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Introducing the Invisible reCAPTCHA

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201–210 of 245 posts

Re: Introducing the Invisible reCAPTCHA

#201
post #4

Google using captchas to get humans to read street addresses captured by street view cars to improve maps results remains one of the most Googly things they've ever done. Genius, lateral, and a little weird.

I make sure to always spell it wrong on the characters I can tell the botnet couldn't figure out

Its a small rebellious act of mine (that is for moot because I'm sure they give the same captcha to other users for verification)

Re: Introducing the Invisible reCAPTCHA

#203
post #128

Doesn't anyone else see it as a problem that Google's bots (and possibly CIA/NSA) can access any system using Google ReCAPTCHA? They can create unlimited amount of accounts on social networks, blogs, forums etc. and thus have unlimited social voting power on the Internet. There is a need for a decentralized Captcha that can't be circumvented by anyone.

Would not having ReCAPTCHA prevent this?

Using some other bot-filtering system would prevent it. Of course the makers of that filter would be able to bypass it, but I guess you could use multiple filters...!

Re: Introducing the Invisible reCAPTCHA

#204
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that "free work"? Automated usage can threaten a site's bottom-line, and even its existence. A site resorts to Google's CAPTCHA's service because they don't have the money to build their own detector. It's not a service that was free for Google to create. edit: Also worth noting that some of this "free work" that users do for Google is used to improve bot-detection overall. The comment to this blog post (the p…

How is that "free work"? The original recaptcha was used to help clear up text from book digitization projects where OCR couldn't understand the data. The appeal of this was that these works were in the public domain, and thus proper digitization of these works is a societal-wide benefit. Since Google purchased it, they've been using it to: 1.) Clean street view data for a proprietary product (Google maps) 2.) Build…

> However, the actual end user who has to fill out the recaptcha does not benefit in any significant way.

This isn't true. The end user benefits in a very obvious way by being able to use a site that hasn't been crippled or spammed by bots. It is very possible that many sites either would not exist or would be of much worse quality without a recaptcha-like service.

Everyone profits from recaptcha.

Re: Introducing the Invisible reCAPTCHA

#205
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A site uses captcha because it is threatened by automated use. A site uses Google's CAPTCHA because the site cannot afford to build a (effective) CAPTCHA. If Google required the site to pay to use their CAPTCHA, those costs would be passed in some way to the user. In other words, if Google's service didn't exist, you'd be experiencing less of the site, or no site at all if they chose to use a paywall that you refuse…

I am not saying that the service is not useful. It certainly is . What I am arguing is that it requires the users to do some amount of work and so it is not free for them, and I am of the opinion that Google benefit from it much more than I do. Anyway, I am not completely against it, as I said above depending on the situation I make use of it.

The alternative would be you're doing different work (i.e. more intellectually demanding) on each different site as they invent their own CAPTCHA, and rather than benefitting anybody, it would just be an annoyance between you and the content you want to reach.

IMO, this is strictly better.

Re: Introducing the Invisible reCAPTCHA

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their competence in restricting access to the information and preventing its decimation, I suppose.

And you really believe that to be ethical and normal? Do you apply those same beliefs to the physical world? Is it okay to just take goods and services with no payment as long as you are physically able to?

No, I do not believe it is okay to take physical goods or receive services with no payment. I do however believe that people should be free to send and receive any information they wish, regardless of the wishes of the "owner" of said information. Sharing information without the right holder's involvement will not make them loose access to it.

If you, as a site owner, don't want people to share information your server sent to their computers, implement strong DRM or don't allow off-premise access altogether. You might loose many prospective users, but at least your information will remain "safe". Probably.

If you want to share information on a website but can't think of a reasonable way to make money of it, that's your problem, not mine.

Lastly, I fail to see how a discussion on copyright relates to recaptchas or even site-owners' failed business models. Unless you can get this thread back on topic, perhaps we should continue this (most likely frutless) discussion somewhere else.

Re: Introducing the Invisible reCAPTCHA

#207
post #149
post #4

Google using captchas to get humans to read street addresses captured by street view cars to improve maps results remains one of the most Googly things they've ever done. Genius, lateral, and a little weird.

Not sure if that's good for us. We're doing work for google for free. Google Translate will replace translators, Google car will replace drivers, Google VR + map will replace city guides. We're giving them knowledge and powers to replace us, for free. Professions will disappear, people will lose jobs, Google will get richer and richer, will not pay me or you for fixing their suggestions in Google Translate or fixing…

My brother teaches math to at risk youth in the Denver area. He has students that don't speak a lot of English (their primary language is Spanish) and he's trying to explain math concepts to them. He realized he can use google translate and get 95% of the information across that he needs to.

I've never personally hired a professional translator and I don't think I would if I was going to travel to a country where the majority of people don't speak English because I assume a professional translator is expensive. However if I know I have free access to google translate which will be useful enough for me to navigate by myself I would be much more likely to go on such a trip.

I'm sure some jobs will be lost but at least for middle class people who arnt able to afford translators the technology will be used to communicate better without affecting professional translators.

There are plenty of similar professions that exist but not utilized by the middle/lower class due to cost. I would love to hire a interior decorator, as I'm sure plenty of home owners would, but I haven't due to the cost and likely never will. If Google (or any other company) offered a service where I put photos of my home online and gave me a free layout with online links to purchase the furniture I would be thrilled and no interior decorator would be out of a job because I wasn't going to pay for one anyway. I think its all about the level of quality you want.

Re: Introducing the Invisible reCAPTCHA

#208
post #4

Google using captchas to get humans to read street addresses captured by street view cars to improve maps results remains one of the most Googly things they've ever done. Genius, lateral, and a little weird.

Having to do free work for Google is more than weird for me. For this reason unless the page is really important I end up closing the tab. If it was for open service (such as OpenStreetMap) it would be a different matter though.

But you don't feel more than weird about using their search engine for free?

I think of the personal data they collect from me and these types of things as my payment for their "free" services.

Re: Introducing the Invisible reCAPTCHA

#209
post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if that's good for us. We're doing work for google for free. Google Translate will replace translators, Google car will replace drivers, Google VR + map will replace city guides. We're giving them knowledge and powers to replace us, for free. Professions will disappear, people will lose jobs, Google will get richer and richer, will not pay me or you for fixing their suggestions in Google Translate or fixing…

My brother teaches math to at risk youth in the Denver area. He has students that don't speak a lot of English (their primary language is Spanish) and he's trying to explain math concepts to them. He realized he can use google translate and get 95% of the information across that he needs to. I've never personally hired a professional translator and I don't think I would if I was going to travel to a country where the…

Google translate is decent for some languages and really poor for others - so I'd run it by some native speakers before you rely on it for anything important.

Re: Introducing the Invisible reCAPTCHA

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you really believe that to be ethical and normal? Do you apply those same beliefs to the physical world? Is it okay to just take goods and services with no payment as long as you are physically able to?

No, I do not believe it is okay to take physical goods or receive services with no payment. I do however believe that people should be free to send and receive any information they wish, regardless of the wishes of the "owner" of said information. Sharing information without the right holder's involvement will not make them loose access to it. If you, as a site owner, don't want people to share information your serve…

I feel this is on topic as it relates to you using Google services without payment.

This isn't information sharing, this is using a service which has costs (hardware, software, employee time, power, cooling, etc...). You are using the ReCAPTCHA service. If you don't pay them for that (either in time or in money) then in my opinion you are stealing the cost of that service.

Just like how if you got a taxi, then just walked away without paying. Yeah, you aren't stealing any physical goods, but you are costing the taxi company something and you aren't paying for it. And if you agreed to get a free taxi ride in exchange for washing their taxi car for them, and you just walked away at the end, that would be stealing in my eyes.

Using the reCAPTCHA service lets them use the data from it for machine learning. That's the reason they are providing it for free, and if you attempt to use the service without paying (or in your scenario maliciously provide false information, which not only doesn't contribute, but can mess up the results from those who do), I feel you are stealing it just the same.

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