I noticed number of spam comments have increased from a few 100 a day to couple thousand. Though Akismet is not letting any of these comments through on the site, these are certainly using server resources.

After one of my friends suggested I decided to install a CAPTCHA plugin to stop the spam from entering into the system itself. I am not a great fan of CAPTCHA as the easy ones are crackable anyway and the tougher ones are tough enough to confuse a human.

In the process of searching for the right plugin I found “WP CAPTCHA Free” which does the job VERY well and does not even have a CAPTCHA!

Here is how it works!

“WP CAPTCHA-Free blocks comment spam by using a combination of time-based hash (a.k.a. Time Based Tokens, TBT) and JavaScript (AJAX). When a comment is posted the plugin validates a hash based on time (and some other parameters). Comments posted via automated means will not have a hash or will have an expired hash and will be rejected. Unlike using a CAPTCHA, this does not place any burden on the commenter. “

I haven’t seen a single SPAM comment entering the system for approval or otherwise. At the same time I have tested if it lets uses enter a comment without a problem. So far I haven’t had a problem but I would encourage our readers to shoot an e-mail to nerds at tnerd.com.

Click here to visit the plugin page.

The whole industry is being run under the radar of “data processing” and the fascinating fact is that people are breaking captcha at a rate of $2 per 1000 captchas. As an example of one such company ZDNet names decaptcher.com (sorry no hot linking to the bad guys!) which has Indian links to it. We checked the whois information and found it to be registered on a Russian (Moscow) address. Following is what the site has to offer in terms of promises it’s making for breaking captcha:

Using the advertisement in blogs, social networks, etc significantly increases the efficiency of the business. Many services use pictures called CAPTCHAs in order to prevent automated use of these services.
Solve CAPTCHAs with the help of this portal, increase your business efficiency now!

Follow these steps:
1. Register
2. Contact us at admin@decaptcher.com to put money to your account via PayPal and retrieve API
3. Login to check your balance

You pay for correctly recognized CAPTCHAs only

The whole story will give you goose bumps in terms of seeing the kind of professionalism that’s visible in such captcha solving companies. Read the complete story here.