Are You a Robot? Introducing “No CAPTCHA ReCAPTCHA” • Hacker News Board

Re: Are You a Robot? Introducing “No CAPTCHA ReCAPTCHA”

#351

Post by ChuckMcM » Wed, Dec 03, 2014, 10:41 PM UTC

SiVal wrote: post #311

ChuckMcM wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you framed the issue as a business model one, not > a technical one, it might be a useful exercise. That was kind of my point. Clearly most of the bots are trying to scrape my search engine for some specific data. I would (generally) be happy to just sell them that data rather than have them waste time trying to scrape us (that is the business model, which goes something like "Hey we have a copy of the big chunk…

If you wanted to buy data from Google, how would you email? What is Google's email address?

Google posts lots of contact information on their contact page. You would probably want to reach business development. I don't think they are willing to sell access to that index however, we (at Blekko) would. I suppose you could also try to pull it out of common crawl.

Re: Are You a Robot? Introducing “No CAPTCHA ReCAPTCHA”

#352

Post by jo_ » Wed, Dec 03, 2014, 10:47 PM UTC

userbinator wrote: post #170

"If we can collect behavioural data from you, and it matches closely the behaviour of other humans, you are a human. Otherwise you're not a human." Does anyone else get that feeling from the description of what Google is doing? I've tripped their "we think you are a bot" detection filter and been presented with a captcha countless times while using complex search queries and searching for relatively obscure things, a…

From you description, you do sound kinda' like a bot. Disabled cookies. Disabled Javascript. Irregular searches. I understand the frustration with saying, "You have to have these features supported to use the product," but let's face it: providing an experience to people who deliberately disable huge chunks of browser functionality is a tremendous pain in the ass. I think I can understand both sides of the argument using different strawmen:

"Can I read this paper, please?"

"Yes, of course, just put on these reading glasses."

"Why do I have to put on the reading glasses?"

"Well the font is quite small. If you don't wear the glasses, you probably won't be able to make out anything on the page. Your experience will be seriously degraded."

"I don't want to wear the glasses. Why can't I just read the page?"

"Well, we can fit a lot more data and make the page more robust by printing the text smaller. Why don't you just wear the glasses?"

"I have concerns about the glasses. I'd rather strain my eyes."

"We're not going to make a special page for you when 99% of the people are totally okay with wearing the glasses or wear the glasses anyways."

Re: Are You a Robot? Introducing “No CAPTCHA ReCAPTCHA”

#353

Post by jotm » Wed, Dec 03, 2014, 10:56 PM UTC

robertfw wrote: post #233

jotm wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying "just don't use Google/Bing/search engines" is like saying "don't use the airlines". The security checks suck big time, but really, these services are must-have and there is no better alternative. Complaining and hoping for some change is all that's left.

https://duckduckgo.com/

Sorry, as much as I tried to like it, the results just don't match what I need...

Re: Are You a Robot? Introducing “No CAPTCHA ReCAPTCHA”

#354

Post by fmx » Wed, Dec 03, 2014, 11:02 PM UTC

martin_ wrote: post #269

smkelly wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am visually impaired and can attest to both visual captchas being a pain and audio captchas being hard to understand. this change is nothing but an improvement as far as accessibility and usability goes. This is only a plus for people who implement these, as I have actually left sites that had insurmountable captchas for me. Thank you.

Check out webvisum.com - from their website: "WebVisum is a unique browser add on which greatly enhances web accessibility and empowers the blind and visually impaired community by putting the control in your hands!" "Automated and instant CAPTCHA image solving, sign up to web sites and make forum posts and blog comments without asking for help!"

I was curious about the CAPTCHA solving, too, so I tested WebVivum out on ~8 reCAPTCHAs.[1] It solved all except 2 of them, taking 20-60 seconds each time. In 2 cases it reported failing to solve the CAPTCHA, but it never gave an incorrect result. That is, whenever it gave a solution the solution was correct (in my brief test).

So, while it's some way off their claim of "instant" CAPTCHA solving, this is definitely a very useful addon, especially for those people who cannot solve CAPTCHAs at all. Thank you for pointing it out.

[1]https://www.webscript.io/examples/recaptcha

Re: Are You a Robot? Introducing “No CAPTCHA ReCAPTCHA”

#355

Post by xnull1guest » Wed, Dec 03, 2014, 11:18 PM UTC

hahainternet wrote: post #350

xnull1guest wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google's services are not free. You trade your data, screen real estate, and attention for their service. This is worth a lot - Google is worth a lot. They didn't do it by giving out services for free.

Google's services are free. By trying to redefine what free actually means into 'has no cost whatsoever to anyone' you ruin the word.

If you trade a fish for a service it isn't free. If you trade a gold bar for a service it isn't free. If you trade a service for a service it isn't free.

If you trade data for a service it is not free.

To consider "free" a function only of fiat currency is naive, both of history and of economics.

Google search is not free.

If it is I have no idea how they made so much money...

Or maybe you can tell me what 'free actually means'?

Re: Are You a Robot? Introducing “No CAPTCHA ReCAPTCHA”

#356

Post by xanderjanz » Wed, Dec 03, 2014, 11:23 PM UTC

userbinator wrote: post #170

"If we can collect behavioural data from you, and it matches closely the behaviour of other humans, you are a human. Otherwise you're not a human." Does anyone else get that feeling from the description of what Google is doing? I've tripped their "we think you are a bot" detection filter and been presented with a captcha countless times while using complex search queries and searching for relatively obscure things, a…

I'm sorry the web cookie hegemony is oppressing you. Come up with a better solution to filter bots and Google will hire you. Nobody is pushing this down your throat.

Re: Are You a Robot? Introducing “No CAPTCHA ReCAPTCHA”

#357

Post by iso8859-1 » Wed, Dec 03, 2014, 11:31 PM UTC

pizzashark wrote: post #345

If a bot just makes more random mouse movements of varied speeds, and takes a bit longer, won't it appear human?

The bot probably has too much or too little mail in it's Gmail inbox, or maybe its is not many Google+ circles of confirmed authentic humans. Maybe the bot has not been using Google Chrome for a very long time, so its browsing patterns may still seem incoherent. This socially disconnected bot is abnormal; it doesn't fit into society. It deserves punishment; we'll make it click pictures of cats. Once it gets enough friends on Google+, we'll cut it some slack.

Re: Are You a Robot? Introducing “No CAPTCHA ReCAPTCHA”

#358

Post by takeda » Wed, Dec 03, 2014, 11:31 PM UTC

tracker1 wrote: post #332

fragmede wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a snippet of Python using the splinter library, to visit Google, type in a search query, and click 'search' (which is very Javascript heavy these days with their annoying 'instant' search). from splinter import Browser b = Browser() b.visit(' http://google.com' ) b.fill('q', 'browser automation') btn = b.find_by_name('btnG') btn.click() Not exactly 'more effort'...

Yeah, but if you are trying to automate thousands of simultaneous requests, you'll have to use a lot of servers, which is costly even in the cloud. Right now google and bing will run sites with JS enabled to see the DOM after any JS changes take hold. Usually these crawls aren't nearly as often as the general crawling, because there is quite a lot more CPU/Memory overhead to such utilities. I can't speak for splinter…

Still less effort than typical captcha.

Re: Are You a Robot? Introducing “No CAPTCHA ReCAPTCHA”

#359

Post by sysk » Wed, Dec 03, 2014, 11:51 PM UTC

xnull1guest wrote: post #355

hahainternet wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google's services are free. By trying to redefine what free actually means into 'has no cost whatsoever to anyone' you ruin the word.

If you trade a fish for a service it isn't free. If you trade a gold bar for a service it isn't free. If you trade a service for a service it isn't free. If you trade data for a service it is not free. To consider "free" a function only of fiat currency is naive, both of history and of economics. Google search is not free. If it is I have no idea how they made so much money... Or maybe you can tell me what 'free actu…

By that broad definition, there is practically no free website on the web (analytics, logs, etc.). Actually, by posting this on HN, I just "traded data, screen real estate and attention". Would you argue HN isn't free as well? I get what you mean but I don't think this is how the word free is commonly used.

Besides, I believe the original point made still makes sense if "free" is assumed to mean "non paid".

Re: Are You a Robot? Introducing “No CAPTCHA ReCAPTCHA”

#360

Post by ademarre » Thu, Dec 04, 2014, 12:32 AM UTC

karmacondon wrote: post #344

cbhl wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Disclaimer: I work at Google, but not on ReCaptcha.) The point of this change is to make things easier on 90% of humans -- the ones who have JavaScript and third-party cookies enabled now get to tick a checkbox and be on their merry way, instead of doing a useless captcha when we knew they were already humans. Recall that when ReCaptcha initially came out, the argument was "humans are wasting all of this time, let's…

If book-based or street view-based captchas go away, I suspect it will be because bots/spammers got better at solving them than humans But, wait. Isn't that what we want? It seems like bots and spammers have a relatively small cost to a company like google, while digitizing books and house numbers is relatively valuable. I don't have numbers for a detailed cost-benefit analysis, but if bots get good enough to do time…

That's like flying because you like airline food. No one flies if they don't have a destination. No one will put a captcha on their site if it doesn't tell computers and humans apart; that's its primary job.