[Blindtlk] ZCaptcha - The Captcha Reader

Sun Sep 16 19:19:18 UTC 2012

Hello,

We are using Amazon Mechanical Turk, which gives us a pool of hundreds of thousands of people to work on our tasks both from this service and others. We've already had 136 individual workers solve our captchas. Currently, 12 cents out of the 20 that it costs goes to Mechanical Turk.

Regards,
Brandon Olivares
Azavia Technologies
New: ZCaptcha — The Captcha Reader
On Sep 16, 2012, at 3:12 PM, "Mike Freeman" <k7uij at panix.com> wrote:

> One further question: are the humans who do the solving unpaid volunteers or
> are they paid? If the latter, are they being paid at least the Federal
> minimum wage?
> 
> Mike
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: blindtlk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindtlk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
> Behalf Of Brandon Olivares
> Sent: Sunday, September 16, 2012 12:04 PM
> To: Blind Talk Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Blindtlk] ZCaptcha - The Captcha Reader
> 
> Hello,
> 
> That is strange. I've used the Web for 15 years now and have never come
> across a captcha with a timeout. In such a situation, I fear there would be
> little option but to ask for sighted assistance. Between taking a screenshot
> and sending/uploading it to ZCaptcha, and waiting for it to come back, a
> minute would pass by easily. I believe it would be a close call even with
> something like Webvisum.
> 
> The cases where the cost is refunded is when the screenshot was wrong
> somehow, and the captcha either could not be read or was completely missing
> from the screenshot. The problem I encounter with the cost being returned if
> the captcha was wrong is that there is no way for me to verify that the
> captcha was, in fact, wrong. There would be nothing preventing someone from
> always marking the captcha as inaccurate in order to always get their money
> back. This is why I hesitate to pursue this option. I am open to
> suggestions, though. However, the cost is so little that it does not seem a
> great issue.
> 
> I assure you that it is not a scam. We have many users already who can
> testify to its authenticity and usefulness. The minimum refill amount is
> $5.00, so the cost to try it out is minimal.
> 
> Regards,
> Brandon Olivares
> 
> Azavia Technologies
> New: ZCaptcha - The Captcha Reader
> On Sep 16, 2012, at 1:24 PM, "Peter Donahue" <pdonahue2 at satx.rr.com> wrote:
> 
>> Hello everyone,
>> 
>>  Oh yes there are. Time-outs occur both on the Web and within software
> applications. One I know about for sure only gives you 60 seconds to enter
> the characters. Services such as Z Captcha would be very impractical in that
> situation. I have also encountered Web sites where that happens.
>> 
>>  Folowing on to Mike's post someone has yet to answer the question of how
> one gets their money back if they fail to decode the captcha or if the
> time-out period expires before the captcha characters are returned. Having
> answers to these questions would go a long way to determining whether this
> is a useful service or a scam! It still smells like rotten fish to me.
>> 
>> Peter Donahue
>> 
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Brandon Olivares" 
>> <programmer2188 at gmail.com>
>> To: "Blind Talk Mailing List" <blindtlk at nfbnet.org>
>> Sent: Sunday, September 16, 2012 12:05 PM
>> Subject: Re: [Blindtlk] ZCaptcha - The Captcha Reader
>> 
>> 
>> Hello,
>> 
>> To my knowledge, there is generally not a timeout with captchas. What I
> suggest when filling out a form is, before filling out anything, take a
> screenshot of the captcha image, send it to ZCaptcha, and only then begin to
> fill out the form. By the time you are done, the captcha code should have
> been extracted in most cases. You can e-mail your screenshot to ZCaptcha, so
> you don't even have to leave the page you are on.
>> 
>> The return time for captchas in most cases, especially during the day, is
> 2-5 minutes, sometimes less and sometimes more depending on the difficulty
> of the captcha. If the captcha is difficult, it goes through additional
> iterations to ensure sufficient accuracy.
>> 
>> I hope this satisfactorily answers your question.
>> 
>> Regards,
>> Brandon
>> 
>> Azavia Technologies
>> New: ZCaptcha - The Captcha Reader
>> On Sep 16, 2012, at 12:56 PM, "Mike Freeman" <k7uij at panix.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> Sir:
>>> 
>>> How can one assure oneself that timely return of a CAPTCHA solution
> occurs?
>>> If the captcha SOLUTION IS RETURNED*AFTER* THE TIMEOUT, HOW CAN ONE 
>>> GET ONE'S MONEY BACK?
>>> 
>>> Mike Freeman
>>> 
>>> 
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: blindtlk-bounces at nfbnet.org 
>>> [mailto:blindtlk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Brandon Olivares
>>> Sent: Sunday, September 16, 2012 9:29 AM
>>> To: blindtlk at nfbnet.org
>>> Subject: [Blindtlk] ZCaptcha - The Captcha Reader
>>> 
>>> Hello,
>>> 
>>> I'd like to announce the release of a new service for the blind, 
>>> called ZCaptcha.
>>> 
>>> It works much the same as Webvisum, without being restricted to any 
>>> particular browser since it is run as a remote service. It is a 
>>> service that allows blind people to easily read captcha images.
>>> 
>>> Basically, you upload your screenshot to ZCaptcha, and in a few 
>>> minutes you receive the captcha code in return. The accuracy has been 
>>> very good so far with our existing users (25 to date since the launch
> this week).
>>> 
>>> This is the only service of its kind that is available to all blind 
>>> users regardless of environment. We expect it to be very useful for 
>>> blind people, enabling them to more easily navigate Web forms that 
>>> require captcha verification.
>>> 
>>> If you are unaware of captchas, you may find a description here:
>>> http://www.azavia.com/zcaptcha/about.html
>>> 
>>> The address is here:
>>> 
>>> http://www.azavia.com/zcaptcha
>>> 
>>> Thanks,
>>> Brandon
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