Google has cracked the CAPTCHA. In a paper published this week, Google researchers say that they’ve developed an algorithm that can accurately solve Google’s own CAPTCHA puzzles — those obfuscated jumbles of letters and numbers you type in on websites to prove that you’re human — with 99.8 percent accuracy, obviously posing something of a problem to the puzzle’s intended purpose of weeding out robots. The new system was developed to help Google automatically analyze hard-to-read signs and house numbers photographed by its Street View cameras, allowing it to accurately match images with locations on a map.
Here and there I’ve seen word problems instead of CAPTCHA. I prefer them because they don’t involve eyestrain and are usually reliably solvable, which sure isn’t true of many of the CAPTCHA images I’ve seen.
I was just thinking about how I need a CAPTCHA solver; but how does the solver make sure I’m not a bot exploiting it to get past CAPTCHA? Quis CAPTCHA ipsos CAPTCHA?
I’ve seen where they’ll just put a checkbox labeled “Check this to prove you’re not a bot.” Seems to get to the heart of the matter about as reductively as possible.
I saw a forum once that required you to complete three sentences using there/their/they’re in the correct context in order to register. That’s a system I can totally get behind.
Hell man, if I could just find a forum that required you to engage the admin in civil discourse on a touchy political subject for 6 back-and-forth messages before being admitted, I’d probably never register for another website again.
Fuck Captcha. Moving to TOR recently and the endless screens that come up requesting me to identify busses, sidewalks, lights and other bullshit is fucking never ending.
I mean, I get it, give me one screen, but I quit after the 5th screen. It’s never going to end.
I left a nasty gram today with tripadvisor and will delete my account and never leave another review because of this bullshit. Other accounts will likely follow.
