wehatecaptchas
Security and privacy
captcha alternative
SHOW HN2019
136points
80comments
#334of 2,195 in 2019
Top 16%of 2019 by points
How HN took it
RoastedHalf or more of the comments are critical
3 positive, 14 neutral or asking, 1 mixed, 28 critical, out of 46 comments about the project. Thread score -0.53.
Idea: 1 for, 16 againstPerformance: 1 for, 9 againstPricing: 1 for, 1 againstExecution: 0 for, 1 againstDesign: 0 for, 1 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Idea of replacing captchas is appreciated
From 2 comments
About 12-13 seconds on a top-of-the-line Mac. I'd say that is slow. Besides, I don't really have much of a problem with Google's CAPTCHA.
surds on HNGreat idea, down with captchas! Can you do this asynchronously? It does take a long time, but I only noticed because I clicked on something and waited for something to happen. If…
camgunz on HN
Objections
Proof-of-work is too slow on phones and laptops
From 4 comments
It took about 30s to ‘solve’ the captcha on my iPhone XR, with minimal feedback as to why it was taking so long. That was pretty annoying. If I hadn’t been on a site demoing…
daveoflynn on HNThe captcha is considered solved if the browser finds N nonces (with 0 < N ≤ 10) where a SHA-256 hash starts with 20 bits set to 0 in less than 5 minutes. A nonce is valid on…
esnard on HN> It works by requiring your computer to solve complex mathematical equations in the background. It's a quick process for legitimate users, but is slow and expensive for…
jedberg on HNI just tried it. I noticed the CPU on my i9 MBP went from 65C (idle) to 99C for at least 20 seconds. The fan turned on. It felt like it was mining bitcoins in my browser. I'm not…
herpderperator on HN
GPUs and bot farms can solve the puzzle far faster than users
From 3 comments
Okay, so you do PoW in browser on CPUs - but that's likely much slower than a simple C implementation of the same algorithm and miles slower than a GPU, or worse, if it becomes…
buildzr on HNYes. There have been other analyses of recaptcha before, but it is an incredibly detailed, complex piece of software. "Old school" captchas (i.e. have a human do something that…
hn_throwaway_99 on HNJust like hashcash trying to prevent mailspam... you just need a bigger botnet. Spammers were never spending their own energy/money. Well, at least there are less CPU cycles left…
unilynx on HN
Hashcash-style schemes have been tried and do not stop spam
From 2 comments
This concept has been proposed by Dwork and Naor in 1992 to fight email spam. [0] [0] Dwork, Cynthia, and Moni Naor. "Pricing via processing or combatting junk mail." Annual…
lexs on HNAnd it's proven that proof-of-work doesn't work to stop spam…
aabbcc1241 on HN
Requests
Run the proof-of-work asynchronously on page load
From 1 comment
Great idea, down with captchas! Can you do this asynchronously? It does take a long time, but I only noticed because I clicked on something and waited for something to happen. If…
camgunz on HN
Lower the difficulty or show better progress feedback
From 2 comments
It took about 30s to ‘solve’ the captcha on my iPhone XR, with minimal feedback as to why it was taking so long. That was pretty annoying. If I hadn’t been on a site demoing…
daveoflynn on HN> My phone took 30s to validate the captcha used in the demo I tried it on my phone as well and I thought it did not work, because the progress bar did not move. I didn't even…
sebst on HN
Questions
Why not mine crypto with the computation
From 1 comment
On the "are you mining crypto" question, my thought was: Why aren't they? wehatecaptchas paid API sevice could be free if the math problem being solved was profitable...
ocdtrekkie on HN
Alternatives named
Google reCAPTCHA
From 2 comments
About 12-13 seconds on a top-of-the-line Mac. I'd say that is slow. Besides, I don't really have much of a problem with Google's CAPTCHA.
surds on HNYes. There have been other analyses of recaptcha before, but it is an incredibly detailed, complex piece of software. "Old school" captchas (i.e. have a human do something that…
hn_throwaway_99 on HN
Hashcash
From 2 comments
Hashcash, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashcash , is specifically referenced in the bitcoin white paper as the proof-of-work strategy.
hn_throwaway_99 on HNbasically hashcash (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashcash#How_it_works)?
pulkitsh1234 on HN