Awesome!

It only gives 5 coins IP day. I dunno if it also checks addresses.

But it's true, a good captcha wouldn't be a bad idea.

Showing the number of Bitcoins available is on my TODO list.  I just checked and the balance is up to 1,135 (thanks to whoever donated!).

And right now it is 5 bitcoins per IP address (not bitcoin address).  Not per-day-- just 5.  I want to start out conservatively, I will loosen it to 5 per (day?/week?/month?) if people start having lots of trouble because they get a dynamic IP address from their ISP that already got some.

RE: captchas:  yeah, I was gonna start out with a captcha, but I wanted it to be as simple and non-threatening as possible.  I don't think anybody who has access to hundreds or thousands of working public IP addresses would go to the effort of writing a bitcoin-harvesting robot, though I suppose somebody with a botnet might take a crack at it.  To make that tougher I could make it 5 bitcoins per IP AND 5 bitcoins per bitcoin address (so they couldn't have all the bots in the botnet using the same BC address).

Will you share the source code of your service?

gavinandersen

I've been able to drawn 50 BTC in minutes using Tor. Please add some address filter too, so the same address can't be used twice. I'll also provide a Tor blacklist if you'd like.
PS: I've paid back those BTCs.

It's out job to disarm thieves so this currency won't be subjected to the same atrocities as in real world.
This currency shall not be used for one to be rich and in control and others poor and under control.

Of course. I didn't. But that doesn't mean others won't too.

Gavinandersen
About 1500-1700 exit nodes on Tor. Yea, people using Bitcoin might use Tor, but not for your service. My suggestion is to ban open proxies.

Gavin, you should set DEBUG = False in your Django settings next time. I hit some kind of exception page and it gave me your secret and the URI of your JSON gateway.

I'll send your bitcoins back to you if you'd like. I'm emailing you.

Thanks Gavin. Glad to help.

Excellent choice of a first project, nice work.  I had planned to do this exact thing if someone else didn't do it, so when it gets too hard for mortals to generate 50BTC, new users could get some coins to play with right away.  Donations should be able to keep it filled.  The display showing the balance in the dispenser encourages people to top it up.

You should put a donation bitcoin address on the page for those who want to add funds to it, which ideally should update to a new address whenever it receives something.