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Proof of work proves not to work (2004) https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rnc1/proofwork.pdf https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rnc1/proofwork.pdf

by fanf2 3y ago

xtracto 3y ago
Pdf download warning.
- jeroenhd 3y ago
  I respect your dislike of direct download links, but what browsers still download PDFs these days?
  - notpushkin 3y ago
    Firefox on Android, for example. I guess they just didn't want to add mobile UI to pdf.js?
    - cpeterso 3y ago
      Firefox on Android supports PDF viewing (using pdf.js) as of version 111: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/android/111.0/releasenotes/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/android/111.0/releasen...
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - xtracto 3y ago
    Im on brave mobile and it downloaded the pdf automatically when I clicked the link.
  - hn92726819 3y ago
    All of them. Sometimes they open the downloaded PDF in the internal viewer maybe, but PDF is a pretty dangerous format either way. It's getting safer to open them though.
lucb1e 3y ago
TL;DR / TooAnnoyingPdf;Didn'tDownloadAndTryToReadOnAPhoneScreen: > We analyse [anti-email-spam PoW] both from an economic perspective, “how can we stop it being cost-effective to send spam”, and from a security perspective, “spammers can access insecure end-user machines and will steal processing cycles to solve puzzles”. Both analyses lead to similar values of puzzle difficulty. Unfortunately, real-world data from a large ISP shows that these difficulty levels would mean that significant numbers of senders of legitimate email would be unable to continue their current levels of activity. So it wouldn't work for mass senders, I think this means in the abstract? Reading into the details, page 6 says: > We examined logging data from the large UK ISP for those customers who use the outbound “smarthost” (about 50,000 on this particular weekday). Not sure I agree with the conclusion if this is their premise. This smarthost (an SMTP server sitting on the edge doing $magic, preventing client PCs from directly sending email to any which internet destination) is handling a ton of emails for free. Why should it solve the PoW? The residential client that is really trying to send the email is the one that wants to send the email and should attach the PoW already before sending it on to a relaying server. I do agree it is probably undesirable to require that honest senders outcompete attackers on CPU power (=electricity =CO2, at least in the immediate future) to get any email delivered

Proof of work proves not to work (2004) https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rnc1/proofwork.pdf https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rnc1/proofwork.pdf

by fanf2 3y ago

Proof of work proves not to work (2004) https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rnc1/proofwork.pdf https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rnc1/proofwork.pdf

xtracto 3y ago

Pdf download warning.

jeroenhd 3y ago
I respect your dislike of direct download links, but what browsers still download PDFs these days?
- notpushkin 3y ago
  Firefox on Android, for example. I guess they just didn't want to add mobile UI to pdf.js?
  - cpeterso 3y ago
    Firefox on Android supports PDF viewing (using pdf.js) as of version 111: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/android/111.0/releasenotes/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/android/111.0/releasen...
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- xtracto 3y ago
  Im on brave mobile and it downloaded the pdf automatically when I clicked the link.
- hn92726819 3y ago
  All of them. Sometimes they open the downloaded PDF in the internal viewer maybe, but PDF is a pretty dangerous format either way. It's getting safer to open them though.

lucb1e 3y ago

TL;DR / TooAnnoyingPdf;Didn'tDownloadAndTryToReadOnAPhoneScreen: > We analyse [anti-email-spam PoW] both from an economic perspective, “how can we stop it being cost-effective to send spam”, and from a security perspective, “spammers can access insecure end-user machines and will steal processing cycles to solve puzzles”. Both analyses lead to similar values of puzzle difficulty. Unfortunately, real-world data from a large ISP shows that these difficulty levels would mean that significant numbers of senders of legitimate email would be unable to continue their current levels of activity. So it wouldn't work for mass senders, I think this means in the abstract? Reading into the details, page 6 says: > We examined logging data from the large UK ISP for those customers who use the outbound “smarthost” (about 50,000 on this particular weekday). Not sure I agree with the conclusion if this is their premise. This smarthost (an SMTP server sitting on the edge doing $magic, preventing client PCs from directly sending email to any which internet destination) is handling a ton of emails for free. Why should it solve the PoW? The residential client that is really trying to send the email is the one that wants to send the email and should attach the PoW already before sending it on to a relaying server. I do agree it is probably undesirable to require that honest senders outcompete attackers on CPU power (=electricity =CO2, at least in the immediate future) to get any email delivered