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You probably don’t need ReCAPTCHA

kevv.net

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Re: You probably don’t need ReCAPTCHA

#3

Microsoft’s implementation is the worse. I sometimes have a hard time deciphering the captcha. Why do they need that in an iOS app? Are robots emulating people from an iPhone?

The iPhone app probably communicates to some servers over an API of some kind - there's no reason someone malicious couldn't pretend to be an iphone and communicate over the same API

Re: You probably don’t need ReCAPTCHA

#6
Most websites probably don't. If you're one of those people, congratulations! Stick a honeypot input into your form and call it a day.

However, if you're working on anything with non-insignificant amounts of traffic, you'll get hit with some customized spam.

I've been dealing with these spammers, and if you do nothing, your forum will be filled with korean ads. We implement Akismet, StopForumSpam, Project Honeypot, and ReCAPTCHA, with the latter being the most effective (sadly). I'm pretty sure some of these spam agencies have customized tooling to handle NodeBB (they're using websockets to submit the posts, instead of HTTP POST).

Outside of these strategies, the most effective by far is reputation restrictions. Post queues if you're new or don't have enough upvotes, etc. However it does require manual effort, of course.

Would definitely love an alternative.

Re: You probably don’t need ReCAPTCHA

#7
post #3

Microsoft’s implementation is the worse. I sometimes have a hard time deciphering the captcha. Why do they need that in an iOS app? Are robots emulating people from an iPhone?

The iPhone app probably communicates to some servers over an API of some kind - there's no reason someone malicious couldn't pretend to be an iphone and communicate over the same API

and no reason someone malicious couldn't click-farm iPhones either.

https://gizmodo.com/thai-click-fraud-farm-busted-using-wall-...

Re: You probably don’t need ReCAPTCHA

#8
ReCAPTCHA has crossed into the domain of cattle-corralling users and thus should be considered harmful. If the system decides it doesn't like you (most likely because you're "too anonymous," but you don't really know) you will be presented with slower-loading images to click and more click-all-the-things rounds. To pretend this is about slowing down bots is disingenuous as best. On top of that, usage of ReCAPTCHA perpetuates the very problems I just described.

Why isn't there a solid alternative offering yet?

Re: You probably don’t need ReCAPTCHA

#9
"ReCAPTCHA relies extensively on user fingerprinting, putting emphasis on the question of "Which human is this user?" rather than the ordinary "Is this user human?". "

Classic example of collecting more information than what is needed.

Re: You probably don’t need ReCAPTCHA

#10
I wrote a PHP CAPTCHA more than 10 years ago, I've been using it ever since with almost no changes, and not a single spammer has made it through. Unless your website is really huge (think Facebook, Reddit, etc.) a simple CAPTCHA will work literally perfectly.

My CAPTCHA looks kind of like the one on the left in this image on the blog: https://kevv.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/laravel_captcha....

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