kaPoW Web Plug-ins

ABSTRACT

Spam and denial of service attacks are a fact of life for web applications. Tools like Akismet and CAPTCHA help prevent spam in web applications, however, the tools can suffer from false positives and an inability adapt the response to adversarial activity. This poster presents the kaPoW web plug-in and reputation service that can complement such anti-spam techniques. kaPoW works by issuing proof-of-work challenges to clients based on their activity in order provide disincentives for sending spam and to slow down long-term web abuse. kaPoW web plug-ins can be used by any web application that supports an extension framework. Currently plug-ins are available for popular web applications such as WordPress, phpBB, HastyMail, DokuWiki, and JibberBook.

Award ID: 1017034