[hashcash] Re: hashcash on wordpress
- From: David Schneider-Joseph <davidsj@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: hashcash@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2011 13:42:53 -0700
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 <aaron.toponce@xxxxxxxxx> 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.
>>
>> A single hash is not proof-of-work.
>
> 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
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