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Captchas are Becoming Ridiculous

andrewmunsell.com

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Re: Captchas are Becoming Ridiculous

#31

Post by Artemis2 »

Alupis wrote: post #23
incision wrote: post #19

I was just thinking this yesterday when I had to recover a Flickr account I hadn't used in ages. I had to solve captchas from Yahoo and Microsoft. The Yahoo captcha used rotating, bouncing letters on a scrolling background of more letters - ridiculous. Microsoft's was just a typical smeared mess, but no easier to actually solve. I think I failed each at least 3 times. It's not just difficult captchas, but use of them…

The article's largest complaint is not being able to read one (1) of the two (2) words in the captcha challenge. ReCaptcha only requires one (1) out of two (2) words to be correct in the challenge. It presents one known-by-the-system-word, and one not-known word. If you get the known word correct (the easier of the two to read) then it passes the challenge. ReCaptcha then pools the answers for the second not-known wo…

Google exploits ReCaptcha to recognize street numbers. When typing a numerical ReCaptcha, you are doing OCR for Google Maps for free.

Re: Captchas are Becoming Ridiculous

#33

Post by curun1r »

Alupis wrote: post #23
incision wrote: post #19

I was just thinking this yesterday when I had to recover a Flickr account I hadn't used in ages. I had to solve captchas from Yahoo and Microsoft. The Yahoo captcha used rotating, bouncing letters on a scrolling background of more letters - ridiculous. Microsoft's was just a typical smeared mess, but no easier to actually solve. I think I failed each at least 3 times. It's not just difficult captchas, but use of them…

The article's largest complaint is not being able to read one (1) of the two (2) words in the captcha challenge. ReCaptcha only requires one (1) out of two (2) words to be correct in the challenge. It presents one known-by-the-system-word, and one not-known word. If you get the known word correct (the easier of the two to read) then it passes the challenge. ReCaptcha then pools the answers for the second not-known wo…

You might want to read the link...he's complaining about reCaptcha. The basic complaint is that the ability to recognize letters is no longer good enough to distinguish human intelligence. We need to identify some other trait that's simple for humans and difficult for computers. Those "home grown" captcha solutions are likely better in this regard from reCaptcha since they don't have the possibly contradictory goal of digitizing books.

Re: Captchas are Becoming Ridiculous

#34

Post by Alupis »

surreal wrote: post #27
Alupis wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article's largest complaint is not being able to read one (1) of the two (2) words in the captcha challenge. ReCaptcha only requires one (1) out of two (2) words to be correct in the challenge. It presents one known-by-the-system-word, and one not-known word. If you get the known word correct (the easier of the two to read) then it passes the challenge. ReCaptcha then pools the answers for the second not-known wo…

The original article was specifically about reCAPTCHA, not homebrews, and how difficult they now are (something I've also noticed lately). Either give it a (re-)read, or if you're saying you were able to easily read the examples in the article please share the answers! :)

ReCaptcha only requires one (1) out of two (2) words to be correct in the challenge.

It presents one known-by-the-system-word, and one not-known word. If you get the known word correct (the easier of the two to read) then it passes the challenge.

ReCaptcha then pools the answers for the second not-known word and after pooling thousands (or more) responses, then that word becomes "known" based on the average answers (and then that word is "digitized" and used by google maps, or ebooks, etc).

Re: Captchas are Becoming Ridiculous

#36

Post by jdbernard »

Artemis2 wrote: post #31
Alupis wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article's largest complaint is not being able to read one (1) of the two (2) words in the captcha challenge. ReCaptcha only requires one (1) out of two (2) words to be correct in the challenge. It presents one known-by-the-system-word, and one not-known word. If you get the known word correct (the easier of the two to read) then it passes the challenge. ReCaptcha then pools the answers for the second not-known wo…

Google exploits ReCaptcha to recognize street numbers. When typing a numerical ReCaptcha, you are doing OCR for Google Maps for free.

Well, not exactly for free. Its a trade. You're willing to donate your small amount of time to Google in exchange for Google providing security benefits to the website which you are attempting to use.

Re: Captchas are Becoming Ridiculous

#37

Post by isomorphic »

Alupis wrote: post #23
incision wrote: post #19

I was just thinking this yesterday when I had to recover a Flickr account I hadn't used in ages. I had to solve captchas from Yahoo and Microsoft. The Yahoo captcha used rotating, bouncing letters on a scrolling background of more letters - ridiculous. Microsoft's was just a typical smeared mess, but no easier to actually solve. I think I failed each at least 3 times. It's not just difficult captchas, but use of them…

The article's largest complaint is not being able to read one (1) of the two (2) words in the captcha challenge. ReCaptcha only requires one (1) out of two (2) words to be correct in the challenge. It presents one known-by-the-system-word, and one not-known word. If you get the known word correct (the easier of the two to read) then it passes the challenge. ReCaptcha then pools the answers for the second not-known wo…

Don't re-invent the wheel? That is, please continue to give useful data to Google for free?

From the article, in the context of ReCaptcha, it seems like Google has stabbed itself in the face with the sword of data.

Google may think the data is telling it something, but what it's really managing to do is irritate legions of humans with terrible (borderline hostile in this case) UI/UX.

Re: Captchas are Becoming Ridiculous

#38

Post by jdbernard »

Alupis wrote: post #30
tass wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please re-read the article

I have. The article's largest complaint is not being able to read one (1) of the two (2) words in the captcha challenge. I was pointing out, that this complaint is not valid since reCaptcha (where all of the article's screenshots are from) only requires one of the 2 words to be correct.

You must not have read very carefully then. From the article:

It’s important to note the way reCAPTCHA works. Each user (or bot) is presented with a control word, and a word unrecognized by OCR. This control word is already known to Google (who runs reCAPTCHA). If you get this first word right, it is assumed that you get the second word correct as well. So, in reality, you only need to guess the key word correctly.

The author explicitly addresses your point and if you looked at his examples, most are very difficult for both words. In many of his examples, the control word is distorted beyond reasonable recognition, and the new word is cut in half or worse.

Re: Captchas are Becoming Ridiculous

#39

Post by surreal »

Alupis wrote: post #34
surreal wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original article was specifically about reCAPTCHA, not homebrews, and how difficult they now are (something I've also noticed lately). Either give it a (re-)read, or if you're saying you were able to easily read the examples in the article please share the answers! :)

ReCaptcha only requires one (1) out of two (2) words to be correct in the challenge. It presents one known-by-the-system-word, and one not-known word. If you get the known word correct (the easier of the two to read) then it passes the challenge. ReCaptcha then pools the answers for the second not-known word and after pooling thousands (or more) responses, then that word becomes "known" based on the average answers (…

Again, sorry, I've got to point you back to the original article. The author explains the details of reCAPTCHA's known/unknown word-pair clearly, as you have done, but goes on to explain that the impossible-to-read word was actually reCAPTCHA's "known word", so the CAPTCHA was impossible to pass.

Re: Captchas are Becoming Ridiculous

#40

Post by jammycakes »

Alupis wrote: post #30
tass wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please re-read the article

I have. The article's largest complaint is not being able to read one (1) of the two (2) words in the captcha challenge. I was pointing out, that this complaint is not valid since reCaptcha (where all of the article's screenshots are from) only requires one of the 2 words to be correct.

Actually, reCaptcha requires a specific word to be correct. Specifically, the illegible one.

The article does make this point.

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