Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I was banned from the hCaptcha accessibility account for not being blind (2023)

michaels.world

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 277 posts

Re: I was banned from the hCaptcha accessibility account for not being blind (2023)

#31

Post by pbronez »

blindgeek wrote: post #4
yorwba wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder whether talking about "looking at the javascript console" somehow made them think that this person cannot possibly be blind, since how could a blind person "see" the JavaScript console? (But "having my screen reader read the content of the JavaScript console to me" is a bit of a mouthful.)

You know, that's a good point, and it hadn't occurred to me. For the overwhelming majority of blind people, language like "looked at" is just metaphorical. I mean, all language is symbolic anyway. The map is not the territory and the menu is not the dinner. Some of us are taught very young to use common terms like look in that kind of a metaphorical way. Partially so that we fit in and are comfortable with the rest o…

I suppose one could say "observed" as a sense-neutral alternative to see / hear. Might be a worthwhile language shift, similar to using "they" as a gender-neutral alternative to "he" and "her".

We usually talk about the inclusion benefits of neutral language. It can also be valuable by making specific terms more meaningful when used appropriately. If I know you usually say "they", then when you choose to say "he" I get more information -- there's a clear gender expression. Similarly, if you usually say "observe", then when you say "see" I know we're specifically talking about vision.

Of course, it's an awkward transition. It's hard to get used to "they/them" and saying "I observed a delicious aroma" sounds like a robot impersonating a person.

Re: I was banned from the hCaptcha accessibility account for not being blind (2023)

#32

Post by inetknght »

michaelt wrote: post #26
jerf wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember that from hCaptcha's point of view, by this point they've probably dealt with hundreds of other people claiming that they are blind when they really aren't, so their bots will work. This isn't a defense, just an explanation... but it is also an explanation of why the entire idea of "we'll not give blind people a way past the CAPTCHA but just give a pass to 'real' blind people so we can pass ADA", which is th…

> As big as Google, Facebook, or Amazon are, they would struggle under the load of trying to create a system for determining who is "truly" blind... and that's still true if we ignore questions like exactly what "blind" is anyhow. In several countries, the government issues certificates of blindness [1] which grant access to certain extra types of support. We don't want severely vision-impaired people being forced to…

> So there are legal standards for what exactly blind is, and certificates.

In the USA, people are not yet required to provide identification when signing up for "free" services. There are real concerns around privacy.

A certification of blindness is exactly one of those privacy concerns, being a medical issue. You think it would be a good idea to give that private information to the criminal organizations of big tech?

Re: I was banned from the hCaptcha accessibility account for not being blind (2023)

#33

Post by RandomThoughts3 »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #25
jerf wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember that from hCaptcha's point of view, by this point they've probably dealt with hundreds of other people claiming that they are blind when they really aren't, so their bots will work. This isn't a defense, just an explanation... but it is also an explanation of why the entire idea of "we'll not give blind people a way past the CAPTCHA but just give a pass to 'real' blind people so we can pass ADA", which is th…

This is a problem so chronic across so many fields that I wish there was single term to describe it. User POV :"Wow, provider is a really shitty entity and had no respect for my legitimate problem." Provider POV: "We get a huge number of illegitimate claims identical to legitimate ones regularly, the system would collapse if we didn't do heavy triage, the problem is the level of abuse, not a moral bankruptcy on our p…

The actual problem is that Provider real POV is actually: "We already do the bare minimum required by the law and you are too insignificant to damage our reputation. It would actually cost our shareholders money to do more so please go die in silence somewhere else and stop bothering us. Replying to you costs us money too."

This kind of article is actually useful because it raises the risk of actual reputational damage thus encouraging companies to do more.

Re: I was banned from the hCaptcha accessibility account for not being blind (2023)

#34

Post by Nextgrid »

isodev wrote: post #21

Why are captchas even a thing still? If folks want to scrape something or build an automation around something, then why not let them do it? They still have to respect the system they're logging in. Not to mention the privacy perk of not exposing your visitors to some captcha service with a dozen or more data subprocessors.

Because despite ZIRP being long over, there are still plenty of people/companies making money off "engagement" - aka wasting a human's time. Automation/scraping/etc would go around that.

Re: I was banned from the hCaptcha accessibility account for not being blind (2023)

#35

Post by jerf »

michaelt wrote: post #26
jerf wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember that from hCaptcha's point of view, by this point they've probably dealt with hundreds of other people claiming that they are blind when they really aren't, so their bots will work. This isn't a defense, just an explanation... but it is also an explanation of why the entire idea of "we'll not give blind people a way past the CAPTCHA but just give a pass to 'real' blind people so we can pass ADA", which is th…

> As big as Google, Facebook, or Amazon are, they would struggle under the load of trying to create a system for determining who is "truly" blind... and that's still true if we ignore questions like exactly what "blind" is anyhow. In several countries, the government issues certificates of blindness [1] which grant access to certain extra types of support. We don't want severely vision-impaired people being forced to…

If "having a government identity" was a solution to the identity problem, it would be solved.

It is not solved.

That is at most the beginning of a solution to the problem.

And in practice, it is little more than the beginning of the problem, as the government's definition of blindness is very unlikely to be a precise match to "has problems completing our visual CAPTCHA", and if multiple governments have standards there is no chance they will match.

Do not underestimate the resilience and resourcefulness of scammers. They aren't just some individuals here and there who decide one day that they could make a couple extra bucks spamming people, and just sort of start sending out whatever scam strikes their fancy. They're international businesses with engineering teams, and a constant feed of low-level operatives who can scam governments about how blind they are if the governments leave any hole in their system. They're thousands of people dedicating their full human-level intelligence to the task of defeating your system and extracting the value from it. They are not as easy to defeat as "let's just put the obvious certification in place", for the same reason that the CAPTCHA problem isn't solved with "Let's just issue everyone official identities".

Re: I was banned from the hCaptcha accessibility account for not being blind (2023)

#36

Post by spacebanana7 »

Nextgrid wrote: post #34
isodev wrote: post #21

Why are captchas even a thing still? If folks want to scrape something or build an automation around something, then why not let them do it? They still have to respect the system they're logging in. Not to mention the privacy perk of not exposing your visitors to some captcha service with a dozen or more data subprocessors.

Because despite ZIRP being long over, there are still plenty of people/companies making money off "engagement" - aka wasting a human's time. Automation/scraping/etc would go around that.

There're also more good faith use cases like stopping credit card testing, ticket reselling and forum spam.

Re: I was banned from the hCaptcha accessibility account for not being blind (2023)

#37

Post by hifromwork »

isodev wrote: post #21

Why are captchas even a thing still? If folks want to scrape something or build an automation around something, then why not let them do it? They still have to respect the system they're logging in. Not to mention the privacy perk of not exposing your visitors to some captcha service with a dozen or more data subprocessors.

I assume you never tried to add a contact form to your website.

Explanation: I did, and within a few days bots started sending me spam using that form. I just added a trivial captcha (hardcoded '2+3=' question), but if my scale was bigger that would be untenable. Think also of PM spam, autoregistering accounts to abuse free tiers, etc.

Re: I was banned from the hCaptcha accessibility account for not being blind (2023)

#38

Post by Lerc »

blindgeek wrote: post #4
yorwba wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder whether talking about "looking at the javascript console" somehow made them think that this person cannot possibly be blind, since how could a blind person "see" the JavaScript console? (But "having my screen reader read the content of the JavaScript console to me" is a bit of a mouthful.)

You know, that's a good point, and it hadn't occurred to me. For the overwhelming majority of blind people, language like "looked at" is just metaphorical. I mean, all language is symbolic anyway. The map is not the territory and the menu is not the dinner. Some of us are taught very young to use common terms like look in that kind of a metaphorical way. Partially so that we fit in and are comfortable with the rest o…

This is how use of language concealed aphantasia for so long. When you use a word in a context similar to how another used it in that context there seems to be a presumption that the subjective experience is the same in that context.

Given how we learn languages and words based upon encountering them in contexts, it makes sense that terms that we use in outwardly similar contexts reflect the subjective experience that each of us relate to those terms. We don't have access to another's subjective experience so I can see how it would encourage the assumption that we all perceive things the same way.

There might be many undetected variances in perception akin to aphantasia lurking in us waiting to be discovered.

Re: I was banned from the hCaptcha accessibility account for not being blind (2023)

#39

Post by slater »

ta1243 wrote: post #22
Rastonbury wrote: post #14

Some captchas are getting pretty discriminatory, not everyone lives in the West and can identify the objects they are asking you to. Another recent one sticks out where they asked me to pick a shape as the same number of conoids on screen. If you ask people on a street what a conoids I bet a significant amount will give you blank looks Also at least now I know some people call those markings crosswalks

Sorry I live in the west, what's a "crosswalk" Did you mean to say > not everyone lives in the USA Other things I don't have a clue about - a fire hydrant, yellow taxis, yellow buses (Obviously I do, because of American cultural imperialism through things like Captchas which mean the world has to understand American cultural touchstones)

Please enter your five-digit ZIP code

Re: I was banned from the hCaptcha accessibility account for not being blind (2023)

#40

Post by nmeofthestate »

ta1243 wrote: post #22
Rastonbury wrote: post #14

Some captchas are getting pretty discriminatory, not everyone lives in the West and can identify the objects they are asking you to. Another recent one sticks out where they asked me to pick a shape as the same number of conoids on screen. If you ask people on a street what a conoids I bet a significant amount will give you blank looks Also at least now I know some people call those markings crosswalks

Sorry I live in the west, what's a "crosswalk" Did you mean to say > not everyone lives in the USA Other things I don't have a clue about - a fire hydrant, yellow taxis, yellow buses (Obviously I do, because of American cultural imperialism through things like Captchas which mean the world has to understand American cultural touchstones)

[flagged]
Post reply on HN