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Captcha pictures force you to look at the world the way an AI does

clivethompson.medium.com

361–370 of 375 posts

Re: Captcha pictures force you to look at the world the way an AI does

#361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I'm member of a a religious (yogic) organisation and we have our own little chanting on Saturdays. When Covid broke out this obviously became impossible so we decided to have our meetings on Zoom instead. Now we have one woman in our group with some intellectual disability, a wonderful, sweet woman with the kindest heart in the world. Being 100% computer illiterate, she still decided to buy a tablet so she could f…

And there are many stories like this. When CAPTCHA started to be widespread, a lot of my blind friends (including me) suddenly were blocked from using parts of the Internet. We had to find sighted help to solve just a captcha, while everything else basically worked to be done independently. You can not imagine how much sorrow and self-pity CAPTCHAs have generated. I hope the person(s) who willingly allowed this trend…

Do you ever run into issues with the reCAPTCHA saying you’re not allowed to use the audio version? I’m not blind but for the handful of websites I will engage with a reCAPTCHA for I use the audio version. A third of the time I go do it I’m shown a “we’ve decided you’re a bot anyway, please try again later” message and am not allowed to complete an audio challenge. It’s infuriating! I can’t understand why it’s acceptable to just turn off accessibility on a whim. I can complete the image one if I absolutely must but that’s obviously not the case for a significant amount of people.

Re: Captcha pictures force you to look at the world the way an AI does

#362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lucky 10k

And for those in the lucky 10k learning about the lucky 10k today, https://xkcd.com/1053/

It doesn't have to be linked every time someone learns something.

Re: Captcha pictures force you to look at the world the way an AI does

#363
post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like your comment was expressed in sort of a dick way, but I also think it strikes at a truth that’s so deep and needed in our society. So thanks for the comment.

Not sure what's dickish about it to be honest.

Maybe you're right. I could feel the parent comment's pain from that implication that he was underdeveloped, largely because I agree. I have also noticed in myself that I'm often not aware of my underlying emotions, but very often a victim of them. To everyone around me I seem like an unemotional male, but I think in reality I'm low in emotional expressiveness, reactivity, and neuroticism.

Re: Captcha pictures force you to look at the world the way an AI does

#364

For me a part of the melancholy feeling comes from the indignity of being forced to prove I'm human, and then the frustration at this stupid world we've created which requires me to do so which immediately follows the indignity. A website with captchas is like a retail store with metal detectors; it's not somewhere I feel welcome.

> the frustration at this stupid world we've created

https://github.com/rene-tobner/unity

Egovernment and identity management @ world-wide-wished-for-things.org ?

Re: Captcha pictures force you to look at the world the way an AI does

#365
post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, if your browser supports this and that, otherwise not. No audio? Bad luck. No JS? Bad luck. Also, i'm assuming, maybe wrongfully so, that Google would make accessible CAPTCHAs harder to pass, with the logic that sound-based CAPTCHAs are much easier to break for a bot. All in all, reCAPTCHA (and other modern CAPTCHAs like hCaptcha) are a usability/accessibility disaster. It should be a crime to enable that on a…

Browsers have been free for longer than reCAPTCHA has existed, and browsers with audio and JS have been free for longer, too. I don't like JavaScript, and I block reCAPTCHA, but it's ludicrous to pretend that Google hasn't made it as accessible as possible. There are a lot of things wrong with Google, but accessibility is one thing they're reasonably good at, and making up things to trash reCAPTCHA seems dishonest. A…

I can only solve a few audio captchas until Google wants me to solve a real one. Audio captchas are to simple for bots.

Re: Captcha pictures force you to look at the world the way an AI does

#366
post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not the same as the classic US mailbox (). In the US you can use such a mailbox to send mail as well. In Europe you typically have private letterboxes for incoming mail and big, public post boxes for sending.

> classic US mailbox () Missing link? In NZ, and presumably other countries, personal letterboxes in rural areas can be used to send too, which I'm guessing is the same as what you're referring to.

Darn, the parentheses originally contained a mailbox emoji but I forgot HN does not support them.

Re: Captcha pictures force you to look at the world the way an AI does

#367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After years and years of captchas I still have no idea if I’m supposed to select all the poles for the traffic lights as well.

Should I click every tile that has a little bit of traffic light in it? Even with just the lamp housing that often means nearly all tiles. Somehow it doesn't seem to matter; it just works. Or not, and then I have no idea why. Captcha bonus level: try solving one of these from a public VPN.

I think it is best to click the tile even if it only has a small part of the "object" in it. Other instances may have the same image but the grid is offset by a few pixels. At one point the tile does not contain the object at all and won't get any clicks. That way they could determine boundaries with higher resolution than the grid cell size.

Re: Captcha pictures force you to look at the world the way an AI does

#368
post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> the indignity of being forced to prove I'm human Indignity, that's it! I was never able to explain to myself the visceral hate I feel when I encounter captcha. I knew it could not be explained by the little work it requires, I knew there had to be more, I just couldn't put my finger on it. Indignity, and maybe the feeling of being used. I have to admit, When I encounter captcha, I leave that page and never come ba…

On site I find especially annoying is Humble Bundle. Before I want to buy something there login. To prove that it is me owning the account I receive an email with a code I have to type in. Especially when I am on a mobile phone. After that, when frigging ever I want to checkoutmy cartI am forcedto do these captcha again prove that I am a human. I just stopped buying from them. Even if I like the cause.

> Even if I like the cause.

What cause is that? To make IGN more money? Because everything else is only marketing by now.

Re: Captcha pictures force you to look at the world the way an AI does

#369
post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And there are many stories like this. When CAPTCHA started to be widespread, a lot of my blind friends (including me) suddenly were blocked from using parts of the Internet. We had to find sighted help to solve just a captcha, while everything else basically worked to be done independently. You can not imagine how much sorrow and self-pity CAPTCHAs have generated. I hope the person(s) who willingly allowed this trend…

reCAPTCHA (Google's CAPTCHA) has been accessible to the blind for nearly the entirety of its existence if not the entirety outright.

I’m not blind but for the handful of websites that I’ll engage with a reCAPTCHA for, I use the audio version. About a third of the time I switch to audio it gives me a “we’ve decided you’re a bot anyway, please try again later” message and it won’t let me attempt it at all. They disable the accessibility to the blind on a whim which is astonishing to me.

The frustrating thing is that this happens even on devices/browsers with fewer privacy measures enabled, like just using a fresh firefox temporary container or private mode (so no browsing history or existing cookies maybe?) with no script blocking is ‘suspicious’ enough that accessibility to the blind is disabled with no recourse.

So yeah, it’s accessible (when they feel like it).

Re: Captcha pictures force you to look at the world the way an AI does

#370
post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, if your browser supports this and that, otherwise not. No audio? Bad luck. No JS? Bad luck. Also, i'm assuming, maybe wrongfully so, that Google would make accessible CAPTCHAs harder to pass, with the logic that sound-based CAPTCHAs are much easier to break for a bot. All in all, reCAPTCHA (and other modern CAPTCHAs like hCaptcha) are a usability/accessibility disaster. It should be a crime to enable that on a…

Browsers have been free for longer than reCAPTCHA has existed, and browsers with audio and JS have been free for longer, too. I don't like JavaScript, and I block reCAPTCHA, but it's ludicrous to pretend that Google hasn't made it as accessible as possible. There are a lot of things wrong with Google, but accessibility is one thing they're reasonably good at, and making up things to trash reCAPTCHA seems dishonest. A…

You dont rely on accessibility, right? So please dont claim that Google is perfect in this regards. Also, using words like "ludicrous" to shame people that dont believe the propaganda is just so fucked up.

If you like larry page and his friends, say so clearly, but please dont shame people based on accessibility that is not there.

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