Captcha?

[stockhausen]

I can understand why some sites use Captcha to weed out bots.

There was a time when one had correctly to enter a displayed, distorted string of letters - seems reasonable but apparently not foolproof.

Then came the need to tick a number of images of traffic lights / buses / crosswalks / cars / trains . . . etc. That tended to be an absolute nightmare where something crossed over adjacent boxes but I guess that it worked.

What I really cannot understand are those sites where you simply have to tick a box confirming that you are a human - IN GOD'S NAME, WHY? What on Earth is the point of that?

 

[Whitewater]

They use your previous browsing activity to judge if the box ticker is a real person so you might find that the site asks for the traditional captcha stuff if you use incongnito mode.

 

[bainbridge]

But what if one identifies as non human?

It shouldn't be allowed!

 

[Lysander]

But what if one identifies as non human?

It shouldn't be allowed!

Mods must condemn.

 

[dlockers]

They use your previous browsing activity to judge if the box ticker is a real person so you might find that the site asks for the traditional captcha stuff if you use incongnito mode.

This.

"The reCAPTCHA program originated with Guatemalan computer scientist Luis von Ahn,[11] and was aided by a MacArthur Fellowship. An early CAPTCHA developer, he realized "he had unwittingly created a system that was frittering away, in ten-second increments, millions of hours of a most precious resource: human brain cycles".[12][13]"

The reason why some just take a tick is because your computer/device has sufficient foot print to assume you are a human. You could argue they could get rid of it, and automate it in the background, but "brand interactions" are valuable marketing tools.

 

[stockhausen]

. . .
The reason why some just take a tick is because your computer/device has sufficient foot print to assume you are a human.
. . .

Ah, OK; thanks for that.

I suspect it can get confused if you make regular use of BleachBit - but who knows what that bit of software actually does anyhow

 

[touch]

You could argue they could get rid of it, and automate it in the background, but "brand interactions" are valuable marketing tools.

Google provide an "invisible" captcha option which validates the user in the background - the developer of the site your visiting can choose which captcha option to use. (It's not actually invisible because it displays the "protected by captcha" text and the logo but it doesn't require user interaction with a captcha box to validate)

 

[Leprechaun312]

Then came the need to tick a number of images of traffic lights / buses / crosswalks / cars / trains . . . etc. That tended to be an absolute nightmare where something crossed over adjacent boxes but I guess that it worked.

Nightmare is an understatement, when you get like 9 of these in a row, it's near fist through monitor time.

I'll take the ******* tick box any day over the stupid pictures.