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realaravinth

HN member
Joined
Wed, Sep 16, 2020, 12:04 PM UTC
HN karma
73
Public activity
24 items

About realaravinth

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Recent public activity

  1. comment
    Comment #38673162

    I am, but what I said was more of a hypothesis than a fact :) From what I understand of reCAPTCHA, the model isn't static and is continuously learning from every interaction[0]: > …

  2. comment
    Comment #38672307

    Author of mCaptcha here o/ mCaptcha uses PoW and that is energy inefficient, but it not as bad as the PoWs used in blockchains. The PoW difficulty factor in mCaptcha is significant…

  3. comment
    Comment #38672269

    Author of mCaptcha here o/ Yes, the only differences are that mCaptcha is 100% FOSS and uses variable difficulty factor, which makes it easy to solve Proof-of-Work under normal tra…

  4. comment
    Comment #38672250

    Hi, I'm the author of mCaptcha o/ To impose delays, there must be some way of identifying users individually. But to do so will have privacy implications. PoW is a stateless way of…

  5. comment
    Comment #32341932

    Agreed, it's been an interesting discussion so far with lots of interesting ideas. mCaptcha is a very niche software, that will only work some use cases, but that's okay as long as…

  6. comment
    Comment #32341782

    I haven't encountered a case where multithreading will make the algorithm weaker, but I do have a variation of the benchmark code(on disk, at the moment) that will spin up multiple…

  7. comment
    Comment #32341648

    Apologies, the project isn't ready to be showcased yet. I literally woke up to a message from a friend that said it was on HN. I wish I could explain it on here, but I'm afraid it …

  8. comment
    Comment #32341581

    That's a good idea, I'll be sure to do that!

  9. comment
    Comment #32341537

    > Thinking about it a bit more, systems like mCaptcha and Botpoison aren't really CAPTCHA in the strict sense Very true! I chose to use “captcha” because it's easier to convey what…

  10. comment
    Comment #32341490

    Very good point! Accessibility is a critical to mCaptcha. In fact, Codeberg is trying out mCaptcha purely because of its more accessible[0]. That said, it is possible to choose a d…

  11. comment
    Comment #32341462

    Only recently, yes. WASM performance is tricky. A memory-heavy algorithm will DoS visitors. That said, there are protections within mCaptcha to protect against ASICS(PoW result has…

  12. comment
    Comment #32341446

    Thank you for your detailed response, you raise some very interesting and valid points! > JS engines (or even WASM) aren't going to be as fast at this kind of work as native machin…

  13. comment
    Comment #32341333

    Glad you ask! There are protections against replay attacks within mCaptcha: tokens are single use also have a lifetime beyond which they are invalid. Disclosure: author of mCaptcha…

  14. comment
    Comment #32341316

    > I appreciate the effort towards better UX, but there are already "invisible" CAPTCHAs like Botpoison that discriminate better than this. Interesting project, thank you for sharin…

  15. comment
    Comment #32341216

    yikes! The docs had an overhaul last week, that link was removed as part of the overhaul. Should have paid more attention. Should be fixed now :) > A one-sentence describing exactl…

  16. comment
    Comment #32341086

    Thank you for the kind words! > Instead of an easy mode and advanced one I would use a single mode with a calculator, that way it is more transparent to the user and it would make …

  17. comment
    Comment #32340999

    I'd love to do something useful with the PoW result but like you say, the PoW should be able to work in browsers, so they are intentionally small. The maximum advisable delay is ~1…

  18. comment
    Comment #32340982

    > How does that work without becoming a SPOF for taking down the website ? Can't a user/botnet with more CPU power than the server simply send more captchas than can be processed ?…

  19. comment
    Comment #32340940

    Thanks for the ping! I used "captcha" to simplify mCaptcha's application, calling it a captcha is much simpler to say than calling it a PoW-powered rate limiter :D That said, yes i…

  20. comment
    Comment #32340621

    Hello! I'm the author of mCaptcha. I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have :) For context, mCaptcha was discussed in these threads in the past hour before being posted …

  21. comment
    Comment #32340522

    The math is performed by the browser. All the user will have to do is tick a checkbox. Here's a demo: https://demo.mcaptcha.org/widget/?sitekey=pHy0AktWyOKuxZDzFf... disclosure: I'…

  22. comment
    Comment #32340509

    Hello, I'm the author of mCaptcha. I'll be happy to answer any questions that you might have :)

  23. comment
    Comment #32340469

    The project is very new, I haven't started promoting yet. The Codeberg development was purely from word of mouth :) disclosure: I'm the author of mCaptcha

  24. comment
    Comment #32340404

    Hello! I'm the author of mCaptcha, I'd be happy to answer any questions that people might have :)