What Happened in the Last 2 Years?
I read some forum posts asking if I was still around, and yes I am. I'm fine, my family is fine. I had to set some priorities in response to what I'll label "adversity", and free software was very low on the list. My websites were always here, downloads for anyone who wanted them, but for the last 2 years I haven't been available.
One Sh*tty Email That Made Me Finally Do Something About Spam
So, on May 25, 2025, I got this absolute gem of an email through my RicheyWeb contact form. Check this out: “From: RicheyWeb”, but the reply-to was “jdjiqk <kajakaka@se>”. Subject? “RICHEYWEB: askjdSjs”. Body? “This is an enquiry email via https://www.richeyweb.com/ from: jdjiqk kajakaka@se just test v”. I’ve dealt with spam before, but this one? This one pissed me off enough to actually do something about it.
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Did I Just Solve Joomla Bot Spam With HashCash?
Eleven years ago, I stumbled across a technical paper from 2002 by Adam Back. It was about HashCash—a proof-of-work system designed to make spammers’ lives miserable by forcing their machines to grind through heavy calculations. I thought, “This could work for bot spam in Joomla forms,” and built my first Captcha - HashCash plugin. Little did I know, someone else had tried it before me—and their version vanished after landing on the CVE list in 2006. If I’d known, I might’ve picked a different name. But that’s ancient history, and my HashCash? It’s still kicking.
New for 2025
As I had mentioned recently, I am re-thinking my 2025 Joomla extension strategy. This begins with discontinuing extensions that don't make sense in Joomla 4 and 5. Many of my extensions are redundant (functionality has been included in the Joomla core), so I won't be updating them going forward. They will remain downloadable from my site, but won't receive any updates or support. Use at your own risk.
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