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I don't think you really got hellbanned, Google captchas have just become extremely buggy in recent months. Whenever I have to solve one it always takes me a fe

I don't think you really got hellbanned, Google captchas have just become extremely buggy in recent months. Whenever I have to solve one it always takes me a few tries, sometimes a dozen or more, and I usually triple check whether I've actually selected all the traffic lights/bicycles/chimneys/whatevers before submitting... (Alternative hypothesis: If you solve a captcha correctly, they intentionally give you a few more, to get more good data for their AI algos.)

nkurz 8y ago
It's ironic that this comment saying about "hellbanning" was "autodead", and I had to "vouch" to revive it.
- kbenson 8y ago
  I wonder if it hit some automatic filter by virtue of being new, and talking about banning/hellbanning?
warent 8y ago
I'm inclined to go with your alternative hypothesis. The quality of the captcha response degrades the more times you solve it consecutively. I was recently developing a web frontend that had a captcha implementation on the login form. The first couple times I solved the captcha there was no problem. Then once it got to fourth and fifth one it started making me solve a few of captcha pages in a row. Eventually it was forcing me to solve several pages of "Select the picture of the fire hydrant" over and over, often marking it as incorrect when it definitely wasn't, and then restarting back from the beginning so each run-through took multiple minutes forcing you to solve dozens of captcha pages before accepting it as correct. So, to add to your hypothesis, they're probably doing this intentionally not only to get more data for their AI algos, but also to mitigate people training bots on CAPTCHAs. EDIT: Also the fact that you're being downvoted is baffling to me but my tinfoil hat persona makes me wonder if it's some orchestrated downvote because you're pointing out a hypothesis that Google is trying to keep hidden.
- kbenson 8y ago
  It's both. The more consecutive CAPTCHAs you solve in a short period, the more likely Google is to assume you're not a human (or not up to any good), but you definitely can get google browsing identity (however they tag you as a combination of IP, browser fingerprint, etc) to the point that they won't every consider enough responses a good indicator. I've done it many times, and yes, it usually is fixed within a few hours or the next day.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
jjoonathan 8y ago
I agree that a heuristic (machine learning or otherwise) designed to prevent spam was almost certainly the culprit. I disagree with the notion that this does not constitute a hellban, but I'm open to considering alternative nomenclature. The fact stands that google locked me away from my documents and intentionally undermined my ability to understand what had happened or rectify the situation. Collateral damage is still damage.
- gowld 8y ago
  It may be a ban or an errorban, but it's not a hellban, in any sense of what "hell" means in "hellban:: https://blog.codinghorror.com/suspension-ban-or-hellban/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/suspension-ban-or-hellban/ It also might just be a broken integration with recaptcha.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
daveFNbuck 8y ago
I find I can often get away with throwing in a wrong answer or two.
- corobo 8y ago
  It's probably similar to old recaptcha where they give you a selection of known answers and a couple of unknowns which they're uncertain of. Probably known not-correct answers too so that the system works. If you select the unknowns as well as all of the known answers (and don't select the wrong answers) they can train their AI robots that the extras you selected are also a part of the "has traffic lights" dataset

nkurz 8y ago

It's ironic that this comment saying about "hellbanning" was "autodead", and I had to "vouch" to revive it.

kbenson 8y ago
I wonder if it hit some automatic filter by virtue of being new, and talking about banning/hellbanning?

warent 8y ago

I'm inclined to go with your alternative hypothesis. The quality of the captcha response degrades the more times you solve it consecutively. I was recently developing a web frontend that had a captcha implementation on the login form. The first couple times I solved the captcha there was no problem. Then once it got to fourth and fifth one it started making me solve a few of captcha pages in a row. Eventually it was forcing me to solve several pages of "Select the picture of the fire hydrant" over and over, often marking it as incorrect when it definitely wasn't, and then restarting back from the beginning so each run-through took multiple minutes forcing you to solve dozens of captcha pages before accepting it as correct. So, to add to your hypothesis, they're probably doing this intentionally not only to get more data for their AI algos, but also to mitigate people training bots on CAPTCHAs. EDIT: Also the fact that you're being downvoted is baffling to me but my tinfoil hat persona makes me wonder if it's some orchestrated downvote because you're pointing out a hypothesis that Google is trying to keep hidden.

kbenson 8y ago
It's both. The more consecutive CAPTCHAs you solve in a short period, the more likely Google is to assume you're not a human (or not up to any good), but you definitely can get google browsing identity (however they tag you as a combination of IP, browser fingerprint, etc) to the point that they won't every consider enough responses a good indicator. I've done it many times, and yes, it usually is fixed within a few hours or the next day.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

jjoonathan 8y ago

I agree that a heuristic (machine learning or otherwise) designed to prevent spam was almost certainly the culprit. I disagree with the notion that this does not constitute a hellban, but I'm open to considering alternative nomenclature. The fact stands that google locked me away from my documents and intentionally undermined my ability to understand what had happened or rectify the situation. Collateral damage is still damage.

gowld 8y ago
It may be a ban or an errorban, but it's not a hellban, in any sense of what "hell" means in "hellban:: https://blog.codinghorror.com/suspension-ban-or-hellban/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/suspension-ban-or-hellban/ It also might just be a broken integration with recaptcha.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

daveFNbuck 8y ago

I find I can often get away with throwing in a wrong answer or two.

corobo 8y ago
It's probably similar to old recaptcha where they give you a selection of known answers and a couple of unknowns which they're uncertain of. Probably known not-correct answers too so that the system works. If you select the unknowns as well as all of the known answers (and don't select the wrong answers) they can train their AI robots that the extras you selected are also a part of the "has traffic lights" dataset