5 ms·

I'd be sort of okay with the general idea of proving I'm not a robot, you know what really rubs me the wrong way? It's how blatantly dishonest and disrespectfu

I'd be sort of okay with the general idea of proving I'm not a robot, you know what really rubs me the wrong way? It's how blatantly dishonest and disrespectful it is. Let me explain: google decides if you're human based on the data it has on you, such as your browsing profile and whether you're logged in to your Google account. Therefore it punishes you for trying to have privacy or refusing to use google services, at which point it will: - Give you longer captchas - Fade images in slower, something whose purpose can only possible be to annoy you for daring to refuse to submit to google's profiling, since bots don't care about that - Even falsely claim you failed captchas even if you get them right Fuck that!

matheusmoreira 5y ago
Oh yes. There's nothing like doing 3 noisy slow fade captchas correctly only to be failed for unknown reasons and asked to do even more. It's like it's wondering how much free work it can get out of users before they get mad and give up.
- Swizec 5y ago
  A robot would never give up.
  - jjoonathan 5y ago
    I bet the robots know exactly how many failures before they need to cycle IPs/cookies/accounts and when the time comes I bet they know how to do it quickly and at low cost. Humans just have to give up and hope that whatever was behind the captcha wasn't actually important.
    - lobocinza 5y ago
      Many side projects on Github that aren't updated often seems to know the thresholds for not triggering such methods but as I user I often have to pass those stupid verifications.
  - OJFord 5y ago
    You'd think they couldn't possibly mimic human mouse movement too, and yet I find taking a stupidly exaggerated wavy line between squares helps. Any attempt to get through quickly and efficiently seems to be deemed robotic in my experience. Reminds me of a bug I found at (with) work last week: typing too quickly (sending auto-completion requests too quickly) locks up the entire page, nothing for it but to refresh. (It's intended to cancel previous requests since only the latest one is needed, but obviously not supposed to freeze.)
darkerside 5y ago
https://youtu.be/LButXcZ57pc https://youtu.be/LButXcZ57pc I think of this every time now
- sdoering 5y ago
  Thank you so much for sharing this. It was hilarious and at the same time rang so damn true (like good comedy should imho).
bowmessage 5y ago
> - Even falsely claim you failed captchas even if you get them right Do you have a source for this?
- jquery 5y ago
  I’ve experienced the same thing. I can think of a semi-charitable possible explanation but after this much time I must conclude it’s on purpose.
- macintux 5y ago
  I've had Captcha insist that I have to misidentify a mailbox as a parking meter before it would let me proceed.
- bombela 5y ago
  I experienced it few times too. With the slower and slower fading pictures. And the button submit that stays active but doesn't work.
- johndough 5y ago
  You can easily test this yourself. Just install the Tor Browser and visit any website with captchas. Most Tor exit node servers are semi-blacklisted, which means that a Tor user will receive multiple captcha challenges in series, even if they have been answered correctly. If you are especially unlucky, you might even get denied entirely after solving captchas for several minutes.
  - atom_arranger 5y ago
    Can confirm. Had the same experience using a VPN. I “didn’t have anything to hide”, just wanted privacy benefits of using a VPN while browsing the web, but the CAPTCHAs made it totally impractical so I gave up on it. I guess Google got what they wanted.
playguardin 5y ago
What's wrong with robots?
innocenat 5y ago
What I hate more is US-centric of the CAPTCHA. Not only for reCAPTCHA, hCAPTCHA also failed in this regard. I mentioned before, but once I got present with hCAPTCHA asking me to select 電車 (lit. electric train, but since all trains in big cities in Japan are electric train, 'train' in English also usually got translated as 電車). There's a picture of diesel train in the choice. Do I select it? idk. Lately I have been presented with reCAPTCHA asking me to select トラック (lit. truck). Half of the choices are firetruck. Do I choose them? Because in Japanese (and probably most other languages too), we don't considered firetruck as 'truck'. And the complaint that is more common: parking meter. I have literally never saw one, as it doesn't exist where I live. How do you expect me to chose the correct answers with noisy images?
- enriquto 5y ago
  ...not to speak of "fire hydrants" which I cannot fathom what is the purpose of these damn things. Do people hydrate themselves using fire on the US?
  - tdeck 5y ago
    These are large-diameter / high pressure connections to the local water main. Firetrucks carry water, of course, but it's limited. The hydrant allows them to attach a hose and pull in additional water. It seems that they have them in many countries, but they are often underground rather than the pillar type used in the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_hydrant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_hydrant
    - enriquto 5y ago
      Thanks! I was being facetious because I actually looked what they were after a few captchas. Indeed, there are many of those in my country but they don't look at all like that, typically being attached to the walls of the buildings, or covered underground.
      - tdeck 5y ago
SXX 5y ago
Yeah these fading images are certainly can only ever be used to annoy human.
klondike_ 5y ago
If you disable Google's JavaScript the annoying fade out effect will be disabled, but it might make you do more than one as punishment
- andrepd 5y ago
  If I disable Google's js the captcha won't load at all it seems x)

matheusmoreira 5y ago

Oh yes. There's nothing like doing 3 noisy slow fade captchas correctly only to be failed for unknown reasons and asked to do even more. It's like it's wondering how much free work it can get out of users before they get mad and give up.

Swizec 5y ago
A robot would never give up.
- jjoonathan 5y ago
  I bet the robots know exactly how many failures before they need to cycle IPs/cookies/accounts and when the time comes I bet they know how to do it quickly and at low cost. Humans just have to give up and hope that whatever was behind the captcha wasn't actually important.
  - lobocinza 5y ago
    Many side projects on Github that aren't updated often seems to know the thresholds for not triggering such methods but as I user I often have to pass those stupid verifications.
- OJFord 5y ago
  You'd think they couldn't possibly mimic human mouse movement too, and yet I find taking a stupidly exaggerated wavy line between squares helps. Any attempt to get through quickly and efficiently seems to be deemed robotic in my experience. Reminds me of a bug I found at (with) work last week: typing too quickly (sending auto-completion requests too quickly) locks up the entire page, nothing for it but to refresh. (It's intended to cancel previous requests since only the latest one is needed, but obviously not supposed to freeze.)

darkerside 5y ago

https://youtu.be/LButXcZ57pc https://youtu.be/LButXcZ57pc I think of this every time now

sdoering 5y ago
Thank you so much for sharing this. It was hilarious and at the same time rang so damn true (like good comedy should imho).

bowmessage 5y ago

> - Even falsely claim you failed captchas even if you get them right Do you have a source for this?

jquery 5y ago
I’ve experienced the same thing. I can think of a semi-charitable possible explanation but after this much time I must conclude it’s on purpose.
macintux 5y ago
I've had Captcha insist that I have to misidentify a mailbox as a parking meter before it would let me proceed.
bombela 5y ago
I experienced it few times too. With the slower and slower fading pictures. And the button submit that stays active but doesn't work.
johndough 5y ago
You can easily test this yourself. Just install the Tor Browser and visit any website with captchas. Most Tor exit node servers are semi-blacklisted, which means that a Tor user will receive multiple captcha challenges in series, even if they have been answered correctly. If you are especially unlucky, you might even get denied entirely after solving captchas for several minutes.
- atom_arranger 5y ago
  Can confirm. Had the same experience using a VPN. I “didn’t have anything to hide”, just wanted privacy benefits of using a VPN while browsing the web, but the CAPTCHAs made it totally impractical so I gave up on it. I guess Google got what they wanted.

playguardin 5y ago

What's wrong with robots?

innocenat 5y ago

What I hate more is US-centric of the CAPTCHA. Not only for reCAPTCHA, hCAPTCHA also failed in this regard. I mentioned before, but once I got present with hCAPTCHA asking me to select 電車 (lit. electric train, but since all trains in big cities in Japan are electric train, 'train' in English also usually got translated as 電車). There's a picture of diesel train in the choice. Do I select it? idk. Lately I have been presented with reCAPTCHA asking me to select トラック (lit. truck). Half of the choices are firetruck. Do I choose them? Because in Japanese (and probably most other languages too), we don't considered firetruck as 'truck'. And the complaint that is more common: parking meter. I have literally never saw one, as it doesn't exist where I live. How do you expect me to chose the correct answers with noisy images?

enriquto 5y ago
...not to speak of "fire hydrants" which I cannot fathom what is the purpose of these damn things. Do people hydrate themselves using fire on the US?
- tdeck 5y ago
  These are large-diameter / high pressure connections to the local water main. Firetrucks carry water, of course, but it's limited. The hydrant allows them to attach a hose and pull in additional water. It seems that they have them in many countries, but they are often underground rather than the pillar type used in the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_hydrant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_hydrant
  - enriquto 5y ago
    Thanks! I was being facetious because I actually looked what they were after a few captchas. Indeed, there are many of those in my country but they don't look at all like that, typically being attached to the walls of the buildings, or covered underground.
    - tdeck 5y ago

SXX 5y ago

Yeah these fading images are certainly can only ever be used to annoy human.

klondike_ 5y ago

If you disable Google's JavaScript the annoying fade out effect will be disabled, but it might make you do more than one as punishment

andrepd 5y ago
If I disable Google's js the captcha won't load at all it seems x)