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Google’s new reCAPTCHA has a dark side

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Re: Google’s new reCAPTCHA has a dark side

#41

Post by fisherjeff »

cbsks wrote: post #5

You can view your reCaptcha V3 score here: https://recaptcha-demo.appspot.com/recaptcha-v3-request-scor... I get .7 on my iPhone, I’m guessing that my liberal use of Firefox containers and the cookie auto-delete extension on my desktop will give me a much lower score and cause me to have to jump through extra hoops at websites that implement it, just like the reCaptcha V2 does. Edit: I also got 0.7 on Firefox with st…

Using desktop Safari incognito without a Google account and Ghostery enabled, I get 0.7 too. Interestingly, disabling CSS drops me to 0.1...

Re: Google’s new reCAPTCHA has a dark side

#42

Post by stirfrykitty »

benologist wrote: post #8
ixwt wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get a 0.7 on my computer on Firefox. If I use the same website in Chrome (which is signed into a Google account) I get a 0.9. I guess it's a [0,1] scale?

I'm guessing their a-listers came up with something like this: // TODO: add impressive-looking math if (signedin && trackedEverywhere) { return 0.9 } else { return 0.7 } I think we give Google way too much credit for their talent. This is the same company that didn't feel like finishing their website for two decades and subsequently stole $75 million from their users even when Google knew [1]. The same company that s…

Good info. Thank you.

And in keeping with recent revelations on Google's manipulation of search results, I think they have really gone beyond the pale. I un-archived my old iPhone two days ago and went back to iOS after the James O'Keefe/Project Veritas revelations. I now cannot, in good conscience, use anything Google. I always knew about the tracking and all that because, after all, they are an ad company. I'm now in the process of moving all of my domains over to Fastmail, which I've used since 2002. I'm using Qwant, Startpage, and DDG for search. FF for browser with many about:config tweaks and several add-ons.

Re: Google’s new reCAPTCHA has a dark side

#43

Post by lostmyoldone »

Twirrim wrote: post #30
benologist wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing their a-listers came up with something like this: // TODO: add impressive-looking math if (signedin && trackedEverywhere) { return 0.9 } else { return 0.7 } I think we give Google way too much credit for their talent. This is the same company that didn't feel like finishing their website for two decades and subsequently stole $75 million from their users even when Google knew [1]. The same company that s…

If I sign out of my google account in Chrome it drops from 0.9 to 0.7. I could have sworn I'd never signed in to Chrome using my google account, but I guess I must have mistakenly signed in to gmail or something. I use FF as my main browser, only ever drop back to Chrome sporadically, or when I really want tabs to be completely isolated (there are some annoyingly CPU/power intensive stuff I do from time to time, and…

I believe that's a "feature" they added a while back, auto-signing you into chrome as soon as you was logged into gmail.

Re: Google’s new reCAPTCHA has a dark side

#44

Post by cyphar »

cracker_jacks wrote: post #17

The other tradeoff is you're giving Google an extraordinary amount of power to decide who is allowed and not allowed on your website with no transparency on how this decision was made. Not sure what company is willing to blindly trust Google with that power.

Unfortunately, the answer is (basically) all of them. Combined with CloudFlare, even websites that aren't explicitly making that decision are still opting their users into both CloudFlare and Google's tracking.

I use Tor fairly regularly and it's a complete nightmare. I sometimes spend 5-15 minutes solving reCAPTCHA (since your Tor circuit changes every 10 minutes this can result in having to solve the reCAPTCHA several times).

Re: Google’s new reCAPTCHA has a dark side

#45

Post by jermaustin1 »

cbsks wrote: post #5

You can view your reCaptcha V3 score here: https://recaptcha-demo.appspot.com/recaptcha-v3-request-scor... I get .7 on my iPhone, I’m guessing that my liberal use of Firefox containers and the cookie auto-delete extension on my desktop will give me a much lower score and cause me to have to jump through extra hoops at websites that implement it, just like the reCaptcha V2 does. Edit: I also got 0.7 on Firefox with st…

What is most odd is I get 0.7 on iOS Safari which I use for 100% of my purposeful mobile browsing, but I get .9 on iOS Chrome, which is only used when I accidentally click on links from gmail (so very, very rarely).

Re: Google’s new reCAPTCHA has a dark side

#46

Post by ronjouch »

cbsks wrote: post #5

You can view your reCaptcha V3 score here: https://recaptcha-demo.appspot.com/recaptcha-v3-request-scor... I get .7 on my iPhone, I’m guessing that my liberal use of Firefox containers and the cookie auto-delete extension on my desktop will give me a much lower score and cause me to have to jump through extra hoops at websites that implement it, just like the reCaptcha V2 does. Edit: I also got 0.7 on Firefox with st…

Using Firefox with uBlock and Cookie-Autodelete I get 0.1

Using Chrome, even incognito and with uBlock I get 0.7

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻. F you, Google, this is blatant bullying, technically unjustifyable abuse of your stranglehold over the whole web platform.

Re: Google’s new reCAPTCHA has a dark side

#47

Post by jcomis »

I hate the v3 reCAPTCHA. On FF, I usually KNOW I am answering correctly and it says I failed. I always have to go through it multiple times. It's maddening. It often leaves me second guessing myself... is that sliver of car counted? is a crossing signal a street light? What about those streetlights way off in the distance, do I select those two in addition to the ones front and center? That RV looks sort of like a bus, should I select that too?

Re: Google’s new reCAPTCHA has a dark side

#48

Post by cyphar »

toong wrote: post #3
shock wrote: post #2

> According to two security researchers who’ve studied reCaptcha, one of the ways that Google determines whether you’re a malicious user or not is whether you already have a Google cookie installed on your browser. It’s the same cookie that allows you to open new tabs in your browser and not have to re-log in to your Google account every time. I try to never be logged into my google account as a matter of principle.…

You don't need to log-in, to be tagged with a cookie and subsequently be identified. Sometimes referred to as "anonymous authentication".

Or "shadow profiles".

Re: Google’s new reCAPTCHA has a dark side

#49

Post by gpm »

cbsks wrote: post #5

You can view your reCaptcha V3 score here: https://recaptcha-demo.appspot.com/recaptcha-v3-request-scor... I get .7 on my iPhone, I’m guessing that my liberal use of Firefox containers and the cookie auto-delete extension on my desktop will give me a much lower score and cause me to have to jump through extra hoops at websites that implement it, just like the reCaptcha V2 does. Edit: I also got 0.7 on Firefox with st…

Firefox mobile w/ ublock: 0.9

Re: Google’s new reCAPTCHA has a dark side

#50

Post by antsar »

superasn wrote: post #37
pergadad wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the same experience, some pages don't work on FF but fine on Chrome. I like to apply Occam's Razor, but with so many users it seems to me as if that's either by design, or certainly there is little desire to fix the issue.

Worst part is my chrome installation is 100% fresh with no browsing history and FF has cookies and history older than an year ago.. still google trusts Chrome more than FF?

To be fair, its not super-hard to follow the incentives there...
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