Re: HTTP HashCash

čt 22. 5. 2025 v 9:15 odesílatel John, Gavin N. (Gavin) <gjohn@caltech.edu>
napsal:

> Hi!
>
> I've noticed the rise in popularity of Anubis
> <https://github.com/TecharoHQ/anubis>. It's an effective tool for the job
> (requiring additional work to access expensive endpoints), but I don't want
> to use it on my public-facing stuff because it makes it unreadable to most
> tools due to the use of JavaScript (I recognize that many people see this
> as an advantage of Anubis, however for me this is a negative I'd like to
> avoid). I was wondering about maybe standardizing HashCash for HTTP to make
> this sort of computational tax more universally supported. Thoughts?
>

I designed something like this for nostr.

What you need is a message, a nonce and a hash.

Then you count the number of leading 0s in the hash to determine the proof
of work.  It gained some traction, as a fun niche, but I'm unsure it really
proved useful.

Many hash algos can be gamed with GPUs or ASICs, but it might be a fun tool
to add to the HTTP headers, namely:

- message
- nonce
- hash algo
- digest

Another approach, could be to reuse the ni:/// scheme in RFC 6920 and a
query parameters for nonce

Best
Melvin


> Gavin John
>
> Caltech, Class of 2028
>