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[ADDON] Hide Usernames from Guests Started by Spuds · · Read 7023 times 0 Members and 2 Guests are viewing this topic. previous topic - next topic

[ADDON] Hide Usernames from Guests

This was created some time ago when bots were scrapping names from forum pages, and then using them as user id's in a brute force attack.  This mod simply hides the names so they can't be slurped up.  This one is all hooks, no edits.

Hide Usernames from Guests

License
This modification is released under a MPL V1.1 license, a copy of it with its provisions is included with the package.

Introduction
This mod will hide registered users display names from guests, keeping their identity safe from name collecting bots

Features
o Works without making any theme edits so should work with most themes and addons.
o Adds a text box in the admin panel where you can enter the name to use as the replacement, e.g. Hidden, Guest, Blocked as examples.

Repository / Download
http://addons.elkarte.net/security/Hide-User-Names.html
Last Edit: February 07, 2016, 03:23:59 pm by Spuds

Re: [ADDON] Hide Usernames from Guests

Reply #1 –

Nice thought. But I guess it would deny the user the credit of post as most people do not register and just leech content.

Re: [ADDON] Hide Usernames from Guests

Reply #2 –

Suggestion, instead of a mass-replacement of all names with one pseudonym, why not a random identifier that matches up with someone's username?

So meetdilip becomes Hidden User 8327, Spuds is Hidden User 128, Eliana Tamerin is Hidden User 912, etc.

Could be based on actual user id to make it simple (I don't think you can exploit based on uid alone, right?).

Re: [ADDON] Hide Usernames from Guests

Reply #3 –

I will explain further. I know @Allan  from many other forums and recognize mainly by his user name and avatar. Both tells me that this user here is a nice person. I am not sure if I have registered on all those forums. I am not that popular still meetdilip is not completely unfamiliar to a few at least. I have seen people recognize me and many others across different forum through their user name.

I like the feature in SMF where someone can have a different user name  and log in ID.

Re: [ADDON] Hide Usernames from Guests

Reply #4 –

Quote from: meetdilip – I like the feature in SMF where someone can have a different user name  and log in ID.

That's already possible with Elk.

Re: [ADDON] Hide Usernames from Guests

Reply #5 –

Quote from: meetdilip – Nice thought. But I guess it would deny the user the credit of post as most people do not register and just leech content.
Well, it's an addon, nobody is forced to install it. :P ;)

If fact at the time it was a security feature, at the moment it could be considered a "privacy" feature (a new feature to add may be the option to let the user select to have the name hidden or not!), in fact one of my members asked for something like that.
Bugs creator.
Features destroyer.
Template killer.

Re: [ADDON] Hide Usernames from Guests

Reply #6 –

Hate to bring up an old topic, but I like the idea of the addon, but I'd really like to see it with the option for each member to hide or not hide their display name. This way, it does not change every poster name to whatever, but only those that wish to hide their name.
 

Re: [ADDON] Hide Usernames from Guests

Reply #7 –

There are been a several good suggestions on where to go with this,, but TBH its far from being able to do any of them  O:-) In the future maybe it would only scramble users names whos display name == the login uid since that was the problem, or what was used in the Tor Proxy attacks.

This addon is very simple in what it does and how it does it.  It simply looks for user "links" in the output buffer and changes the displayed name.  So its not really hooked in anyplace that it could do things smarter.  It runs after a page has been created and just before its displayed.  Done this way since there are so many places user names are pulled and used.

Any of the different ideas would require the collect names  -> db lookup the names for whatever,  change and replace all the individual links.  I still think the output buffer is the best place for this activity due to the vast number of places the display name links are generated.