You know, it could have been gone this way: Manager: Make me a captcha. Dev: We don't really need one, all we need is a simple way to avoid dumb automatic subm

You know, it could have been gone this way: Manager: Make me a captcha. Dev: We don't really need one, all we need is a simple way to avoid dumb automatic submits. M: Use a simple one, then. ... a few minutes later... D: Here it is, the user just has to copy over those four letters. M: Hey this is not a captcha. It does not look like a captcha. ... a few minutes later... D: Here it is, now it looks like a captcha. On the other side, it could be very true that if you don't put some annoyances behind it, "normal" people don't recognize it as a captcha... And most of the time (on most custom low traffic sites...) you don't really need much more that a static "write the result of 2+2". I've been there, I've already done it :-)