the smaller and more generic the repeated part is, the more likely you prevent someone legitimate from joining with their preferred username which is sometimes enough for people to decide not to join a forum.

I am sorry that I can't provide an easier, sure-fire way to get rid of someone that is clearly very intent on being as annoying as possible, but sadly the ways people can circumvent bans have outpaced the growth of solutions to that.

[kpatch]

Thanks for taking the time to explain Kami .

This is what I did in terms of banning an IP. Does it look right?

[Kami]

Mar 24, 2024 14:10:25 GMT -8 kpatch said:

Thanks for taking the time to explain Kami .

This is what I did in terms of banning an IP. Does it look right?

View Attachment

So if you wildcard an IP, depending on where you put the asterisk, everything is encompassed in that.

So for instance you have

172.56.13.*
172.56.*

But the second one is a higher level than the first, so it will include ALL numbers after 56 and make the first ban redundant.

To be clear, the asterisk is effectively a number replacer — if you have 56.13.* then only IPs that differ AFTER 13. will be banned, and if you have 56.* then IPs that differ AFTER 56. will be banned (which includes 13, and any number after 13).

I will say that banning that high up runs a strong risk of banning people in a large area, not just your pesky troll, as the number set prior to the very last set (in this case whatever comes after 13) identify the service network, not necessarily an individual user. If that's acceptable to you, then have at it! Just want to make sure the tradeoff of wildcard bans was communicated.

My 0.02, take or leave it as you will: if you haven't wildcard banned them before, then start of with the absolute lowest level of wildcard possible, replace as few numbers as you can ideally pleasing the asterisk after the last dot to replace those numbers. That is usually enough to make it more difficult to swap around IPs. If that doesn't work, or stops working after a time, bump it up one level (replacing the original wildcard), repeat as necessary tho hopefully you won't have to adjust it more than twice at the most.

[kpatch]

Thanks Kami. I went for the higher level because she already registered with the lower level IP banned. So it's an experiment I guess. And not irreversible, right? I can leave it as is for a while and see if it's successful.

Thank you for taking the time to explain my options. Great advice.

[Kami]

Mar 24, 2024 16:42:27 GMT -8 kpatch said:

Thanks Kami . I went for the higher level because she already registered with the lower level IP banned. So it's an experiment I guess. And not irreversible, right? I can leave it as is for a while and see if it's successful.

Thank you for taking the time to explain my options. Great advice.

Oh, so the ---65.13.* didn't catch everything? When they register, the numbers change after 65, as in the following two numbers aren't always 13? If that's the case then yeah, wildcarding after 65. is the way to go.

Reversal: Right, if it doesn't work (or winds up banning more people than you intend) then all you have to do to "reverse" it is delete the entry from the ban list and it's fine.

Happy to help, best of luck the persistent re-registers can be so annoying (I say as a former re-register-er in my youth).