Live data from Hacker News

CAPTCHAs don’t prove you’re human – they prove you’re American (2017)

shkspr.mobi

611–620 of 700 posts

Re: CAPTCHAs don’t prove you’re human – they prove you’re American (2017)

#611
post #247

Being an African born & bred in Nigeria, I particularly find this appalling. Captcha usually asks users to identify fire hydrants, crosswalks & other objects with design patterns that are not common here, in everyday living. There's a big question on whether these approaches work well for onboarding the next billion users to the internet, especially since the demographics are much different from existing internet use…

hCaptcha engineer here: this is an issue with Google's approach, not all visual challenges. Our challenges have average solve accuracy within 1% when comparing users in major African countries vs US users in our user testing. Nigeria does slightly better than the US, in fact.

maybe because when i see one i dont even bother

Re: CAPTCHAs don’t prove you’re human – they prove you’re American (2017)

#612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What the hell is that thing?! Is that normal in the US?

I rented a car there and I was amazed at how much text there was, instead of symbols. Eg they have signs in turning lanes that say "Right lane must turn right". By the time you've read that, you've turned right.

Wikipedia is interesting on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_signs_in_the_United_State... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manual_on_Uniform_Traffic_Cont...

Re: CAPTCHAs don’t prove you’re human – they prove you’re American (2017)

#613
post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember a flame war between US-English and UK-English speakers, where one of the former said “if it weren't for us, you'd be speaking German now” and one of the latter ones said “if it weren't for the French, you'd still speak English now”.

I don’t understand the rebuttal. Is American English supposed to be more French-influenced than UK English?

[deleted]

Re: CAPTCHAs don’t prove you’re human – they prove you’re American (2017)

#615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a reference to the assistance provided by France to help the American colonies (and later the United States) rebel against the British Empire. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France_in_the_American_Revolut...

Ah. That's not a very sharp barb considering the significant power differential between England and the Revolutionists at the time.

I think the key part of the joke is that Americans don't speak proper English.

Re: CAPTCHAs don’t prove you’re human – they prove you’re American (2017)

#616

Yes, the American focus of the internet is absolutely appalling. Assumptions of timezones - PST, CST and the others whatever they are. Northern hemisphere assumptions of seasons - fall, etc - in the southern hemisphere the seasons are the opposite and we don't use the word fall. Even Apple, known for its "sensitivity" to cultural matters has a big miss on this one.

and 12-hour clocks. I can never remember if "am" morning or afternoon. Why is 12am before 1am? Makes no sense at all.

In middle school I often had to reset my plugged-in 12-hour alarm clock at night because I would switch plugs for some reason.

I noticed a pattern that sometimes my alarm would refuse to ring in the morning but would ring at 8 at night.

I eventually noticed that it only happened when I stayed up late and reset the time/alarm at midnight and figured out that my clock was broken because it thought that 11 PM is followed by 12 AM.

It was more than a decade until I found out that it was correct.

Re: CAPTCHAs don’t prove you’re human – they prove you’re American (2017)

#617
post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you are not supposed to type realistic answers to security questions. Its better to answer in complete unrelated ways so its not guesable

I actually did that once. The rest of the security practices were so ridiculous, I set all five security questions to the same nonsensical answer. I had to go through a security flow with a support rep. at some later point, and he's asked me all five questions, each time I'm giving him exactly the same answer, and by the fifth thinking, "Really? Do you think I somehow won't get this one?"

Sounds like a well trained representative?

Re: CAPTCHAs don’t prove you’re human – they prove you’re American (2017)

#618
post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tangentially, we've been having fun with this recently. "Why haven't you completed Active Shooter Training?" "I'm busy, prioritising my time, and this training is irrelevant to me." "But what if there's an Active Shooter in the office?" "I've been working at home since April, and I've already been told to expect 6 months more." "It could still happen at home!" "What country do you think we're in?" Head Office seems t…

Wait, there is actually something like mandatory Active Shooter Training in US companies? For real?

Fucking annual for me.

Re: CAPTCHAs don’t prove you’re human – they prove you’re American (2017)

#619

As a blind person with english as not native language, the audio captchas are pure hell. I can't imagine other visually impaired people who don't know english at all and have to deal with a lazy website which dumps them the default english audio captcha if there is audio at all.

Try Buster. Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/buster-captch... Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/buster-captcha-sol...

After so many, you're still going to get the "you're sending automated requests" message just like you do if you keep answering the quizzes correctly by hand.

ReCaptcha doesn't care at all if you're human or not, but instead has some vague aim of "preventing abuse."

Re: CAPTCHAs don’t prove you’re human – they prove you’re American (2017)

#620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the assumption that everyone on the planet should know or care about this. "Mountain" could describe anywhere. The Himalayas, the Alps, Norway.

Not trying to change your mind, just to answer your question.

I think he already knows the answer, since googling this exact expression gives a very clear response. It looks more like an exclamation of "this doesn't mean anything to me", which I understand and partially share as well.
Post reply on HN