5 ms·

Stop the Captcha madness

30 points by Isofarro 14y ago

Albuca 14y ago
I can see where they are coming from in wanting to verify that a user is Human, and getting them to play a game is a great idea. However, that solution does not work for everyone. There are those who use smartphones, tablets, or are stuck behind corperate networks that (cannot/will not) allow you to even view or interact with the game. I love the idea of not having to type in captcha's all the time, but the solution will have to be a universal one; making it easier for the user to verify they are human, while still keeping all the bots out. In the meantime, at least recaptcha is doing something useful with the time we spend figuring out the captcha's.
- bluetidepro 14y ago
  "In the meantime, at least recaptcha is doing something useful with the time we spend figuring out the captcha's." Can you elaborate? What do you mean they are doing something useful? I'm not familiar with how recaptcha works but, I have used it on many sites before. (Thanks!)
  - corin_ 14y ago
    "reCAPTCHA improves the process of digitizing books by sending words that cannot be read by computers to the Web in the form of CAPTCHAs for humans to decipher. More specifically, each word that cannot be read correctly by OCR is placed on an image and used as a CAPTCHA. This is possible because most OCR programs alert you when a word cannot be read correctly." More at http://www.google.com/recaptcha/learnmore http://www.google.com/recaptcha/learnmore
    - Albuca 14y ago
      corin_ hit the hammer on the head with that. Sory, I should have tossed a link in when I made that comment. There are always two words that you will see. One that is known, and the other is unknown. Once enough users (lets use 10 for this example) type the same responce to the unknown word (and correctly identify the known word), the unknown word will move to a known status and be matched up with a new unknown word. Thereby digitizing books! (ever wondered why one of the words is clearer than the other? Now you know!)
    - TylerE 14y ago
      Are they actually still doing that? For the last year or so, recaptcha seems to only serve up nonsense words.
  - zithtar 14y ago
    Only one of the words is actually known and used to verify humanness. The other is an unknown scan from a book, and after a certain number of identical entries (3?) is considered known.
    - Isofarro 14y ago
      That reliance on "certain number of identical entries" was used by 4Chan's gaming of the Time 100 poll in 2009. The so-called "penis attack": http://musicmachinery.com/2009/04/27/moot-wins-time-inc-loses/ http://musicmachinery.com/2009/04/27/moot-wins-time-inc-lose...
      - zithtar 14y ago
        And I think of that every time someone mentions ReCAPTCHA
- djbender 14y ago
  I just tested it on a mobile device and it actually worked great. I was surprised.
camtarn 14y ago
Aaaargh. Mouse dexterity testing is incredibly irritating when you're using a TrackPoint (rubber nipple mouse) :P On a slightly more serious note, this is awful for anyone who has mouse dexterity issues, like older or inexperienced computer users, those using assistive devices, or even people with shaky hands. It also relies in some places on culturally specific assumptions (for instance: put toppings on a pizza... I see some squiggly reddish stuff which seems like it's meant to be bacon, but in the UK bacon doesn't look anything like that!) Good on them for trying to make the CAPTCHA experience more interesting, but this isn't quite a complete solution...
- nick007 14y ago
  What about offering the option to switch to a normal CAPTCHA for users like yourself?
  - jerf 14y ago
    If you can switch, so can spammers. CAPTCHAs are as strong as the weakest link.
- dlikhten 14y ago
  TrackPoint. Now I know the name. Thank you good sir, thank you. You just made my day.
  - camtarn 14y ago
    Glad I could be of assistance ;)
  - emilv 14y ago
    Obligatory: https://xkcd.com/243/ https://xkcd.com/243/
- dlikhten 14y ago
  I'm just going to leave this link over here... Not saying you should click it, but... maybe you should go to it... http://akismet.com/ http://akismet.com/
djbender 14y ago
"Increase Conversions: PlayThru increases form submissions by up to 40% versus standard CAPTCHAs like reCaptcha. That twisted text annoys people so much that they stop filling out your form. Make it easier with our short, simple games." I would looooove to see the numbers behind this.
joshfraser 14y ago
Quit trying to fix CAPTCHA and just stop using them altogether. Here's my rant / explanation why: http://www.onlineaspect.com/2010/07/02/why-you-should-never-use-a-captcha/ http://www.onlineaspect.com/2010/07/02/why-you-should-never-...
droithomme 14y ago
Observations from usability testing: * It's called a game but it's just not fun. (Tried about 6 of them.) * It's annoying to have to use the mouse in 2 dimensions with dragging. This activates the "locate, identify, capture something and drag it someplace else that needs to be identified" part of my brain. Using that part of the brain breaks my train of thought from the message I was thinking of typing. Captchas are not perfect, and this is a good idea to try and do user testing, but I find it not be an improvement over captchas.
mikeash 14y ago
Reloading the demo a bunch of times, there appear to only be a handful of different games. Maybe they have a reduced set for the demo, but it certainly seems like each game would require human intervention to create. They don't look that difficult to solve automatically once a human teaches the computer what to do for the given game once. CAPTCHA relies on being able to create new puzzles with zero human effort but which require some human effort to solve. If each puzzle requires human effort to create, then attackers can simply take advantage of the fact that their time is cheaper than yours. These sort of clever/unusual human detectors can work great on a small scale, when it isn't worth anyone's time to attack them, but fall apart once they get popular. Maybe I'm missing some secret sauce here, but this one certainly looks like one of those.
rplnt 14y ago
It's loading way too long - all the time benefit of not deciphering captcha was lost. It's annoying at best, trying to click on a slightly moving object and then dragging him away. Why can't I just click on a static picture? Also, it looks like an ad.
capo 14y ago
Solving CAPTCHAs teaches computers to read, what does this do?
- camtarn 14y ago
  This particular implementation wouldn't do much... but if you used real images, you could ask the user to e.g. "Pick out the faces", then show six images with two known faces, three known not-faces, and one maybe-face. Serve the same maybe-face to enough users to get a significant face or not-face vote, and use the results to train a facial recognition algorithm.
geon 14y ago
Wasn't this demonstrated as broken a while ago? Most of the "games" seems to be "pick 2 out of 4", which gives you only 7 permutations. But it's worse that that, since you can just keep on trying until you find a match.
gizzlon 14y ago
Yes! Thank you.. As a user I would love this, I hate CAPTCHAs with a passion.
joeblau 14y ago
Didn't someone just post an algoritm to crack these "games" with 99% efficiency a few weeks ago?
mp3geek 14y ago
The issue I have with these (same with keycapcha also), is the role of advertisers in captcha http://areyouahuman.com/advertisers http://areyouahuman.com/advertisers After all, I don't want any form of advertising or tracking on my website due to 3rd party captchas.
mrgreenfur 14y ago
Doesn't CAPTCHA help transcribe old books? What does this do?

30 points by Isofarro 14y ago

I can see where they are coming from in wanting to verify that a user is Human, and getting them to play a game is a great idea. However, that solution does not work for everyone. There are those who use smartphones, tablets, or are stuck behind corperate networks that (cannot/will not) allow you to even view or interact with the game. I love the idea of not having to type in captcha's all the time, but the solution will have to be a universal one; making it easier for the user to verify they are human, while still keeping all the bots out. In the meantime, at least recaptcha is doing something useful with the time we spend figuring out the captcha's.

bluetidepro 14y ago
"In the meantime, at least recaptcha is doing something useful with the time we spend figuring out the captcha's." Can you elaborate? What do you mean they are doing something useful? I'm not familiar with how recaptcha works but, I have used it on many sites before. (Thanks!)
- corin_ 14y ago
  "reCAPTCHA improves the process of digitizing books by sending words that cannot be read by computers to the Web in the form of CAPTCHAs for humans to decipher. More specifically, each word that cannot be read correctly by OCR is placed on an image and used as a CAPTCHA. This is possible because most OCR programs alert you when a word cannot be read correctly." More at http://www.google.com/recaptcha/learnmore http://www.google.com/recaptcha/learnmore
  - Albuca 14y ago
    corin_ hit the hammer on the head with that. Sory, I should have tossed a link in when I made that comment. There are always two words that you will see. One that is known, and the other is unknown. Once enough users (lets use 10 for this example) type the same responce to the unknown word (and correctly identify the known word), the unknown word will move to a known status and be matched up with a new unknown word. Thereby digitizing books! (ever wondered why one of the words is clearer than the other? Now you know!)
  - TylerE 14y ago
    Are they actually still doing that? For the last year or so, recaptcha seems to only serve up nonsense words.
- zithtar 14y ago
  Only one of the words is actually known and used to verify humanness. The other is an unknown scan from a book, and after a certain number of identical entries (3?) is considered known.
  - Isofarro 14y ago
    That reliance on "certain number of identical entries" was used by 4Chan's gaming of the Time 100 poll in 2009. The so-called "penis attack": http://musicmachinery.com/2009/04/27/moot-wins-time-inc-loses/ http://musicmachinery.com/2009/04/27/moot-wins-time-inc-lose...
    - zithtar 14y ago
      And I think of that every time someone mentions ReCAPTCHA
djbender 14y ago
I just tested it on a mobile device and it actually worked great. I was surprised.

camtarn 14y ago

Aaaargh. Mouse dexterity testing is incredibly irritating when you're using a TrackPoint (rubber nipple mouse) :P On a slightly more serious note, this is awful for anyone who has mouse dexterity issues, like older or inexperienced computer users, those using assistive devices, or even people with shaky hands. It also relies in some places on culturally specific assumptions (for instance: put toppings on a pizza... I see some squiggly reddish stuff which seems like it's meant to be bacon, but in the UK bacon doesn't look anything like that!) Good on them for trying to make the CAPTCHA experience more interesting, but this isn't quite a complete solution...

nick007 14y ago
What about offering the option to switch to a normal CAPTCHA for users like yourself?
- jerf 14y ago
  If you can switch, so can spammers. CAPTCHAs are as strong as the weakest link.
dlikhten 14y ago
TrackPoint. Now I know the name. Thank you good sir, thank you. You just made my day.
- camtarn 14y ago
  Glad I could be of assistance ;)
- emilv 14y ago
  Obligatory: https://xkcd.com/243/ https://xkcd.com/243/
dlikhten 14y ago
I'm just going to leave this link over here... Not saying you should click it, but... maybe you should go to it... http://akismet.com/ http://akismet.com/

djbender 14y ago

"Increase Conversions: PlayThru increases form submissions by up to 40% versus standard CAPTCHAs like reCaptcha. That twisted text annoys people so much that they stop filling out your form. Make it easier with our short, simple games." I would looooove to see the numbers behind this.

joshfraser 14y ago

Quit trying to fix CAPTCHA and just stop using them altogether. Here's my rant / explanation why: http://www.onlineaspect.com/2010/07/02/why-you-should-never-use-a-captcha/ http://www.onlineaspect.com/2010/07/02/why-you-should-never-...

droithomme 14y ago

Observations from usability testing: * It's called a game but it's just not fun. (Tried about 6 of them.) * It's annoying to have to use the mouse in 2 dimensions with dragging. This activates the "locate, identify, capture something and drag it someplace else that needs to be identified" part of my brain. Using that part of the brain breaks my train of thought from the message I was thinking of typing. Captchas are not perfect, and this is a good idea to try and do user testing, but I find it not be an improvement over captchas.

mikeash 14y ago

Reloading the demo a bunch of times, there appear to only be a handful of different games. Maybe they have a reduced set for the demo, but it certainly seems like each game would require human intervention to create. They don't look that difficult to solve automatically once a human teaches the computer what to do for the given game once. CAPTCHA relies on being able to create new puzzles with zero human effort but which require some human effort to solve. If each puzzle requires human effort to create, then attackers can simply take advantage of the fact that their time is cheaper than yours. These sort of clever/unusual human detectors can work great on a small scale, when it isn't worth anyone's time to attack them, but fall apart once they get popular. Maybe I'm missing some secret sauce here, but this one certainly looks like one of those.

rplnt 14y ago

It's loading way too long - all the time benefit of not deciphering captcha was lost. It's annoying at best, trying to click on a slightly moving object and then dragging him away. Why can't I just click on a static picture? Also, it looks like an ad.

capo 14y ago

Solving CAPTCHAs teaches computers to read, what does this do?

camtarn 14y ago
This particular implementation wouldn't do much... but if you used real images, you could ask the user to e.g. "Pick out the faces", then show six images with two known faces, three known not-faces, and one maybe-face. Serve the same maybe-face to enough users to get a significant face or not-face vote, and use the results to train a facial recognition algorithm.

geon 14y ago

Wasn't this demonstrated as broken a while ago? Most of the "games" seems to be "pick 2 out of 4", which gives you only 7 permutations. But it's worse that that, since you can just keep on trying until you find a match.

gizzlon 14y ago

Yes! Thank you.. As a user I would love this, I hate CAPTCHAs with a passion.

joeblau 14y ago

Didn't someone just post an algoritm to crack these "games" with 99% efficiency a few weeks ago?

mp3geek 14y ago

The issue I have with these (same with keycapcha also), is the role of advertisers in captcha http://areyouahuman.com/advertisers http://areyouahuman.com/advertisers After all, I don't want any form of advertising or tracking on my website due to 3rd party captchas.

mrgreenfur 14y ago

Doesn't CAPTCHA help transcribe old books? What does this do?