I remember when they introduced their new captcha; it was so tedious to solve it I stopped interacting there entirely.
Breaking the 4Chan CAPTCHA
301–310 of 378 posts
Re: Breaking the 4Chan CAPTCHA
#302Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a bit embarrassing I even have to explain this, but yes, because racism or sexism are very important parts of 4chan's appeal: it's a place with freedom of speech. Let's be real the standards of discussion are low, but people can discuss stuff freely, which they wouldn't be able to if everything was buried under some GPT generated spam.
A lot of people think 4chan is one of the last bastions of free speech on the internet because they see a lot of racism that would normally be banned anywhere else. But if you post something that goes against the alt-right that pisses them off too much and getting a lot of replies, it'll be deleted within minutes, or you'll even get banned for being "off topic". 4chan is not free speech, it is just a haven for the al…
They do have rules and the site is quite moderated.
I do think though that any such site or platform will have the issue of judges inflecting their bias in their application of the rules.
So I wouldn't say that it is a unique phenomenon.
That said, of course there is a semantic as well as technical identity to 4chan. And they are quite connected, rather than isolated.
4chan, apart from its lax rules on what we now call hate speech, has developed a community where insults are now part of its culture. The fact that the site is anonymous greatly influences that animosity.
I like to think of 4chan not as a place where horrible people go, but where people go to be horrible. Of course you have the dedicated users, neets or schizos or chronically online, but again that's a propery of every site, and not necessarily a majority.
So if you read /pol/ or /b/ like articles of an organization with an editorial line, sure you will see nazis and a deranged group of people.
If you however see it like bathroom wall writings, you will see a bit of everyone.
Re: Breaking the 4Chan CAPTCHA
#303Earlier quoted context omitted.
> is there any better way to do > it with a single developer for > a website that serves millions > of people a day? No, the other reason they're using this is to make it so annoying that you'll spend $20/yr to buy a 4chan pass to bypass it. If you're not making your free website annoying to drive revenue there's obvious ways to make it less annoying. E.g. keep the annoying captcha, but don't show one again for the l…
>No, the other reason they're using this is to make it so annoying that you'll spend $20/yr to buy a 4chan pass to bypass it. I think this is a really cynical outlook, especially for a website that is not run as a modern tech-centric company. 4chan's roots are in that of the Old Internet, where it is a creative and messy and interesting place to be. why would they be banking solely on using a terrible captcha as a me…
Cynical yes, incorrect no.
The link between spam protection and payment is well documented and as old as the internet.
Consider the origins of bitcoin and PoW have been as a currency to stop email spam.
I do agree that the incentive is probably not to make money, but to deter spam. That said after so many times the company has been sold, I wouldn't disregard that theory
Re: Breaking the 4Chan CAPTCHA
#304Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oddly enough, I find most of 4chan less brainrot inducing than Twitter, even pre-Musk.
It's still brainrot, it's just on the opposite end of the political spectrum.
Back when Llama was leaked on /g/ 4chan's /g/lmg/ was the best place to be up to date with local models. It still might be but not so much.
People think 4chan is just /pol/ when in fact more boards exist and their users don't really appreciate when /pol/ leaks into their threads.
Re: Breaking the 4Chan CAPTCHA
#305Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm pretty sure all of t-mobile is rangebanned. Phoneposters are usually told to buy a pass.
That sounds old 2ch.net. Was that plan from Hiroyuki, by chance? IIRC they entrusted the key to kingdom to that guy, or am I mistaken...
Hiro owns 4chan. I remember something about Moot giving him the website for free.
Re: Breaking the 4Chan CAPTCHA
#306Earlier quoted context omitted.
A lot of people think 4chan is one of the last bastions of free speech on the internet because they see a lot of racism that would normally be banned anywhere else. But if you post something that goes against the alt-right that pisses them off too much and getting a lot of replies, it'll be deleted within minutes, or you'll even get banned for being "off topic". 4chan is not free speech, it is just a haven for the al…
They do have rules and the site is quite moderated. I do think though that any such site or platform will have the issue of judges inflecting their bias in their application of the rules. So I wouldn't say that it is a unique phenomenon. That said, of course there is a semantic as well as technical identity to 4chan. And they are quite connected, rather than isolated. 4chan, apart from its lax rules on what we now ca…
There were no rules broken. Actually they selectively ignore the rule against racism as long as it is aligned with alt-right, and not just the pol board now.
3. You will not post any of the following outside of /b/:
b. Racism
https://www.vice.com/en/article/the-man-who-helped-turn-4cha...
They selectively censor any opposing views that rile them too hard or they can't easily refute, so it is not equivalent to bathroom scribbles.
Recent example just found today (not my post).
Re: Breaking the 4Chan CAPTCHA
#307Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, I do this type of AI development for solving CAPTCHAs. I can't get any real jobs that pay me for my more advanced skills. My primary sins were going to a second/third-tier university and some performance concerns in a portion of my previous roles due to divorce and burn-out. I make $80k/year in government IT, and $30-150k/year as the "AI" guy in a small 2-5 person group that offers a CAPTCHA-breaking API. The spa…
Ahh the good ole dilemma of selling your soul, you study what you love only to destroy it for profit. Like an entomologist hired by a pesticide company. I get it man, gotta make the bucks helping spammers advertise their shitty products, even if they destroy the internet.
What about the spammers that already destroyed the internet by steering it entirely towards advertising & surveillance capitalism? It's like the pot calling the kettle black.
We're all complicit in the enshittification of the internet and technology in general, just that we delude ourselves into believing we're on the "good" side because we call it "advertising" or "marketing" or "analytics" instead of spam, more spam and spyware.
The end result is exactly the same however.
Re: Breaking the 4Chan CAPTCHA
#308Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, I do this type of AI development for solving CAPTCHAs. I can't get any real jobs that pay me for my more advanced skills. My primary sins were going to a second/third-tier university and some performance concerns in a portion of my previous roles due to divorce and burn-out. I make $80k/year in government IT, and $30-150k/year as the "AI" guy in a small 2-5 person group that offers a CAPTCHA-breaking API. The spa…
Why do you do this? While I can appreciate the technical achievement, you know most users of forums and imageboards don’t want any AI content at all.
The percentage of captchas used to deter spam is probably a minority these days. A lot of captchas nowadays are used to prevent adversarial interoperability or the free flow of information.
If you want to spam, you don't actually need to break many captchas. Just make your spam/scam/misinformation "engaging" enough and the social media platforms will host and promote your spam _for free_ and won't even ask a captcha.
Re: Breaking the 4Chan CAPTCHA
#309[flagged]
Re: Breaking the 4Chan CAPTCHA
#310Earlier quoted context omitted.
How many people are there like that, and how much damage are they collectively likely to do? If you're a random spammer, how hard will it be to hire that person? Again, not aiming for impossibility, just reducing the damage.
I've been working for myself for over a decade doing random projects for clients while also doing my own thing. My resume looks awful and the job market is trash. If be willing to take a job as a jr developer and work my way up (or a sys admin). I used to run one of the world's largest ebook piracy websites but want to put that life behind me. Recently work came across my desk to create tens of thousands of accounts…
There's nothing immoral about scraping a website. Best of luck to you!