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Ask HN: Why does Cloudflare/hCaptcha care so much about buses, boats and trains?

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Re: Ask HN: Why does Cloudflare/hCaptcha care so much about buses, boats and trains?

#211

Post by 01acheru »

bearbin wrote: post #80

Other commenters have talked about labelling. Maybe labelling of real life data is something they're trying to do; but from my experience with hCaptcha the challenges are _NOT_ real life data. They're AI-generated images which bear a passing resemblance to the targets but if you look closer nothing adds up at all. Here are a couple of examples: https://bearbin.net/images/captcha/1.png https://bearbin.net/images/captc…

I think that might be something they actually do. Lately it happened to me see pictures of boats on land, bicycles merged with surrounding objects, weird proportions, and usually those strange images are extremely pixelated with those strange reddish or greenish fluo pixels that appear on generative network images.

But other times the pictures are 100% real life images.

Re: Ask HN: Why does Cloudflare/hCaptcha care so much about buses, boats and trains?

#212

Post by raffraffraff »

jdavis703 wrote: post #8

First, I’m going to teach you to fish. Go to hCaptcha’s website, then scroll to the footer. Click around on the about links. It’ll reveal their business model. This trick also works for other businesses and NGOs. Now, if we look at https://www.hcaptcha.com/labeling we can tell they make money by labeling data sets for a fee. So as a guess, there’s someone out there that needs to improve computer vision detection of t…

So the safety of self-driving cars depends on regular folks not trolling the catpcha.

Re: Ask HN: Why does Cloudflare/hCaptcha care so much about buses, boats and trains?

#213

Post by reaperducer »

azalemeth wrote: post #88
potamic wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many a time I receive multiple challenges on a site despite having selected all images perfectly, and can't help but wonder, "Hey, are they getting me to do more work than necessary because they're running behind on their labelling backlog?". There's definitely a conflict of incentives in this case. If you're a website owner, you're better off choosing a different service which doesn't have adverse incentives, otherw…

Google is _the worst_ for that. At least hCaptcha is a bit less culturally specific. Every time Google blocks me for refusing to label a motorbike as a "bicycle" I get utterly pissed off. And likewise with the traffic lights on the californian skies. Are the traffic lights the actual lights themselves, or the boom holding them up? I'm not a human very often, according to Google. hCaptcha tends to let me in...

I'm not a human very often, according to Google

If Google says you're a robot, it must be true! You should behave accordingly.

There's actually a comic strip in the newspaper going through this storyline right now. Brewster Rockit: Space Guy! was told by a CAPTCHA that he's a robot, so he's going through life that way. The other robots do not seem to be happy to have him as part of their culture.

http://www.brewsterrockit.com

Re: Ask HN: Why does Cloudflare/hCaptcha care so much about buses, boats and trains?

#214

Post by yumraj »

jdavis703 wrote: post #8

First, I’m going to teach you to fish. Go to hCaptcha’s website, then scroll to the footer. Click around on the about links. It’ll reveal their business model. This trick also works for other businesses and NGOs. Now, if we look at https://www.hcaptcha.com/labeling we can tell they make money by labeling data sets for a fee. So as a guess, there’s someone out there that needs to improve computer vision detection of t…

That is exactly what Google uses/used-to-use the captcha for. It is/was fairly well known/understood.

Re: Ask HN: Why does Cloudflare/hCaptcha care so much about buses, boats and trains?

#215

Post by reaperducer »

dylan604 wrote: post #186
JasonFruit wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds nice though.

Not sure how serious you are, but on the chance you are... The meeting spouse in grade school/not worldly typically implies not leaving the area they grew up in at any point. I grew up in a smallish town where this happens frequently. So many people never leave the state let alone the country. Some people never even left the county. Their biggest travel is for school sporting events. In otherwords, it's not really a…

I grew up in a smallish town where this happens frequently. So many people never leave the state let alone the country

So, you're extrapolating your personal experiences and applying them to everyone on the planet.

Many of my family members met their spouses in their home town. They hardly ever leave that town. They might fly to another country for vacation once a decade, but otherwise find complete fulfillment in the place where they live. Several have never even bothered to get a drivers' license, because they never found the need to have one.

By your standard, that makes them unsophisticated. But they're probably not. They live in New York City.

Re: Ask HN: Why does Cloudflare/hCaptcha care so much about buses, boats and trains?

#216

Post by throwaway894345 »

jdavis703 wrote: post #8

First, I’m going to teach you to fish. Go to hCaptcha’s website, then scroll to the footer. Click around on the about links. It’ll reveal their business model. This trick also works for other businesses and NGOs. Now, if we look at https://www.hcaptcha.com/labeling we can tell they make money by labeling data sets for a fee. So as a guess, there’s someone out there that needs to improve computer vision detection of t…

A helicopter pilot is lost, lands his helicopter next to you, and asks, "where am I?" to which you respond, "you're in a helicopter". You are correct in the strictest sense, but probably not answering the intent of the question. :)

In this case, the intent is probably something like why are hcaptcha's customers centered around transport when there are so many other applications for this kind of labeling?

Re: Ask HN: Why does Cloudflare/hCaptcha care so much about buses, boats and trains?

#217

Post by ValentineC »

azalemeth wrote: post #88
potamic wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many a time I receive multiple challenges on a site despite having selected all images perfectly, and can't help but wonder, "Hey, are they getting me to do more work than necessary because they're running behind on their labelling backlog?". There's definitely a conflict of incentives in this case. If you're a website owner, you're better off choosing a different service which doesn't have adverse incentives, otherw…

Google is _the worst_ for that. At least hCaptcha is a bit less culturally specific. Every time Google blocks me for refusing to label a motorbike as a "bicycle" I get utterly pissed off. And likewise with the traffic lights on the californian skies. Are the traffic lights the actual lights themselves, or the boom holding them up? I'm not a human very often, according to Google. hCaptcha tends to let me in...

> Google is _the worst_ for that. At least hCaptcha is a bit less culturally specific.

One example I keep ranting about: I think countries outside the US have different terms for "crosswalks".

I personally know them as "zebra crossings", and it took a while for the reCaptcha request to click in my mind.

Re: Ask HN: Why does Cloudflare/hCaptcha care so much about buses, boats and trains?

#218

Post by skinnymuch »

rosndo wrote: post #190
geoduck14 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment suggests you would exchange money for an assassination. I know you are joking (right?), but this is not something that you should joke about.

Oh no, I’d absolutely chip in. These people certainly deserve it.

Shouldn’t do this no matter what ofc. But why the devs? Sure the devs are well paid and privileged. That’s mostly relative to others in society. They are still more cogs than anything.

Re: Ask HN: Why does Cloudflare/hCaptcha care so much about buses, boats and trains?

#220

Post by skinnymuch »

tzs wrote: post #178
jjoonathan wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also a mode where it thinks you are a bot/sucker and gives you unlimited images until you give up. That's always fun.

If anyone wants to see that, try launching the browser via Selenium. I used to do that to partially automate some activities, such as download bank statements. I'd have my Selenium using script open a browser and go to the bank, then wait for me to login and get to the account page. I'd login, dismiss any popup or interstitial promotions the bank decided to give me, get to the account page, and tell my script to cont…

Yeah there’s lots of detect and anti detect stuff going back and forth. It’s pretty silly and frustrating for situations like yours. Doing things for yourself to speed up mundane life things.

There’s so many anti-detect libraries on GitHub these days. Wonder how many work well.

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