Source code and details: https://git.anarchists.space/nemesis/Vigil
A privacy-friendly anti-spam system for account registration on a public Matrix Synapse homeserver. Before an account is created, the client solves an Argon2id puzzle that is intentionally slow and memory-intensive, taking approximately 30 minutes by default, though the homeserver owner can configure the duration. This makes large-scale bot registration expensive.
Synapse’s own open registration gets turned off; Vigil is the only thing that can create an account, and it only does that once a client proves it solved a fresh puzzle.
Features
- Privacy-friendly
- A lot harder to bypass than traditional anti-spam systems
- Optional CLI tool to solve cryptographic challenges for people who don’t wanna use JavaScript
- Small codebase
I’d say 30 seconds is a decent fault. Maybe a minute tops.
But 30 minutes is bonkers who’s going to wait that long to register an account