3 ms·

Is it more for showing skin in the game? What are the usecases this could be appropriate?

repartix 6y ago
Yes, the key idea is to show skin in the game. Check out some usecases in https://repowcha.com/use_cases https://repowcha.com/use_cases. It's nothing fancy, just simple tech that might work better. Ordinary CAPTCHA tries to tell humans and bots apart, to stop bots from abusing a service. rePOWCHA does something different: it tries to tell if humans have good intentions using the oldest trick in the book. It asks the user to deposit some crypto as collateral. Honest users who don't abuse the service get their deposit refunded, and spammers don't. Another difference is that it's not rePOWCHA who decides who gets back their deposit. It's the customer (you) who decides. Think of rePOWCHA as giving control back to humans instead of hoarding it for the bots. It's also free and you make money from the fees. The big problem I see with CAPTCHA is that verifying if someone is human isn't enough to guarantee they won't abuse your service, like what happened with repl.it a couple of months back (https://replit.canny.io/feedback/p/add-captcha-to-new-post https://replit.canny.io/feedback/p/add-captcha-to-new-post). The key insight is to make spam expensive enough that it's unprofitable, instead of merely less likely. I want a similar way to stop spam for email. Crypto works better than a credit card for this since you can find the sender's address in the blockchain to refund their money, and also to reward them for sending good emails. And then there's the world of online forums. Don't like getting downvoted on HN? Threads getting out of hand? Built a new online forum that requires paying to post, reply, and vote. You can pay customer support for responding well or responding fast. You can send rePOWCHA links to friends to pay you back lunch money. Proof-of-work for the web is inevitable. This is a new mechanism. I'll be hanging around in the comments this morning if you have questions or feedback. Feel free to reach out directly at repowcha@protonmail.com

Yes, the key idea is to show skin in the game. Check out some usecases in https://repowcha.com/use_cases https://repowcha.com/use_cases. It's nothing fancy, just simple tech that might work better. Ordinary CAPTCHA tries to tell humans and bots apart, to stop bots from abusing a service. rePOWCHA does something different: it tries to tell if humans have good intentions using the oldest trick in the book. It asks the user to deposit some crypto as collateral. Honest users who don't abuse the service get their deposit refunded, and spammers don't. Another difference is that it's not rePOWCHA who decides who gets back their deposit. It's the customer (you) who decides. Think of rePOWCHA as giving control back to humans instead of hoarding it for the bots. It's also free and you make money from the fees. The big problem I see with CAPTCHA is that verifying if someone is human isn't enough to guarantee they won't abuse your service, like what happened with repl.it a couple of months back (https://replit.canny.io/feedback/p/add-captcha-to-new-post https://replit.canny.io/feedback/p/add-captcha-to-new-post). The key insight is to make spam expensive enough that it's unprofitable, instead of merely less likely. I want a similar way to stop spam for email. Crypto works better than a credit card for this since you can find the sender's address in the blockchain to refund their money, and also to reward them for sending good emails. And then there's the world of online forums. Don't like getting downvoted on HN? Threads getting out of hand? Built a new online forum that requires paying to post, reply, and vote. You can pay customer support for responding well or responding fast. You can send rePOWCHA links to friends to pay you back lunch money. Proof-of-work for the web is inevitable. This is a new mechanism. I'll be hanging around in the comments this morning if you have questions or feedback. Feel free to reach out directly at repowcha@protonmail.com