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I recently tried to open an X account, the process was punishing: the captcha was six images of ~5 dice each from an acute angle, and I had to click the one whe

by t_mann 2y ago

I recently tried to open an X account, the process was punishing: the captcha was six images of ~5 dice each from an acute angle, and I had to click the one where the top faces added up to 15. That takes considerably more time than "select all the cars", especially if the correct image is among the last. And that challenge was repeated 10 times (with a counter to 10 shown from the start, so it wasn't just that many because of retries after failure). I actually went through with it, but in the end I failed to sign up because the verification email never arrived. I've since been wondering whether Musk now wants it to fail, so he can draw a line under this chapter and shift focus back to his more succesful ventures.

flutas 2y ago
> the captcha was six images of ~5 dice each from an acute angle, and I had to click the one where the top faces added up to 15. That takes considerably more time than "select all the cars" This has been a fairly standard captcha for the past few years across the "more attacked" providers. That one, Rotate the [object] to match this direction, Click the item in this image with the highest value, Click the dice that add up to [X], Which of these items doesn't belong, etc. They are all much more difficult than previous ones, and I've long wondered if they are compliant with various disability laws.
- t_mann 2y ago
  I get it, but 10 puzzles in a row? It's not like the number of puzzles makes a difference to a bot when they're all of the same type (except for the bots that guess randomly, but there would be smarter combinatorial ways to trip those up that are less user-hostile; eg simply saying "select all" instead of "select the one" increases the possibilities tenfold while increasing effort only ~twofold). You're going to be filtering out a lot of humans this way. I personally only went through with it out of curiosity, because I was half-expecting it to not work in the end - as it did, so at least I have a story to tell now.
  - flutas 2y ago
    > It's not like the number of puzzles makes a difference to a bot They do actually. A lot of the captcha process isn't just yes/no to the answer anymore (though this signal seems to be increasing lately). They also monitor timings on clicks, movement of the mouse, etc to identify a bot vs a real user. More data on these signals = better reliability for detecting bots.
WillPostForFood 2y ago
I'm sure that was super annoying, but Twitter/X has always had a terrible spam/bot problem. This at least is showing an attempt to take that seriously, even at the cost of new user acquisition.
Y_Y 2y ago
Luckily were reaching a tipping point where it takes a similar amount of effort to rig up a CNN to just solve whatever god-awful puzzle they've dreamt up for you this time.
gs17 2y ago
>I've since been wondering whether Musk now wants it to fail, I'd think so too, but he seems to love tweeting too much.
AlienRobot 2y ago
To be fair, I tried to create an Instagram account with my own website's domain as e-mail address, because I didn't want to use my phone number. When I tried to confirm my e-mail I got a simple "there was an error, try again" message. I looked it up on Google and it seems they just instantly suspended my account. I had to login in the account that I didn't even know was created to see I was suspended, so I could appeal, only to get told to confirm my e-mail again, and then they asked me to link a phone number, by which point I gave up. I hear they may even require a photo on top of that.
wumeow 2y ago
All that, yet the platform is still swarming with bots.
whutsurnaym 2y ago
I signed up for an account so that I could direct message a vendor to let them know their site was down. I managed to get the account made, sent off a message to the vendor, and my account was immediately banned. The message on my homepage told me it would likely take a week for the ban to be lifted. That was in August of last year. Absolutely nothing has changed since then. I'm not even sure how to reach out to them to appeal the ban. Maybe nobody's home. I took that as a sign that maybe the platform wasn't worth my time.

by t_mann 2y ago

flutas 2y ago

> the captcha was six images of ~5 dice each from an acute angle, and I had to click the one where the top faces added up to 15. That takes considerably more time than "select all the cars" This has been a fairly standard captcha for the past few years across the "more attacked" providers. That one, Rotate the [object] to match this direction, Click the item in this image with the highest value, Click the dice that add up to [X], Which of these items doesn't belong, etc. They are all much more difficult than previous ones, and I've long wondered if they are compliant with various disability laws.

t_mann 2y ago
I get it, but 10 puzzles in a row? It's not like the number of puzzles makes a difference to a bot when they're all of the same type (except for the bots that guess randomly, but there would be smarter combinatorial ways to trip those up that are less user-hostile; eg simply saying "select all" instead of "select the one" increases the possibilities tenfold while increasing effort only ~twofold). You're going to be filtering out a lot of humans this way. I personally only went through with it out of curiosity, because I was half-expecting it to not work in the end - as it did, so at least I have a story to tell now.
- flutas 2y ago
  > It's not like the number of puzzles makes a difference to a bot They do actually. A lot of the captcha process isn't just yes/no to the answer anymore (though this signal seems to be increasing lately). They also monitor timings on clicks, movement of the mouse, etc to identify a bot vs a real user. More data on these signals = better reliability for detecting bots.

WillPostForFood 2y ago

I'm sure that was super annoying, but Twitter/X has always had a terrible spam/bot problem. This at least is showing an attempt to take that seriously, even at the cost of new user acquisition.

Y_Y 2y ago

Luckily were reaching a tipping point where it takes a similar amount of effort to rig up a CNN to just solve whatever god-awful puzzle they've dreamt up for you this time.

gs17 2y ago

>I've since been wondering whether Musk now wants it to fail, I'd think so too, but he seems to love tweeting too much.

AlienRobot 2y ago

To be fair, I tried to create an Instagram account with my own website's domain as e-mail address, because I didn't want to use my phone number. When I tried to confirm my e-mail I got a simple "there was an error, try again" message. I looked it up on Google and it seems they just instantly suspended my account. I had to login in the account that I didn't even know was created to see I was suspended, so I could appeal, only to get told to confirm my e-mail again, and then they asked me to link a phone number, by which point I gave up. I hear they may even require a photo on top of that.

wumeow 2y ago

All that, yet the platform is still swarming with bots.

whutsurnaym 2y ago

I signed up for an account so that I could direct message a vendor to let them know their site was down. I managed to get the account made, sent off a message to the vendor, and my account was immediately banned. The message on my homepage told me it would likely take a week for the ban to be lifted. That was in August of last year. Absolutely nothing has changed since then. I'm not even sure how to reach out to them to appeal the ban. Maybe nobody's home. I took that as a sign that maybe the platform wasn't worth my time.