I just upgraded my principle blog anti-spam measure, WP-HashCash, to the latest version. I know that some readers have been blocked by this when trying to comment. In fact, I was even blocked recently when I tried to post a comment. Please let me know if WP-HashCash gives you any trouble.

I think that WP-HashCash uses a great idea to stop spambots by issuing a programmatic challenge to the client before accepting a client’s comment. This sort of thing has been proposed as a solution for email spam but would not be tractable without modifying the fundamental email protocols. I have never seen this blog nailed by spambots so I can only assume that the plugin is doing its job, which I realize may not be very sound reasoning.