Extension:AntiSpoof

MediaWiki extensions manual

AntiSpoof Release status: stable
Implementation	User activity
Description	Prevents the creation of confusable usernames.
Author(s)	Brion Vibber (Brion VIBBERtalk)
Compatibility policy	Snapshots releases along with MediaWiki. Master is not backwards compatible.
MediaWiki	1.25+
Database changes	Yes
Tables	spoofuser
License	GNU General Public License 2.0 or later
Download	Download extension Git [?]: Download Git master browse repository (GitHub) commit history repository contributors (GitHub) code review
Parameters $wgAntiSpoofProhibitedCharacters $wgAntiSpoofAccounts
Added rights override-antispoof
Hooks used DeleteAccount LoadExtensionSchemaUpdates LocalUserCreated RenameUserComplete
Translate the AntiSpoof extension if it is available at translatewiki.net
Check usage and version matrix.
Issues	Open tasks · Report a bug

The AntiSpoof extension is an extension for preventing confusable usernames from being created. It blocks the creation of accounts with mixed-script, confusing and similar usernames.

For example, if user John Doe is already registered, the extension will block attempts to register:

• joHn dOE (capital letters in different places)
• Jοhn Doe ("ο" in Jοhn is Greek small letter omicron)
• John Dоe ("о" in Dоe is Cyrillic small letter O)
• Јohn Doe ("Ј" in Јohn is Cyrillic capital letter Je)
• John Đoe ("Đ" in Đoe is Latin capital letter D with stroke)
• Jóhn Doe ("ó" in Jóhn is Latin small letter O with acute)
• John ​Doe (there is a Zero-width space before Doe)
• Jøhn Doe ("ø" in Jøhn is Scandinavian oe)
• J0hn Doe ("0" is the number zero)

etc.

Installation

• Download and place the file(s) in a directory called AntiSpoof in your extensions/ folder.
• Add the following code at the bottom of your LocalSettings.php:

  wfLoadExtension( 'AntiSpoof' );
  

• Run the update script which will automatically create the necessary database tables that this extension needs.
• In case user accounts are stored in a shared database, add:

$wgSharedTables[] = 'spoofuser';

• Run the batchAntiSpoof.php script from the command line to pre-populate the spoofuser table with your wiki's existing usernames.

php extensions/AntiSpoof/maintenance/batchAntiSpoof.php

•  Done – Navigate to Special:Version on your wiki to verify that the extension is successfully installed.

To users running MediaWiki 1.24 or earlier:

The instructions above describe the new way of installing this extension using wfLoadExtension(). If you need to install this extension on these earlier versions (MediaWiki 1.24 and earlier), instead of wfLoadExtension( 'AntiSpoof' );, you need to use:

require_once "$IP/extensions/AntiSpoof/AntiSpoof.php";

• To verify that it's working, try creating an account for username "Adm1n"; most wikis have an "Admin" account and so AntiSpoof should reject this lookalike username with a message like "The name Adm1n is too similar to the existing account: Admin".

When installing from Git, please note that this extension requires Composer.

So, after installation from Git change to the directory containing the extension e.g. "../extensions/AntiSpoof/" and run composer install --no-dev, or when updating: composer update --no-dev.

Alternatively as well as preferably add the line "extensions/AntiSpoof/composer.json" to the "composer.local.json" file in the root directory of your wiki like e.g.

{
	"extra": {
		"merge-plugin": {
			"include": [
				"extensions/AntiSpoof/composer.json"
			]
		}
	}
}

See also

• Equivset (provides the equivalence sets used by AntiSpoof)