Gmail allows you to use "." in your email address. For example, if you were to email John.doe@gmail.com ,
the email will be sent to the johndoe@gmail.com inbox. With one gmail account, one could sign up for multiple accounts using one email. FOr example

J.ohndoe@gmail.com
Jo.hndoe@gmail.com
Joh.ndoe@gmail.com
John.doe@gmail.com
Johnd.oe@gmail.com
Johndo.e@gmail.com

probably even

J.ohnd.oe@gmail.com
J.ohn.do.e@gmail.com
J.o.h.nd.oe@gmail.com

You get the idea im sure.

The problem is with abusers. There is no sense in disallowing multuple accounts under one email address while people are able to do this.

wow..

the problem with IPB, sneaky bastids

For example, if you were to username joe people could substitute numbers for letters, and come up with usernames like j0e.

You get the idea im sure.

The problem is with abusers. There is no sense in allowing this.

My board has problems with this. If people had to sign up for a new email address each time they created a new username, it would turn them off. With the gmail thing they can craeated lots in a short period of time.

would you like me to show you how its done, on your board? you wouldnt like it, trust me

While I have gmail and was aware this was possible, I never realized it could be used like this, this is indeed a problem, and what other companies adopt this?

Should we disallow periods completely? Or maybe have IPB ignore periods.

Red herring

nevertheless, for gmail to be viable, usernames (aka accounts) have to be unique. Gmail allows aliases
for usernames, so johndoe@gmail.com could set up with the following aliases that you have listed...

but only if they are unique AND you own them - the gmail alias setup sends a verification email to check. I think you will find that you can't setup an alias for a gmail account that you don't own.

I think you will find that gmail addresses with "." periods in them are unique - if you set up an account using the username john.doe you cannot sign on with johndoe - they are two different identities.

There is nothing to stop people signing up with multiple email addresses from any number of free web based email providers - except for checking the IP addresses that are used and flagging where the same IP address is used for different accounts. This is not necessarily foolproof either - consider users behind a proxy server.

If a user really wants to run with multiple accounts, they can; using a "." in the gmail address is no big deal - it is just another ascii character.

no,

J.ohndoe@gmail.com
Jo.hndoe@gmail.com
Joh.ndoe@gmail.com
John.doe@gmail.com
Johnd.oe@gmail.com
Johndo.e@gmail.com


all send to johndoe@gmail.com

IBP considers each "alias" a unique email address. THAT IS WHERE THE PROBLEM LIES. They are not unique. They are one email account

My spam email adderss is bl4hster@gmail.com. Just now, i emailed bl.4hster@gmail.com from another nongmail address, and i received it just fine.

ibp should allow one signup with johndoe@gmail.com, and then should not allow any other form of the address, since they are all the same.

I know "its just an extra ASCII char". IBP considers it a new unique email address. Do you know about the feature that only allows one email address username? Well its useless with this trick.

Some people (like me) depend on unique email. Some people couldnt care less. I already edited my copy of IBP to block any address with ".". I was just making people aware of a potential problem.

Couldnt you use a wildcard email ban in some way to stop this?

Ethan

Edit: Or just ban Gmail email accounts.

but only because the user has set it up that way. your list could also be

frednurk@gmail.com
mikesmith@gmail.com
alanred@gmail.com
etc... etc... and they all end up pointing to the same email address. I agree with that part of your problem, but the fact that it is done with a "." is only incidental


er.. assumption, not fact, unfortunately. They can be all pointing to the same email address, but on gmail "john.doe" as an account name is unique and different from "johndoe". They will only be the same if the same person owns them and has set up the names accordingly.
What you were hoping is that IPB would see two names the same, one with a dot and one without and disallow one or the other. While this may be true, one can't assume that it will be, and so you may just prevent a legitimate user from joining your board in your well meaning attempt to stop people having multiple registrations.

And I don't know that it is so much an ethical consideration, as a technical one - if you use email addresses as a sign on option {or secondary key to the username}, then they become a primary key in the database, and they have to be unique.

And BTW, if you can trick the email addressing when sending mail to gmail, then why don't you report this error/inconsistency/loophole to google & ask then to investigate/fix it?
Anyway, enough of this. it is drifting off-topic for this forum. CYA

No, he's right, gmail does allow you to put a dot anywhere in the username and it will automatically go to the right address. You don't need to set up anything.

But I'm not sure how IPB can correct it. Other email systems don't have the same 'feature', so you can't just ignore periods altogether. Only thing possible would be for IPB to filter gmail addresses separately, but that's getting a bit OTT for a problem that doesn't lie at IPB's feet.

It's not going to lead to a quick fix, but you should write to Google and explain how their feature can be abused.

soft.register: The only reason you can't sign up for john.doe if johndoe already exists is because they're the same account. A while ago there was a bug in Gmail where you could register both - and they recieved each others mail. You can't sign on with anything other than your actual username, but you'll recieve mail to any mixture of your username and periods.

thank you, i was getting frustrated thinking i was explaining the idea wrong.

I agree, it doesnt seem right for ibp to include a fix for a specific email provider. The problem is that gmail is so common, and it isnt even public signup yet (the whole invite thing was a genius plan).

I will definitely try to contact google about it. The problems that this causes across the internet is significant , yet the feature is pretty much usless. WHy would anyone need this feature?

One 'solution' for now, if it's causing you problems on your board, is to just put *@gmail.com in your email filters so people can't use them to sign up with at all. It's heavy handed, but if you're being targetted, it might be the best thing to do.