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4chan also exploited reCAPTCHA when it was just bought by google and they used it to OCR books. reCAPTCHA provides you with two words, and one is much easier to

4chan also exploited reCAPTCHA when it was just bought by google and they used it to OCR books. reCAPTCHA provides you with two words, and one is much easier to recognize than the other. So 4chan users created a simple website with lots of reCAPTCHAs, typed in the easy word correctly to pass the test and typed in "nigger" instead of the second word. As many users raided at the same time, Google OCRed hard to recognize words as "nigger". Edit: found related link https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/cygfx/4chan_is_using_googles_captcha_technology_to_get/ https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/cygfx/4chan_is_using_... https://i.imgur.com/oCa4d.png https://i.imgur.com/oCa4d.png

kuschku 11y ago
I always do the same when seeing a reCAPTCHA or other captcha from Google: Type the correct word properly, and a slightly off word for the other word, which seems plausible to naive OCR, but still is wrong. From the ideological side, as long as Google profits from the work of users due to their monopoly, but doesn’t provide it as open dataset under a noncommercial license, I don’t wish to support reCAPTCHA.
- qb45 11y ago
  Pro tip: the other word can be left out altogether. I used to type aa before noticing that and this also worked like a charm.
- ycmbntrthrwaway 11y ago
  The word you type is not going to be accepted just because it is similar to what it should be. It is double-checked multiple times anyway [0]. People like you just make OCRing slower, just as if you never typed reCAPTCHA at all. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/cygfx/4chan_is_using_googles_captcha_technology_to_get/c0w75b1 https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/cygfx/4chan_is_using_...
  - ocdtrekkie 11y ago
    That seems to be his goal. To not help.
    - kuschku 11y ago
      Indeed. Google constantly takes work from volunteers, modifies it, keeps the modification under closed source, and heavily profits from them. Helping a company that uses such a business model is not in my interest, as it means less volunteer power is available for actually open projects.
  - kuschku 11y ago
    That’s exactly the goal. To not give Google work for free unless they also share it with others. If Google wants actually meaningful manual OCR from me, they can have it – under GPL license, of course.

kuschku 11y ago

I always do the same when seeing a reCAPTCHA or other captcha from Google: Type the correct word properly, and a slightly off word for the other word, which seems plausible to naive OCR, but still is wrong. From the ideological side, as long as Google profits from the work of users due to their monopoly, but doesn’t provide it as open dataset under a noncommercial license, I don’t wish to support reCAPTCHA.

qb45 11y ago
Pro tip: the other word can be left out altogether. I used to type aa before noticing that and this also worked like a charm.
ycmbntrthrwaway 11y ago
The word you type is not going to be accepted just because it is similar to what it should be. It is double-checked multiple times anyway [0]. People like you just make OCRing slower, just as if you never typed reCAPTCHA at all. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/cygfx/4chan_is_using_googles_captcha_technology_to_get/c0w75b1 https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/cygfx/4chan_is_using_...
- ocdtrekkie 11y ago
  That seems to be his goal. To not help.
  - kuschku 11y ago
    Indeed. Google constantly takes work from volunteers, modifies it, keeps the modification under closed source, and heavily profits from them. Helping a company that uses such a business model is not in my interest, as it means less volunteer power is available for actually open projects.
- kuschku 11y ago
  That’s exactly the goal. To not give Google work for free unless they also share it with others. If Google wants actually meaningful manual OCR from me, they can have it – under GPL license, of course.