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Why Captchas have gotten so difficult

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Re: Why Captchas have gotten so difficult

#71

Post by zaarn »

darkpuma wrote: post #67
zaarn wrote: post #16

For Google ReCaptcha, simply install the Buster addon, it solves the captcha for you via speech-to-text. For captcha's in general, I think we should stop pretending that we can prevent bot traffic from a dedicated attacker without annoying the users. A simple captcha from the 2000's (the ones with lines over a word or number of letters and numbers), should be good enough to hold off basic script kiddies. Same for a b…

Google won't even serve the audio captcha in the first place to many users who use firefox, adblockers, etc.

It always serves an audio captcha for me on Firefox with Adblocking and Script Blocking on Linux.

Re: Why Captchas have gotten so difficult

#72

Post by zaarn »

n_ary wrote: post #51
driverdan wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately Buster no longer works. Google detects it now and makes you start over.

This. Google just disables captcha immediately. Also I tried clicking the audio manually, it immediately disables with a notice that “we are getting .... please try again later”.

Use on of the other STT apis than the Google Speech demo.

Re: Why Captchas have gotten so difficult

#73

Post by darkpuma »

tootahe45 wrote: post #35
leni536 wrote: post #31

Google: Hey, you don't have any Google login/session cookies? Not even one from a previous login (yeah, you can't fully log out)? That's wrong! Here, click on the traffic lights for 5 minutes! Or have one of those super slow fade-in fade-out captchas!

Been testing captchas inadvertently quite a bit in fresh installs across multiple VMs, from what I can tell it has nothing to do with whether you have cookies or privacy configurations, it comes down to whether you use Chromium or use a shared IP. If you use Firefox even without privacy configs, expect to spend 3x the time as Chrome, that's not even including the fact that those fading images load 5x slower on Firefo…

I've found it easier to get past their captchas with chrome from a shared IP than from firefox on any normal residential IP.

Re: Why Captchas have gotten so difficult

#74

Post by webmobdev »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #61
webmobdev wrote: post #46

What many commentors here don't realise is that Google also uses reCaptcha to make you do free work for them.

I think people realize that, but is it much worse than proof of work that is helpful to nobody? It's easy to take a position against Google and Recaptcha. It's easy to take a position against something that inconveniences you. What people actually don't seem to realize ITT is that abuse is becoming so easy and such a problem that we are becoming increasingly reliant on centralized services like Cloudflare and Google.…

I liked the idea when they just showed images of words that an OCR couldn't read accurately.

But now all this damn clicking of hydrants, crossing, traffic lights, store fronts, vehicles etc. etc. is becoming really irritating.

And no, I disagree that we have no option but to rely on "centralised" services like cloudfare or Google.

Re: Why Captchas have gotten so difficult

#75

Post by zaarn »

thinkloop wrote: post #59
zaarn wrote: post #16

For Google ReCaptcha, simply install the Buster addon, it solves the captcha for you via speech-to-text. For captcha's in general, I think we should stop pretending that we can prevent bot traffic from a dedicated attacker without annoying the users. A simple captcha from the 2000's (the ones with lines over a word or number of letters and numbers), should be good enough to hold off basic script kiddies. Same for a b…

> A simple captcha from the 2000's (the ones with lines over a word or number of letters and numbers), should be good enough to hold off basic script kiddies The problem is that while the kiddies may not be sophisticated their scripts can be - the solutions will work its way in the scripts sooner than later.

Fighting against AI cracking is the same battle that AV vendors have fought in the past decades. It ultimately ends by selling snakeoil.

Any dedicated attacker can nowadays circumvent your captcha solution, it's at best now to get the low level background noise to go away, similar to IP blocking SSH when an IP makes too many attempts.

If your site security relies entirely on the captcha not being broken, your site security needs an update.

Re: Why Captchas have gotten so difficult

#76

Post by hombre_fatal »

sys_64738 wrote: post #10

I find if I use VPN then google will display one on search. In particular, when I try using Opera VPN then I always get one. I decline to do them so search via bing instead. Forcing users to prove their not bots is totally the wrong approach. They should be forcing bots to prove they're human so that real humans don't see this nonsense. Easier said than done, but that's not my problem.

> Easier said than done, but that's not my problem.

Well, but it is. Spammers and abusers have directly made it so. "This is why we can't have nice things." It's not your fault that thieves exist, but you've decided it's your problem enough to put a lock on your door.

And if a website has deficient measures against spam/abuse, it becomes your problem again when you have to see it or deal with it. Turns out that Recaptcha works pretty well in a world where it's only becoming easier and easier to abuse web platforms. And that's become a problem for all of us who want to participate online.

It's easy to be dismissive here, especially because you can just put Google in your iron sights and fire away instead of acknowledging why people use Recaptcha. Or you can just say "I'm sure there's a better solution" and leave it as an exercise for the reader. But I think you're barking up the wrong tree.

Re: Why Captchas have gotten so difficult

#77

Post by harshreality »

johnisgood wrote: post #53
nprateem wrote: post #15

These really make my blood boil. I continually trip whatever it is that makes Google think I'm a bot (probably a VPN + ublock). Sometimes it takes upwards of 5 tries (each with 3 or 4 tests) to pass. After the first failure the audio one stops working, and sometimes that's unintelligible. I honestly wonder how anyone who's even slightly visually impaired is supposed to pass them. I wouldn't be surprised if in the not…

It is almost impossible to pass those CAPTCHAs behind Tor. Personally I am not sure if it is possible, I could never pass. It would just give me more and more CAPTCHAs to solve. I gave up after the 6th one.

I think there's a logic bug/feature where if the rate of attempted captcha solutions from your IP is too high, it won't tell you you've failed (it knows you didn't) but it'll keep giving you more and more captchas. Sometimes I eventually get through after 4, 6, 8 attempts. Maybe because the automated attempts slowed down, or maybe just by chance. Sometimes I end up getting the dreaded "too many automated requests from your network" message (the equivalent of Gandalf's "You Shall Not Pass!") which is fucking wonderful when it's not even google's website I'm trying to access.

Re: Why Captchas have gotten so difficult

#79

Post by ardy42 »

konschubert wrote: post #55

And I SUCK at these to the point where I think I’m not getting the rules of the game. For example, for the one with traffic lights: Am I supposed to just mark the light bulbs or also the poles and beams?

> And I SUCK at these to the point where I think I’m not getting the rules of the game.

I have a feeling that that they've switched from a human source of truth (e.g. 3 other people got the same tile and consistently classified it as X), to a machine source of truth (e.g. their image classifier says it's X).

Now instead of thinking like a human to solve a captcha, you have to think like their sort-of-shitty "AI."

Also, the recaptcha puzzle I hate the most was the one where you had to classify street signs--but then it showed you foreign signs in foreign alphabets. Street sign conventions can vary so much around the world that the puzzle was manifestly unfair. I haven't seen this one in a while, so I do hope they retired it.

Re: Why Captchas have gotten so difficult

#80

Post by RobertRoberts »

darkpuma wrote: post #60
konschubert wrote: post #55

And I SUCK at these to the point where I think I’m not getting the rules of the game. For example, for the one with traffic lights: Am I supposed to just mark the light bulbs or also the poles and beams?

You're doing it right. Google is gaslighting you; lying and telling you you've failed challenges when you actually solved them correctly. They do this to punish users who opt out of the google 'ecosystem' by not having a google account, not using chrome, using adblockers, etc. The proof of this assertion comes when you manage to enable the noscript version of reCAPTCHA (which is only available on sites that have opte…

Can I suggest we stop using "dark patterns" as a criticism for evil behavior?

I think Google (or someone) sponsored the name "dark patterns" so they can be accused of it all day long and no one will really care.

Manipulation, lying, deceit, stealing, call it it what it is. Not some watered-down marketing phrase to let these guys off the hook.

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