Alansee

This is where I disagree - putting up barriers DOES reduce the problems, which is why so many sites use them. Unless the perpetrators are really serious they will probably put it into the too hard basket and move on. And for what it is worth, last time I checked Canada was in (north) America. There are a number of issues that we deal with here that do not occur in North America.

No, it is NOT a local problem. A similar thing has happened at least once before that I am aware of (in Germany a few years ago - it took them months and some ingenuity to resolve). It can, and will, happen again, anywhere, any time.

There is a problem and it is spoiling the game for quite a number of people. We keep on hearing that Groundspeak is doing something about it and I sincerely hope and expect that they are. It is a lot like security for your house - you can never hope to keep the most determined burglar out, but you do things to dissuade most who would try. It is called Risk Management. And you certainly don't leave the front door open when you know that people are already getting in.

No, it wouldn't. I'm not going to go into the nuts and bolts of how this jerk (or jerks) is/are doing what they're doing. But email certification wouldn't completely solve the problem. It would however resolve another problem of people routinely trashing caches and then posting nasty logs, with no way of stopping them!