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It sounds like the spammers found a way to automatically create new @zoho.com email accounts, and the single way to stop them might be using a CAPTCHA service f

by krn 8y ago

It sounds like the spammers found a way to automatically create new @zoho.com email accounts, and the single way to stop them might be using a CAPTCHA service from the direct competitor, Google. At least that was the unfortunate case for the privacy focused German email provider Mailbox.org[1]: > We recently detected activities on our servers where bot nets were used to create hundreds of thousands of e-mail accounts for the sending of spam e-mail. Although we take this as a compliment – somebody out there must be convinced our infrastructure is up for the job – we needed to find a solution to stop this abuse of our service, of course. We subsequently deployed a number of different CAPTCHA systems to help our servers identify bots during registration. However, spammers were able to circumvent all these solutions shortly after they were put in place. [...] We therefore decided to use Google’s CAPTCHA for the time being, because out of the set of solutions we tried thus far, this one seems to work best. [1] https://userforum-en.mailbox.org/knowledge-base/article/google-captcha-in-registration-form https://userforum-en.mailbox.org/knowledge-base/article/goog...

lwansbrough 8y ago
I suppose due to the increasing risk of being broken by competing neural networks, recaptcha appears to be moving towards a model based on usage heuristics in v3. This is something that is more easily achievable by a small startup, so I hope to see competition for this type of solution if there isn't some already.
- krn 8y ago
  > recaptcha appears to be moving towards a model based on usage heuristics in v3 I always thought that Google has a huge competitive advantage here, because most people browse the web being logged into their Gmail accounts, and, therefore, as with Google Analytics and Google Adsense, Google knows that it's you who is viewing that page. It can then present extremely time-consuming CAPTCHAs to anonymous visitors, most of whom are likely to be bots or the spammers themselves.
  - cm2187 8y ago
    ...or running a logged off browser with cookied restricted to the browser session. I spend my time solving captchas which I am getting sick of. My immediate reaction now when presented a captcha is to browse away.
    - ldarby 8y ago
      That is pretty terrible if the web is being split into "google knows who you are and approves of you visiting this website" vs not being tracked by google and being treated as a second class user.
      - rjzzleep 8y ago
        I can relate to what the previous poster said. The worst thing is that this happens even for services I pay for. Some of them even do that for logging in.
      - partisan 8y ago
        Using google with a vpn (PIA) was a non-starter. I usually had to solve 3 or 4 puzzles before I could get to results. Privacy is important to me and it is just as important for them to deny me it.
        gesman 8y ago
        Well said
        ac4tw 8y ago
        Interesting--I'm trying Nord right now and while Google has been fine, Amazon blocks me regardless of what I do and I ended up having to add some static routes for Craigslist.
      - joesb 8y ago
        They are not treating you as second class citizen, they are saying they haven't trust you to be human yet. Which is the whole point of capcha. You want Google to not know about you. You want to be a stranger to them. And you are complaining that they don't trust stranger, which you want to be, as much as someone they know?
- amirhirsch 8y ago
  I am working on exactly this at hcaptcha.com
  - spking 8y ago
    This is really neat!
  - neotek 8y ago
    Not sure why, but when I try to load your site in Safari or Chrome on iOS, the page displays for a second and then the tab crashes.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
glenngillen 8y ago
If you’d like to use a strong captcha approach without using a competitor you might want to check out http://funcaptcha.com http://funcaptcha.com (I have no affiliation, have heard good things and been presented it on a couple of sites)
- johndough 8y ago
  The "Book Demo" button and "read white paper" button seem to be broken, which does not inspire much confidence. The first button just takes me to the bottom of the page while the second button does nothing. Not sure if this is the same, but I once came across a website with a captcha where you had to rotate a dog so it stood upright, but it was lagging so bad that it would skip several frames, making it impossible to time the angle correctly. After several minutes of trying I gave up and went to a different website with an inferior service, but which did not waste my time.
  - austinjp 8y ago
    Both buttons work for me on mobile. Can't be sure, but that page looks like a JavaScript heavy "single page app" type situation, so if your JS is turned off that might explain things. Incidentally, both links just pop up a sign-up form.
  - Semaphor 8y ago
    The site requires you to whitelist marketo.com which is blocked on uMatrix as it's a marketing company.
  - masonic 8y ago
    a captcha where you had to rotate a dog so it stood upright Ticketmaster uses one like this, with various animals.
- huhtenberg 8y ago
  The link redirects to some other site now.
InLispWeTrust 8y ago
The employer of those spammers? Einstein^H^H^H^H^H^H^HGoogle
ajcajcajcajcajc 8y ago
hCaptcha definitely a way to go - strong product, not working with competition, etc.

by krn 8y ago

lwansbrough 8y ago

I suppose due to the increasing risk of being broken by competing neural networks, recaptcha appears to be moving towards a model based on usage heuristics in v3. This is something that is more easily achievable by a small startup, so I hope to see competition for this type of solution if there isn't some already.

krn 8y ago
> recaptcha appears to be moving towards a model based on usage heuristics in v3 I always thought that Google has a huge competitive advantage here, because most people browse the web being logged into their Gmail accounts, and, therefore, as with Google Analytics and Google Adsense, Google knows that it's you who is viewing that page. It can then present extremely time-consuming CAPTCHAs to anonymous visitors, most of whom are likely to be bots or the spammers themselves.
- cm2187 8y ago
  ...or running a logged off browser with cookied restricted to the browser session. I spend my time solving captchas which I am getting sick of. My immediate reaction now when presented a captcha is to browse away.
  - ldarby 8y ago
    That is pretty terrible if the web is being split into "google knows who you are and approves of you visiting this website" vs not being tracked by google and being treated as a second class user.
    - rjzzleep 8y ago
      I can relate to what the previous poster said. The worst thing is that this happens even for services I pay for. Some of them even do that for logging in.
    - partisan 8y ago
      Using google with a vpn (PIA) was a non-starter. I usually had to solve 3 or 4 puzzles before I could get to results. Privacy is important to me and it is just as important for them to deny me it.
      - gesman 8y ago
        Well said
      - ac4tw 8y ago
        Interesting--I'm trying Nord right now and while Google has been fine, Amazon blocks me regardless of what I do and I ended up having to add some static routes for Craigslist.
    - joesb 8y ago
      They are not treating you as second class citizen, they are saying they haven't trust you to be human yet. Which is the whole point of capcha. You want Google to not know about you. You want to be a stranger to them. And you are complaining that they don't trust stranger, which you want to be, as much as someone they know?
amirhirsch 8y ago
I am working on exactly this at hcaptcha.com
- spking 8y ago
  This is really neat!
- neotek 8y ago
  Not sure why, but when I try to load your site in Safari or Chrome on iOS, the page displays for a second and then the tab crashes.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

glenngillen 8y ago

If you’d like to use a strong captcha approach without using a competitor you might want to check out http://funcaptcha.com http://funcaptcha.com (I have no affiliation, have heard good things and been presented it on a couple of sites)

johndough 8y ago
The "Book Demo" button and "read white paper" button seem to be broken, which does not inspire much confidence. The first button just takes me to the bottom of the page while the second button does nothing. Not sure if this is the same, but I once came across a website with a captcha where you had to rotate a dog so it stood upright, but it was lagging so bad that it would skip several frames, making it impossible to time the angle correctly. After several minutes of trying I gave up and went to a different website with an inferior service, but which did not waste my time.
- austinjp 8y ago
  Both buttons work for me on mobile. Can't be sure, but that page looks like a JavaScript heavy "single page app" type situation, so if your JS is turned off that might explain things. Incidentally, both links just pop up a sign-up form.
- Semaphor 8y ago
  The site requires you to whitelist marketo.com which is blocked on uMatrix as it's a marketing company.
- masonic 8y ago
  a captcha where you had to rotate a dog so it stood upright Ticketmaster uses one like this, with various animals.
huhtenberg 8y ago
The link redirects to some other site now.

InLispWeTrust 8y ago

The employer of those spammers? Einstein^H^H^H^H^H^H^HGoogle

ajcajcajcajcajc 8y ago

hCaptcha definitely a way to go - strong product, not working with competition, etc.