Tiago
31 lines
1.6 KiB
Markdown
31 lines
1.6 KiB
Markdown
# How does cap work?
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> [!NOTE]
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> This is a more technical explanation of how Cap works. If you're looking for a more general overview, check out the [Effectiveness](./effectiveness.md) page.
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#### Initialization
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1. When Cap is initialized, it automatically registers a custom element for the widget in the browser's DOM.
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2. The widget creates a shadow DOM and appends all necessary HTML elements to it, ensuring encapsulation from the rest of the page.
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#### Requesting the challenge
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3. When a solution is requested, the widget sends a request to the server to create a challenge set.
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- Each challenge consists of a unique salt and a target hash prefix.
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- The goal is to find a nonce value that, when combined with the salt and hashed using SHA-256, produces a hash that begins with the target prefix.
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- Instead of generating just one challenge, Cap creates multiple challenges to enable progress tracking and optimize performance.
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#### Computing the solution
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4. The widget leverages Web Workers to solve the challenges in parallel:
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- Each worker attempts to find a valid nonce by repeatedly:
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- Combining the salt with different nonce values
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- Computing the SHA-256 hash of this combination
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- Checking if the resulting hash begins with the target prefix
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- Workers increment the nonce systematically until a matching hash is found
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#### Redeeming the solution for a token
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5. Once a valid solution is found, the widget sends the result back to the server for validation.
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6. Upon successful verification, the server redeems the solution and issues a token that can be used to authenticate the request.
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