Live data from Hacker News

Introducing the Invisible reCAPTCHA

google.com

171–180 of 245 posts

Re: Introducing the Invisible reCAPTCHA

#171
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you'd do the work if it were not productive but not otherwise? Like, if they just threw away your input into the CAPTCHA after confirming you're human, you're okay with that? Or do you just hate CAPTCHAs on principle?

Imagine you're at an airport and an inspector takes your batteries out of your luggage. All other things being equal, does it matter if he tosses them in the trash, or keeps them for his personal use? From one perspective it doesn't matter - your batteries are gone either way. But from another perspective, inspectors who keep what they find have completely different motivations - making the same outcome much more sin…

It makes sense there because the actual consequences are undesirable. What are the undesirable consequences we're incentivising here? That Google will cover the entire web in captchas?

Re: Introducing the Invisible reCAPTCHA

#173
post #4

Google using captchas to get humans to read street addresses captured by street view cars to improve maps results remains one of the most Googly things they've ever done. Genius, lateral, and a little weird.

I wonder about the error-check thing. If at least one paid employee had to enter a first-set of data that was 'absolutely correct' before being seen by multiple people online which then 'solidifies' the correct responses. I briefly read about this somewhere but still not sure. I mean it does obviously work in the sense of entering something blatantly not correct is flagged.

Re: Introducing the Invisible reCAPTCHA

#174
post #173
post #4

Google using captchas to get humans to read street addresses captured by street view cars to improve maps results remains one of the most Googly things they've ever done. Genius, lateral, and a little weird.

I wonder about the error-check thing. If at least one paid employee had to enter a first-set of data that was 'absolutely correct' before being seen by multiple people online which then 'solidifies' the correct responses. I briefly read about this somewhere but still not sure. I mean it does obviously work in the sense of entering something blatantly not correct is flagged.

Probably no need to have someone seed it. You just show the same image to a thousand people, and if 900 of them answer it one way that's almost certainly the correct answer.

Re: Introducing the Invisible reCAPTCHA

#175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It modifies your behaviour in ways that aren't in your interest.

Why isn't it in my interest to be shown ads that offer me goods and services of my interests?

Because ads are evil. They are bedrock of all worldwide bullshit and scam. They make seller don’t care about reputation, competitors and eventually product quality. They transfer products completion into ads competition. They make all products more expensive because of this “advertising tax”. They turn off customer’s head to make a zombie who buys best advertised product instead of one with the best quality. They are good only for advertising companies and scammers.

Re: Introducing the Invisible reCAPTCHA

#176

"Powering these advances is machine learning and a combination of threat yadda yadda" Looks like they do little more than just check for a Google cookie [1]. [1]. https://www.blackhat.com/docs/asia-16/materials/asia-16-Siva... edit: still, it's far better than the previous state of captchas. I'm glad they did this. But it's like for anything to be considered "advanced" or "good" in tech lately, it has to have been po…

Well, technically, it is machine learning. Only that the machine learning was likely part of the usual data mining on google accounts and not much specific to the captcha problem...

(That said, whenever I used that checkbox widget they had before this announcement, there was a noticeable framerate drop in the browser while the thing was doing its magic. So I suspect, they are at least doing some browser fingerprinting/benchmarking to see if the widget runs inside selenium or a stock browser.

I also remember rumors that they analyze keyboard/mouse input on the page and check if it looks "human", but I'm not sure if that's true.)

Re: Introducing the Invisible reCAPTCHA

#177
post #128

Doesn't anyone else see it as a problem that Google's bots (and possibly CIA/NSA) can access any system using Google ReCAPTCHA? They can create unlimited amount of accounts on social networks, blogs, forums etc. and thus have unlimited social voting power on the Internet. There is a need for a decentralized Captcha that can't be circumvented by anyone.

Google owns google. If they really wanted to manipulate people they would manipulate their own search result and not go through the trouble of spamming other sites.

Re: Introducing the Invisible reCAPTCHA

#178
post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if that's good for us. We're doing work for google for free. Google Translate will replace translators, Google car will replace drivers, Google VR + map will replace city guides. We're giving them knowledge and powers to replace us, for free. Professions will disappear, people will lose jobs, Google will get richer and richer, will not pay me or you for fixing their suggestions in Google Translate or fixing…

You could argue that your payment is access to all of the free services they offer (e.g. Gmail)

Will that feed me or make rich richer and poor poorer?

Re: Introducing the Invisible reCAPTCHA

#179
I don't mean to imply this is some kind of evil monopoly conspiracy, but it is a bit ironic that Google helps websites avoid scraping.

Edit for clarification: I'm not even saying it's wrong, just plain ironic

Re: Introducing the Invisible reCAPTCHA

#180
post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if that's good for us. We're doing work for google for free. Google Translate will replace translators, Google car will replace drivers, Google VR + map will replace city guides. We're giving them knowledge and powers to replace us, for free. Professions will disappear, people will lose jobs, Google will get richer and richer, will not pay me or you for fixing their suggestions in Google Translate or fixing…

I consider it more a donation towards posterity than getting stiffed on some short term compensation. It's just an opinion, but if the things Google has created and shared into the whole of human knowledge towards the betterment of future societies are still being used in a century for my grandkids (and the rest of humankind) to benefit from, then I think it's better than not having it because a few million people wh…

There is some trade off when you think of the benefits we get for free, in return, from Google. I barely recall what it was like to buy a map, writing down directions, and praying to God I didn't get thrown off on the way.
Post reply on HN