[Nfbc-info] Google has a way to do away with Captcha

[Jennifer Boylan]

Thank you so much for sharing this article! I hope Google is still going to provide the audio alternative?

> On Dec 4, 2014, at 3:20 AM, therese gardner via Nfbc-info <nfbc-info at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> Hello All:
> 
> 
> 
> A friend came across this article on Googles new approach to CAPTCHA. I
> found it of much interest. Suspect screen readers will find this new
> interface to be quite difficult to manipulate as well.
> 
> 
> 
> Your thoughts?
> 
> 
> 
> Therese
> 
> 
> 
> 
> No More Word Puzzles: Google Can Tell You're Human With One Click
> 
> 
> Old CAPTCHAs required the user to decipher complicated word puzzles in order
> to verify that they were not an automated bot. Google
> 
> itoggle caption Google
> 
> A squiggly word puzzle pops up as you're trying to buy concert tickets. You
> stare at the words, scratching your head, as time disappears for you to
> purchase those tickets. Your first few attempts are utter failures, and you
> wonder why confirming your humanity on the Internet has to be so difficult.
> 
> Those mind-bending days are over. Google announced Wednesday the launch of
> "No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA" which gets rid of CAPTCHAs - those complicated
> distorted word puzzles - and can tell you're not a robot with just one
> click. Now the person just has to click a checkbox next to the statement
> "I'm not a robot."
> 
> With this new technology, Google says it can tell the difference between a
> human and an automated program simply by the way in which the person moves
> the mouse in the moments before the click. But in some rare cases, one click
> might not deliver confirmation, and a pop-up window will require users to
> solve distorted text.
> 
> New reCAPTCHAs do away with word puzzles and allow people to confirm they're
> human by simply checking a box. Google
> 
> itoggle caption Google
> 
> On mobile devices, the new reCAPTCHA works a little differently because
> there is no movement prior to tapping a button on a touch screen. Instead of
> checking a single box, users are asked to select all the images that
> correspond with a clue. For example, the clue could be a picture of a cat
> and the user would choose the images that match it among images of cats,
> dogs and hamsters.
> 
> Snapchat, WordPress and video game sales site Humble Bumble have already
> adopted the software. Google says that in the past week over 60 percent of
> WordPress' traffic and over 80 percent of Humble Bumbles traffic on
> reCAPTCHA got through with just the checkbox.
> 
> Vinay Shet, the product manager for Google's reCAPTCHA team, told Wired.com
> that the new reCAPTCHA will save users time.
> 
> On mobile devices, Google's new reCAPTCHA software prompts users to match a
> clue with corresponding images. Google
> 
> itoggle caption Google
> 
> "For most users, this dramatically simplifies the experience," Shet says.
> "They basically get a free pass. You can solve the CAPTCHA without having to
> solve it."
> 
> But Google didn't develop this software just to make people's lives easier.
> Last year, artificial intelligence startup Vicarious announced it had
> developed software that can solve any type of CAPTCHA with at least 90
> percent accuracy. Before that, spammers hired teams of CAPTCHA solvers in
> places like Russia and Southeast Asia. They paid them sweatshop wages -
> about 75 cents for every 1,000 CAPTCHAs solved.
> 
> CAPTCHAs (Completely Automated Public Turing Test To Tell Computers and
> Humans Apart) were developed in 2000 to protect websites from spam and
> abuse. By confirming a user is human, CAPTCHAs stopped automated bots from
> creating fake email addresses to spam you or from snatching up all the
> tickets to a concert.
> 
> Early CAPTCHAs had evenly spaced letters and numbers that computers could
> easily decipher. As CAPTCHAs became more advanced they used scrunched up
> characters to make it more difficult for computers to translate.
> 
> Luis von Ahn, an associate professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon
> University who helped develop CAPTCHA, realized that CAPTCHAs were wasting
> people's time and brain power.
> 
> "Approximately 200 million of these are typed every day by people around the
> world. Each time you type one of these, essentially you waste about 10
> seconds of your time," he told NPR in 2008. "If you multiply that by 200
> million, you get that humanity as a whole is wasting around 500,000 hours
> every day, typing these annoying squiggly characters."
> 
> So he came up with a way to kill two birds with one stone. His software,
> reCAPTCHA, used CAPTCHAs to digitize old books and newspapers. The two words
> shown come directly from scanned books. The company was sold to Google in
> 2009.
> 
> But programs were built to decode those too. Vicarious' software is one of
> the first that can separate and distinguish each letter.
> 
> Google has been reworking its CAPTCHAs since 2013. On Valentine's Day, the
> company tested its new software by showing users undistorted words like
> "Love" and "Flowers" and relied on "advanced risk analysis" to distinguish
> between humans and bots. The new system measures the person's entire
> engagement with the CAPTCHA - before, during and after they interact with
> it.
> 
> While Google's new reCAPTCHAs will inevitably save the user time and a
> headache, it raises privacy concerns. Google already has access to droves of
> personal information, but now it can identify a person by simple movements.
> However, Shet says Google will only be able to track a user's movements over
> the reCAPTCHA widget and not the entire Web page.
> 
> Samantha Raphelson is a digital news intern at NPR.org. You can reach out to
> her on Twitter.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Nfbc-info mailing list
> Nfbc-info at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nfbc-info_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for Nfbc-info:
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nfbc-info_nfbnet.org/jaboylan%40sbcglobal.net