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One big issue that nobody is talking about here: There is a huge increase in networks using cheap labor to solve CAPTCHAs. A service like decaptcher.com can hav
by drusenko 16y ago
One big issue that nobody is talking about here: There is a huge increase in networks using cheap labor to solve CAPTCHAs. A service like decaptcher.com can have humans solve CAPTCHAs at the rate of $2/1000.
At that kind of price, all of the effort you go to to prevent automated signups is useless -- it's just being outsourced to humans, where these counter-measures are ineffective.
- TorKlingberg 16y agoEven the cheapest manual CAPTCHA solving is still too expensive for most spam. The expected return of a spam comment on a random blog is very low. Spamming relies on posting millions of them for free.
- drusenko 16y agoI suppose it depends on the application. For signup spam, the expected return is definitely higher than the current cost. And unfortunately, it's also on a website's critical path, so making signing up more annoying is strongly against the best interests of a company. In other words, it's a pretty hard problem.