Re: hashcash on wordpress

On Jun 14, 2011, at 1:34 PM, Aaron Toponce wrote:

> On Tue, Jun 14, 2011 at 01:04:51PM -0700, David Schneider-Joseph =
wrote:
>> On Jun 14, 2011, at 10:35 AM, Aaron Toponce <[email protected]> =
wrote:
>>> Indeed, although technically speaking, it isn't Hashcash. It doesn't =
use
>>> the tokens, nor does it the Hashcash algorithm. Instead, it uses
>>> obfuscation in JavaScript to force the client to present a matching =
key.
>>> It is proof-of-work, but it's not Hashcash.
>>=20
>> A single hash is not proof-of-work.
>=20
> Indeed, and the Wordpress Hashcash plugin does more than hash =
obfuscated
> JavaScript, and check for a match. The plugin is a proof-of-work =
system
> which requires JavaScript to solve. Lines 363 through 484 of the
> wp-hashcash.php contain the algorithm he uses to expense CPU time. It =
is
> proof-of-work, it's just not Hashcash.

Reading through that code, I see the server side doing at least as much =
work as the client in order to generate the code the client must =
execute.

Unless I'm missing something, that's not proof-of-work, it's just an =
attempt to prove the client is running a JavaScript interpreter.  It's =
certainly not even *similar* to hashcash aside from the misleading name.

David=