Scr.im » Share your email in a safe way. Get less spam.
1–10 of 26 posts
Re: Scr.im » Share your email in a safe way. Get less spam.
#2Yet another completely ineffectual captcha that completely misses the point.
Are you joking? There is a 1 in 9 chance of getting the captcha right if you pick completely randomly. If I was writing a program to scrape these addresses your entire captcha system might add 2 minutes of programming time to the job.
Re: Scr.im » Share your email in a safe way. Get less spam.
#3Yet another completely ineffectual captcha that completely misses the point. http://scr.im/test Are you joking? There is a 1 in 9 chance of getting the captcha right if you pick completely randomly . If I was writing a program to scrape these addresses your entire captcha system might add 2 minutes of programming time to the job.
How about coining it "cargo cult captcha"[1] :) It seems there are lots of futile CAPTCHAs popping out these days.
Re: Scr.im » Share your email in a safe way. Get less spam.
#4Yet another completely ineffectual captcha that completely misses the point. http://scr.im/test Are you joking? There is a 1 in 9 chance of getting the captcha right if you pick completely randomly . If I was writing a program to scrape these addresses your entire captcha system might add 2 minutes of programming time to the job.
He explains it in the FAQ.
Re: Scr.im » Share your email in a safe way. Get less spam.
#5Yet another completely ineffectual captcha that completely misses the point. http://scr.im/test Are you joking? There is a 1 in 9 chance of getting the captcha right if you pick completely randomly . If I was writing a program to scrape these addresses your entire captcha system might add 2 minutes of programming time to the job.
Quoting their FAQ:
" The Captcha (humanity check) is way too simple, I can bruteforce it with a script!
It's exactly how it should be. It's not an unbreakable locker. We prefer simple captchas, ease of use and convenience over undecypherable and cumbersome enigmas. "
Not convinced...
Re: Scr.im » Share your email in a safe way. Get less spam.
#6Yet another completely ineffectual captcha that completely misses the point. http://scr.im/test Are you joking? There is a 1 in 9 chance of getting the captcha right if you pick completely randomly . If I was writing a program to scrape these addresses your entire captcha system might add 2 minutes of programming time to the job.
Quoting their FAQ: " The Captcha (humanity check) is way too simple, I can bruteforce it with a script! It's exactly how it should be. It's not an unbreakable locker. We prefer simple captchas, ease of use and convenience over undecypherable and cumbersome enigmas. " Not convinced...
Yeah, I don't understand how that helps with the goal of protecting my email...
Re: Scr.im » Share your email in a safe way. Get less spam.
#7Yet another completely ineffectual captcha that completely misses the point. http://scr.im/test Are you joking? There is a 1 in 9 chance of getting the captcha right if you pick completely randomly . If I was writing a program to scrape these addresses your entire captcha system might add 2 minutes of programming time to the job.
Quoting their FAQ: " The Captcha (humanity check) is way too simple, I can bruteforce it with a script! It's exactly how it should be. It's not an unbreakable locker. We prefer simple captchas, ease of use and convenience over undecypherable and cumbersome enigmas. " Not convinced...
I still don't get why anyone would want to use this service. First, if you've had an e-mail for long enough, chances are you are already getting spammed like hell. Second, if you really really wanted to keep your e-mail free from spam, you would use a truly unbreakable captcha.
IMHO, the only viable solution to spam nowadays is filtering - not prevention.
Re: Scr.im » Share your email in a safe way. Get less spam.
#8Yet another completely ineffectual captcha that completely misses the point. http://scr.im/test Are you joking? There is a 1 in 9 chance of getting the captcha right if you pick completely randomly . If I was writing a program to scrape these addresses your entire captcha system might add 2 minutes of programming time to the job.
Quoting their FAQ: " The Captcha (humanity check) is way too simple, I can bruteforce it with a script! It's exactly how it should be. It's not an unbreakable locker. We prefer simple captchas, ease of use and convenience over undecypherable and cumbersome enigmas. " Not convinced...
Sorry, the CAPTCHA is completely pointless. Here's why:
1. Go to http://scr.im/test
2. Click the upper right box
3. If you receive an error page, click "Try Again" and go to step 1.
4. You should arrive at this step in approximately 9 tries (on average) taking less than 15 seconds.
What the heck is the point of a "human test" if it can be automatically attacked by a bot with literally no effort at all. The funny thing is that there is a more traditional CAPTCHA at http://scr.im/test?failsafe=1 that is much more secure.
Why is the default CAPTCHA pointless? Because it attempts to test for "human-ness" without requiring any human action what so ever. Click a link, the same link, over and over until it is correct is what a bot will do. On the flip side, using your eyes to interpret slightly out of skew characters is decidedly much harder for anything other than a "human" to do.
Re: Scr.im » Share your email in a safe way. Get less spam.
#9Yet another completely ineffectual captcha that completely misses the point. http://scr.im/test Are you joking? There is a 1 in 9 chance of getting the captcha right if you pick completely randomly . If I was writing a program to scrape these addresses your entire captcha system might add 2 minutes of programming time to the job.
He explains it in the FAQ.
The explanation (CAPTCHAs should be simple for humans; we don't say it's unbreakable) still doesn't address the underlying problem. It is too easy. I have no idea how to do image recognition and yet I could use this to scrape the addresses.
Moreover, this service has a great potential to use real human language and context to protect the addresses and provide easy and accessible test.
Just let me type a freeform question and an expected answer.
If I posted the link here and it asked you to enter the city I live in, everyone reading this comment here on Hacker News could easily figure it out.
Breaking this solution in general would be infeasible for bots.
Re: Scr.im » Share your email in a safe way. Get less spam.
#10The FAQ doesn't explain why sharing your e-mail address on that site is safe.