how to ban members from a specific IP address? How do we protect ourselves from people with harmful intents!??

[walid]

I really think this is important probably for everyone. At any point in time, any mad member with lots of time on his hands can wreak havok across our networks. I am dealing with one currently, who keeps on creating new accounts everytime I ban him. He continuously puts foul language mainly in the chat, and some members/groups/forums pages... and I am feeling pretty powerless and frustrated. I have both the word filter and the control freaks features from scripts4ning, and it shows me that he's creating all his IDs from the same IP, but I can't spend all day monitoring new members, and banning new members from his IP ... I would need a full time employee to do that! This is getting to the point where I am considering to take my network to private which will hurt its growth, alllll because of one member which I suspect is a kid ...
I need help with 2 things, and any insights including paid services will be greatly appreciated:
1- How can i add email verification to my network login ... it is too easy for the offender to create a new account
2- How can I impose an IP filter, preventing persons from certain IPs to sign up for my network ...

[Shane Tribolet]

     I'm sorry to say that nowadays, even the lesser-skilled (aka Script Kiddies) can use an open proxy, TOR, or other equivalent of masking their true IP. The only thing that will work may be banning the internet, or seeing of you can engage some dialogue to find out why they are doing such a thing.
     But, think of the possibilities if you 'broke through' that person's bad behavior... His/her parents would thank you, I'm sure!

     I can't answer Question 1, though.

[chad steele]

If there's a way to get the ipaddress from ning's server (can't find one yet), you could use jQuery to disable all submit buttons if the user's ip address matches your "bad" list.

e.g.

jQuery('.button').hide(); //hides all buttons on the page... works really well, see warning below.

WARNING! Make sure you only do this for certain users. I tested it on my network while writing this post and now every button for every user is hidden... even me! ugh... I'm an idiot... now I can't edit that line out either. I've asked Ning for help... and for a reset feature for their analytics code. [hilarious + shame]


Dear Ning,
Please provide a javascript object or REST/json service that knows about the client, ipaddress, etc.

[Wiz]

I'm having alot of problems with members joining just to collect friends and invite to their networks.
My Post

[Wiz]

BTW scripts4ning has/had a great tool for this..not sure if still available..it's been excellent in keeping banned members off your site

[chad steele]

by the way, I resolved this issue by copying source and building my own page on my server to submit/post the corrected script to ning.

[Shane Tribolet]

     I can understand there's no way to see if a member was banned from another network. It's an unfair metric to judge a person by. There's no way to know the exact reason a person was banned from a network, and would you really want to have to investigate? If there was a 'tracking bit' that held a reason why (on both sides) for resolution/history purposes, wouldn't that even be a bit extreme? Almost Nazi-esque? Kind of like a 'Karma bit' ? This isn't eBay and I am not a (possibly shady) salesman.

     If these people join your network just to get others to join theirs, then whoop-de-doo! If those people actually join that other network on their own volition, that's awesome. Ning is working!

     But there is always a fine line, I do understand. If these people are spamming, (sending multiple messages that are of the same nature or verbatim) then yes, just ban them. Since the nature of the internet is open, and maybe your network too, you have to 'tend the garden' a little more to keep the pests out while letting the good stuff bloom. Every community needs human interaction to make it a vibrant, flourishing community that feels full of energy and possibility. Sure, certain automated features make living in a community easier and more fun, but there are some things you don't want to automate. More human interaction makes a community more desirable... adding that unique, personal, human touch instead of a cookie-cutter response/approach for maximum effect!

[chad steele]

Thanks for motivating me...
This is what I developed for getting the user's email address... couldn't get ip without a serverside solution or unless somebody knows a ning page that displays the ipaddress, but regardless, I think user's email is more useful anyway. You could use this to determine whether the ning user is on your blacklist, etc.

Hire me! [e-mail]

function getEmailAddress( callback)
{
jQuery.get("http://"+location.host+"/profiles/settings/editProfileInfo", function(data){
var email = data.substr( data.indexOf("Email Address"), 200);
email = email.match(/[\w\+\-\._]+@[\w\-\._]+\.\w{2,}/);
callback(email)
});

}

if (jQuery) jQuery(document).ready(function() {

getEmailAddress( function(data) { alert (data); });

});

[Eric]

Hi Chad,

Is it possible to call the jquery script (getEmailAddress( callback)) after the user registration process ?

Do you have a sample implementation of your scripts ?

Thanks
Eric

chad steele said:

Thanks for motivating me...
This is what I developed for getting the user's email address... couldn't get ip without a serverside solution or unless somebody knows a ning page that displays the ipaddress, but regardless, I think user's email is more useful anyway. You could use this to determine whether the ning user is on your blacklist, etc.

Hire me! [e-mail]

function getEmailAddress( callback)
{
jQuery.get("http://"+location.host+"/profiles/settings/editProfileInfo", function(data){
var email = data.substr( data.indexOf("Email Address"), 200);
email = email.match(/[\w\+\-\._]+@[\w\-\._]+\.\w{2,}/);
callback(email)
});

}

if (jQuery) jQuery(document).ready(function() {

getEmailAddress( function(data) { alert (data); });

});