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Are You a Robot? Introducing “No CAPTCHA ReCAPTCHA”

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

#421

Post by Dylan16807 »

rudolf0 wrote: post #419
Dylan16807 wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'a bit' being key. It's not like a DDoSer can't already solve captchas for three minutes if that's the only protection.

The work still has to be done manually in those cases, though, whether they type it themselves or rent use of a captcha farm.

In most scenarios you only have to solve one captcha. Those are not going to be significantly affected, since the manual work is minimal. It will provide a multiplier on traffic in the case that a captcha is needed for every single action.

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

#422

Post by edraferi »

conradev wrote: post #403
mjt0229 wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DDG is excellent most of the time, but way behind when doing video or map searches. I have it as my default in most places, but sometimes I just have to fall back to Google.

And DDG makes it super easy to search google with a bang: "!g hacker news"

Yup. The bang feature makes DDG amazing. I use it as my default because it's a great way to quickly do tailored searches. It's very easy to say, search Hacker News (!hn), python documentation (!py3), R sites (!rseek) or just pull up a wikipedia page (!w).

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

#423

Post by newuser88273 »

roc wrote: post #244
jotm wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've also tripped Google's bot filters. Frankly, I'm more offended that Google is discriminating against robots, seeing as they are one of the leading companies in automation and AI :-)

Though you were joking, it's worth noting they're certainly not discriminating against robots. They're discriminating against your robots. Which is to say: they're perfectly willing to let your crawl-able content and internet use help train their robots, they just don't want their crawl-able content and internet use to train your robots.

Is there an anti-trust angle to this?

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

#424

Post by newuser88273 »

jules wrote: post #257

Why would you care whether a user is a robot? Surely whether the actions of that user are desirable or not is determined solely by those actions and not whether the thing performing the actions is a human or a robot. It seems like a better idea to disallow bad actions than to disallow robots. There are also people farms who solve captchas (e.g. via porn sites who ask you to solve a captcha which they then input to an…

Because your dual business model is (1) showing ads to humans and (2) gathering intel on humans. Bots can be used to bypass both.

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

#425

Post by plorg »

plorg wrote: post #232
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…

Anecdotally, I block cookies and tracking scripts from Google and even run some custom javascript to remove the link shim in search results. I have yet to encounter the "we think you're a bot" detection filter, except when performing numerous complex iterative queries or Googling from within Tor. The above is to suggest that perhaps tracking bugs and cookies aren't a component in the bot-detection algorithm, though t…

Well, looking at an example, my behavior definitely trips the 'not not a bot' detection for NoCAPTCHAs for whatever reason. I'm not too shook up though - it's really no more inconvenient than before.

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

#426

Post by xnull1guest »

gambiting wrote: post #409
xnull1guest wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If a fisherman gives you a fish in exchange for writing your name and time of your visit down in his logbook, I consider the fish to be free for all intentions and purposes.

I would agree with that.

I would also posit that Google looks and does nothing like that fisherman.

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

#427

Post by xnull1guest »

xnull2guest wrote: post #393
frostmatthew wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

free has 20+ definitions.[1] A discussion about what we mean when we say Google's services are (or are not) free is using free the same way we use it in free as in beer [thus its definition is relevant]. Colloquially we usually use free to mean not having a financial cost. Another word or phrase is usually used when referring to non-monetary costs. i.e. I would say "Google is free" but I would never say "Google costs…

The top sentence is granted - not sure it was ever in question. The bottom part you use personal anecdotes to support the claim that a broader 'we' do something. I'm not sure, as my personal experience differs. But it does get to exactly what I was saying in the above comment - what the discussion centers about is what counts as 'money' (as you say "referring to non-monetary costs"). I think the place we differ is wh…

Perhaps the downvoter would be kind enough to clarify why they think these comments do not contribute to the conversation.

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

#428

Post by gcb0 »

mcintyre1994 wrote: post #289
gcb0 wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that is the bait part of the bait&switch strategy. Just ask anyone older enough to have worked with Microsoft et all in the past. yeah, the company is nice now, but nobody can say anything about tomorrow. So do you their sane offerings, but be aware that you may have to be on the line to change it at a moments notice. and try to not depend on it too much. (i.e. always have a 1% bucket with an alternative solution, le…

Sorry, can you expand on their long game here? They've just made it easier, is that the bait? Captcha was already everywhere so it doesn't seem they needed bait to popularise it? It's also used by non Google companies who will presumably stop including it if Google decide to make it an impassable lock - which would I guess be the switch? Making it harder would just be back to before, so an actual effective switch wou…

if they drive all other are you a human solution out of market (they already own captcha which most sites can't exist with without being drowned in spam) and then start to charge/show intrusive ads on it, then you have no option other than accept it.

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

#429

Post by frostmatthew »

xnull1guest wrote: post #427
xnull2guest wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The top sentence is granted - not sure it was ever in question. The bottom part you use personal anecdotes to support the claim that a broader 'we' do something. I'm not sure, as my personal experience differs. But it does get to exactly what I was saying in the above comment - what the discussion centers about is what counts as 'money' (as you say "referring to non-monetary costs"). I think the place we differ is wh…

Perhaps the downvoter would be kind enough to clarify why they think these comments do not contribute to the conversation.

I didn't downvote but you may want to read HN's Guidelines[1], particularly: Resist complaining about being downmodded. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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