9 ms·

The Algorithm That Can Crack CAPTCHA (and is changing AI)

24 points by urs2102 13y ago

vezzy-fnord 13y ago
Is this really some master algorithm that can crack all kinds of CAPTCHAs? CAPTCHA is pretty much an umbrella term for a variety of anti-spam protection and human verification procedures, many of them having nothing in common beyond the name. Thus "cracking CAPTCHA" is meaningless unless you specify what type(s). You'd need textual analysis, sentiment analysis, expression evaluation, OCR, full-scale image recognition, puzzle solving and a variety of other techniques to scratch most implementations. So it can't be one algorithm. It'd have to be many. Then in most cases it'd probably be simpler to figure out some client-side exploit in the way CAPTCHAs handle and send data. Find a weak link, much like DC949 did with reCAPTCHA.
andrewcooke 13y ago
anyone have any actual information on the algorithm? this is just fluff.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- BrandonMarc 13y ago
  Agreed. The article gives a good primer on how CAPTCHAs work, how basic versions of them used to be easily solve-able, and how / why a general-purpose solution - like this is described to be - would be amazing ... and a bit of background on how such a solution would be similar to human "processing" anyway. What the article doesn't describe is any detail of how it works. Then again ... the creators of such a revolutionary technology, if true, would want to keep it protected in various ways, not to mention out of adversaries' hands (adversaries = spammers, criminals, other companies, other researchers).
- urs2102 13y ago
  Yeah, I posted it to see what else was out there regarding this. It just caught my eye on Fast Company.
ColinWright 13y ago
I point you here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6633515 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6633515 Quoting: The popularity of this story evidences how universally hated are CAPTCHAs. here are some of the submissions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6625245 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6625245 (forbes.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6625247 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6625247 (kurzweilai.net) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6625351 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6625351 (technologyreview.com) <- Main discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6626405 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6626405 (vimeo.com) <- video of process in action https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6627848 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6627848 (vicariousinc.tumblr.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6628086 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6628086 (cbc.ca) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6628092 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6628092 (wired.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6629173 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6629173 (wired.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6629559 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6629559 (newscientist.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6629656 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6629656 (dailydot.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6629708 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6629708 (mashable.com) ======== There are two other comments worth reading. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6629173 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6629173: That's a lot of fancy words to say that they overfit to their training data. That makes this sound like a very typical result in supervised machine learning (if it's a result at all). They have used an algorithm to learn a brittle heuristic that works in the cases it was trained to work on.
fchollet 13y ago
Being familiar with Dileep's past research: the algorithm used by Vicarious here is very likely based on the Hierarchical-Temporal Memory (HTM) technology developed by Hawkins, Dileep and the folks at Numenta [1]. HTM is documented in a Numenta white paper [2] and in an older form in Dileep's PhD thesis [3]. Numenta has also open-sourced an implementation of HTM, NuPIC [4]. It is important to note that, while HTM is a very interesting approach to machine learning, it has never been shown to beat (or even concurrence) the state of the art on any problem. I have been following Numenta/Grok's progress closely because they seem to me to have the most potential for pushing this tech forward. Also I like their open-source strategy compared to the 100% secret approach of Vicarious. Vicarious has an impressively bombastic PR (that you can see in action in the above article) but basically nothing to show for it (until now, that is, if this breaking of CAPTCHA turns out to be real and the be more reliable than existing state-of-the-art CAPTCHA-breaking algorithms). Long before they had any working technology, Vicarious founders had been throwing around quotes such as: "[our goal is] in five years to make a human-level vision system. Anything a human can recognize visually our algorithm would recognize visually." (2011) [5] And today, after creating a CAPTCHA-breaking program (which has already been done in the past; I'd like to see a benchmark comparison), they're basically claiming they've created a human brain. They also claim they will have a strong AI by 2026 [6]. Bombastic much? [1] https://groksolutions.com/landing-page.html https://groksolutions.com/landing-page.html [2] http://numenta.org/resources/HTM_CorticalLearningAlgorithms.pdf http://numenta.org/resources/HTM_CorticalLearningAlgorithms.... [3] http://alpha.tmit.bme.hu/speech/docs/education/02_DileepThesis.pdf http://alpha.tmit.bme.hu/speech/docs/education/02_DileepThes... [4] http://numenta.org/nupic.html http://numenta.org/nupic.html [5] http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2011/02/10/vicarious-systems-says-its-artificial-intelligence-is-the-real-deal/ http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2011/02/10/vicarious-sys... [6] http://www.artificialbrains.com/vicarious http://www.artificialbrains.com/vicarious

24 points by urs2102 13y ago

Is this really some master algorithm that can crack all kinds of CAPTCHAs? CAPTCHA is pretty much an umbrella term for a variety of anti-spam protection and human verification procedures, many of them having nothing in common beyond the name. Thus "cracking CAPTCHA" is meaningless unless you specify what type(s). You'd need textual analysis, sentiment analysis, expression evaluation, OCR, full-scale image recognition, puzzle solving and a variety of other techniques to scratch most implementations. So it can't be one algorithm. It'd have to be many. Then in most cases it'd probably be simpler to figure out some client-side exploit in the way CAPTCHAs handle and send data. Find a weak link, much like DC949 did with reCAPTCHA.

andrewcooke 13y ago

anyone have any actual information on the algorithm? this is just fluff.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
BrandonMarc 13y ago
Agreed. The article gives a good primer on how CAPTCHAs work, how basic versions of them used to be easily solve-able, and how / why a general-purpose solution - like this is described to be - would be amazing ... and a bit of background on how such a solution would be similar to human "processing" anyway. What the article doesn't describe is any detail of how it works. Then again ... the creators of such a revolutionary technology, if true, would want to keep it protected in various ways, not to mention out of adversaries' hands (adversaries = spammers, criminals, other companies, other researchers).
urs2102 13y ago
Yeah, I posted it to see what else was out there regarding this. It just caught my eye on Fast Company.

ColinWright 13y ago

I point you here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6633515 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6633515 Quoting: The popularity of this story evidences how universally hated are CAPTCHAs. here are some of the submissions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6625245 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6625245 (forbes.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6625247 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6625247 (kurzweilai.net) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6625351 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6625351 (technologyreview.com) <- Main discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6626405 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6626405 (vimeo.com) <- video of process in action https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6627848 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6627848 (vicariousinc.tumblr.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6628086 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6628086 (cbc.ca) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6628092 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6628092 (wired.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6629173 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6629173 (wired.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6629559 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6629559 (newscientist.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6629656 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6629656 (dailydot.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6629708 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6629708 (mashable.com) ======== There are two other comments worth reading. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6629173 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6629173: That's a lot of fancy words to say that they overfit to their training data. That makes this sound like a very typical result in supervised machine learning (if it's a result at all). They have used an algorithm to learn a brittle heuristic that works in the cases it was trained to work on.

fchollet 13y ago

Being familiar with Dileep's past research: the algorithm used by Vicarious here is very likely based on the Hierarchical-Temporal Memory (HTM) technology developed by Hawkins, Dileep and the folks at Numenta [1]. HTM is documented in a Numenta white paper [2] and in an older form in Dileep's PhD thesis [3]. Numenta has also open-sourced an implementation of HTM, NuPIC [4]. It is important to note that, while HTM is a very interesting approach to machine learning, it has never been shown to beat (or even concurrence) the state of the art on any problem. I have been following Numenta/Grok's progress closely because they seem to me to have the most potential for pushing this tech forward. Also I like their open-source strategy compared to the 100% secret approach of Vicarious. Vicarious has an impressively bombastic PR (that you can see in action in the above article) but basically nothing to show for it (until now, that is, if this breaking of CAPTCHA turns out to be real and the be more reliable than existing state-of-the-art CAPTCHA-breaking algorithms). Long before they had any working technology, Vicarious founders had been throwing around quotes such as: "[our goal is] in five years to make a human-level vision system. Anything a human can recognize visually our algorithm would recognize visually." (2011) [5] And today, after creating a CAPTCHA-breaking program (which has already been done in the past; I'd like to see a benchmark comparison), they're basically claiming they've created a human brain. They also claim they will have a strong AI by 2026 [6]. Bombastic much? [1] https://groksolutions.com/landing-page.html https://groksolutions.com/landing-page.html [2] http://numenta.org/resources/HTM_CorticalLearningAlgorithms.pdf http://numenta.org/resources/HTM_CorticalLearningAlgorithms.... [3] http://alpha.tmit.bme.hu/speech/docs/education/02_DileepThesis.pdf http://alpha.tmit.bme.hu/speech/docs/education/02_DileepThes... [4] http://numenta.org/nupic.html http://numenta.org/nupic.html [5] http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2011/02/10/vicarious-systems-says-its-artificial-intelligence-is-the-real-deal/ http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2011/02/10/vicarious-sys... [6] http://www.artificialbrains.com/vicarious http://www.artificialbrains.com/vicarious