Captchas Are Becoming Ridiculous • Hacker News Board

Re: Captchas Are Becoming Ridiculous

#51

Post by rorrr » Sun, Jul 29, 2012, 3:57 AM UTC

I see two possible long-term solutions to the captcha problem

1) Ask user to do a relatively expensive computation. This can be done in the background while the user is typing his post.

2) Request a small amount of money (10c) per comment. Good websites will return the money to non-spam commenters, will keep spammer's money. This however requires working microtransactions.

Re: Captchas Are Becoming Ridiculous

#52

Post by anonymoushn » Sun, Jul 29, 2012, 3:58 AM UTC

The known word is the one that is bent. This is the only word you have to type. You can enter "dogman" or "foo" for the cut-off (scanned) word and it will let you through.

Re: Captchas Are Becoming Ridiculous

#53

Post by zhoutong » Sun, Jul 29, 2012, 3:59 AM UTC

I can't seem to understand the "Onightsl secretary" CAPTCHA. We all know that the first word is extremely hard to identify, and according to the author "secretary" wasn't the control word.

This means that reCAPTCHA knows the first word. Identified by OCR? Not possible unless reCAPTCHA deliberately distorted the image. Identified by N other people? Not possible to determine such a word with confidence either.

Or am I missing something?

Re: Captchas Are Becoming Ridiculous

#54

Post by jmilkbal » Sun, Jul 29, 2012, 4:00 AM UTC

The paranoid, tin foil hat wearing part of me has always put post Google acquisition Recaptcha in the must-be-part-of-the-long-arm-of-Google-tracking category of services encouraging me to do my very best to avoid allowing it to run in my normal browser session.

Re: Captchas Are Becoming Ridiculous

#55

Post by zhoutong » Sun, Jul 29, 2012, 4:01 AM UTC

zhoutong wrote: post #53

I can't seem to understand the "Onightsl secretary" CAPTCHA. We all know that the first word is extremely hard to identify, and according to the author "secretary" wasn't the control word. This means that reCAPTCHA knows the first word. Identified by OCR? Not possible unless reCAPTCHA deliberately distorted the image. Identified by N other people? Not possible to determine such a word with confidence either. Or am I…

Also it seems that there is exactly one distorted word and exactly one "proper" word. I would assume the distorted word is the control word. I should try a few reCAPTCHAs to see if this is a correct assumption.

EDIT: Confirmed. The "proper" word is taken directly from book scans and I can type anything to pass the CAPTCHA. It seems that the control word is very Google-style.

Re: Captchas Are Becoming Ridiculous

#56

Post by dereferenced2 » Sun, Jul 29, 2012, 4:02 AM UTC

freditup wrote: post #43

I feel like the author of this article is still slightly misunderstanding the reCaptcha. Not to criticize him, but it's almost immediately clear which word you are actually being tested on, because it's has the same general 'look' to it each time. Take the first one: 'Secretary' is clearly out of some book. The other thing is the real test. Now, reCaptcha never gives you real words as a test, so he shouldn't be surpr…

The author's blog post is retarded; "herp derp I don't know how recaptcha works and it's too hard for me." He has a pretty blog and a green name on HN, so everyone upvotes it. Pretty sad IMO.

Re: Captchas Are Becoming Ridiculous

#57

Post by bherms » Sun, Jul 29, 2012, 4:03 AM UTC

I do agree they are becoming ridiculous.. I often have a hard time figuring them out. The real question is what the next step will be. Where do we go from here? What experiments are out there for new captchas?

And, slightly related, one of my favorite lighthearted sites: http://www.captchacomics.com/

Re: Captchas Are Becoming Ridiculous

#58

Post by joshfraser » Sun, Jul 29, 2012, 4:04 AM UTC

My personal rant on this topic: http://www.onlineaspect.com/2010/07/02/why-you-should-never-...

Re: Captchas Are Becoming Ridiculous

#59

Post by excuse-me » Sun, Jul 29, 2012, 4:06 AM UTC

huhtenberg wrote: post #45

mmuro wrote: post #21

I'm a big fan of logic captchas. Not only are they way more accessible than image captchas, but the frustration factor is not nearly as high.

Do give an example.

Which would you prefer: a properly formatted data file or a kitten ?

Re: Captchas Are Becoming Ridiculous

#60

Post by grandalf » Sun, Jul 29, 2012, 4:06 AM UTC

I find recaptcha so frustrating that I will always abandon the account unless it's something that I really really care about.

If I have trouble with recaptcha, I can't imagine a non-programmer over 60 years old having any remote hope of figuring it out.

Also, the way it's typically implemented, if you solve the recaptcha once and there is some other server side validation error, you have to fix that and then solve a new recaptcha before proceeding. It is just so punishing I am always at a loss when I encounter it.