yet another form of verification
finished up first stable running version of a new verification system I am working on. it involves an image being created from scratch using a pixel plotter and randomly generated numbers. each image is alike enough to show a general shape for that type of generated image. So far there are 4 types; though this is easily expandable into many more. the benefit of this over a captcha-style verification system is the lack of typing required, plus the shapes created do not resemble any character or text. this system is can be expanded with more shape possibilities, as well as combining different shapes into longer shape ‘messages’, perhaps called shapegrams. anyways, i finished writing the scripts to be incorporated as a wordpress plugin, which may or may not work on wordpress.com’s servers– i have not tested that yet, however it does work on mine. the scripts require the gd library to be installed and configured, my server was preconfigured with it, i have a feeling most are these days. to see it in action, click a posting on my blog and see the comments section.
it currently functions in 3 parts:
1. generate 5 images, set one as the key
2. user clicks image, type-code is sent back via ajax to script for verification
- if type is matched to the key, then a server side variable is created for later use and submit button revealed for comment form
- if mismatch, a reset of system and loop back to step 1
3. user submits comment form, a wordpress hook is used to catch wordpress during post-comment functioning, and if the serverside variable is setup the post is sent on to any other plugins installed for any further verification (ie: akismet). if the serverside variable is not setup(they tried to bypass the verification) the comment is immediately marked as spam and removed altogether (without your knowledge) before it is saved. I’m a bit new to wordpress’ framework, so this portion of the scripts has been slow to say the least.
I am preparing a cleaner code base for this, as well as a simple framework for extending the plugin via shapegram modules. this will more than likely be released on a GPL license, currently the code is not available, but should be shortly!
server requirements: gd library, php, wordpress(if using as plugin)
client requirements: javascript (ajax use, http requests)
