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You're doing it right. Google is gaslighting you; lying and telling you you've failed challenges when you actually solved them correctly. They do this to pun

You're doing it right. Google is gaslighting you; lying and telling you you've failed challenges when you actually solved them correctly. They do this to punish users who opt out of the google 'ecosystem' by not having a google account, not using chrome, using adblockers, etc. The proof of this assertion comes when you manage to enable the noscript version of reCAPTCHA (which is only available on sites that have opted to use the lowest security setting). Once you start using noscript reCAPTCHA, you discover that your correct answers are accepted the first time every time. The challenges have the same format; click the cars, click the traffic lights, etc. There are two differences: the tiles don't fade in slowly, and the correct answers are always accepted. Presumably when google implemented their dark patterns in reCAPTCHA, they couldn't be bothered to implement them when javascript wasn't available. I hesitate to draw attention to this since Google might correct their error, but I'd like for people to become more aware of their anti-social business practices. (By the way, the noscript version will accept either sort of answer. Only the bulbs, or the entire enclosure. Both answers are accepted.)

userbinator 8y ago
I've seen those ones too, and was planning on writing a filter that replaces the "normal" ones with the noscript one, on the assumption that it was just someone not copying in a "<noscript>...</noscript>" fragment, but since you mention "is only available on sites that have opted to use the lowest security setting", I suspect that won't work. Accessibility guidelines used to mandate that content was accessible without JS, which may be the reason why the noscript version exists, but it seems the latest revision has unfortunately removed that requirement. No, I will not run arbitrary code on my computer just to access your site...
RobertRoberts 8y ago
Can I suggest we stop using "dark patterns" as a criticism for evil behavior? I think Google (or someone) sponsored the name "dark patterns" so they can be accused of it all day long and no one will really care. Manipulation, lying, deceit, stealing, call it it what it is. Not some watered-down marketing phrase to let these guys off the hook.
jjeaff 8y ago
I actually don't think that they are trying to punish people for not being logged in. If that were the case, they would make it clear that having a Google account and leaving it logged in, and using chrome would make the captchas appear less frequently or not at all. In reality, I think they are telling people they were wrong in order to extract just a little bit more free machine learning data from them. And really, they don't actually tell you that you are wrong, they just keep feeding you new questions. This is most likely because they don't know whether your answer is correct or not. They are giving this specific question to a bunch of people, then comparing the answers to get a correct response for later. So you might get a few training questions first, then end with a question that they already know the correct answer to so they can decide if you are trying or not. It's quite brilliant and is going to really catapult Google ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to self driving cars. The cars will be able to use all the captcha data to not only train their ML models to recognize things like signs and whatever, but the ML won't even be fully necessary since they have the re-captcha volume to basically directly identify every roadside visual on the planet one by one.
- nprateem 8y ago
  > In reality, I think they are telling people they were wrong in order to extract just a little bit more free machine learning data from them I doubt it because I've been seeing the same images for several months.
- tomc1985 8y ago
  It's not brilliant, it further ruins an already dessicated web. Brilliance in the name of pissing people off is not brilliance.
  - jjeaff 8y ago
    Villains can be brilliant too.

userbinator 8y ago

I've seen those ones too, and was planning on writing a filter that replaces the "normal" ones with the noscript one, on the assumption that it was just someone not copying in a "<noscript>...</noscript>" fragment, but since you mention "is only available on sites that have opted to use the lowest security setting", I suspect that won't work. Accessibility guidelines used to mandate that content was accessible without JS, which may be the reason why the noscript version exists, but it seems the latest revision has unfortunately removed that requirement. No, I will not run arbitrary code on my computer just to access your site...

RobertRoberts 8y ago

Can I suggest we stop using "dark patterns" as a criticism for evil behavior? I think Google (or someone) sponsored the name "dark patterns" so they can be accused of it all day long and no one will really care. Manipulation, lying, deceit, stealing, call it it what it is. Not some watered-down marketing phrase to let these guys off the hook.

jjeaff 8y ago

I actually don't think that they are trying to punish people for not being logged in. If that were the case, they would make it clear that having a Google account and leaving it logged in, and using chrome would make the captchas appear less frequently or not at all. In reality, I think they are telling people they were wrong in order to extract just a little bit more free machine learning data from them. And really, they don't actually tell you that you are wrong, they just keep feeding you new questions. This is most likely because they don't know whether your answer is correct or not. They are giving this specific question to a bunch of people, then comparing the answers to get a correct response for later. So you might get a few training questions first, then end with a question that they already know the correct answer to so they can decide if you are trying or not. It's quite brilliant and is going to really catapult Google ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to self driving cars. The cars will be able to use all the captcha data to not only train their ML models to recognize things like signs and whatever, but the ML won't even be fully necessary since they have the re-captcha volume to basically directly identify every roadside visual on the planet one by one.

nprateem 8y ago
> In reality, I think they are telling people they were wrong in order to extract just a little bit more free machine learning data from them I doubt it because I've been seeing the same images for several months.
tomc1985 8y ago
It's not brilliant, it further ruins an already dessicated web. Brilliance in the name of pissing people off is not brilliance.
- jjeaff 8y ago
  Villains can be brilliant too.