[nfbcs] {Disarmed} Captchas
Frendly_Nadia
blindhelpfultech at gmail.com
Sun Apr 1 00:00:55 UTC 2012
i would think it would be easier but i am not the programer, may i ask
what is holding it back or the challenge that people are having trying
to come up with a better idea?
On 3/31/12, Jim Barbour <jbar at barcore.com> wrote:
> Well said Curtis. I don't understand the point of this article accept
> that it whines about captchas and pre-supposes there's a better
> solution that "they" are too lazy to implement.
>
> Those of us who have explored this problem mostly feel differently.
> It turns out to be a tough problem with not-pretty solutions.
>
> Jim
>
> On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 03:07:34PM -0500, Curtis Chong wrote:
>> Greetings:
>>
>> Is this supposed to suggest an improvement that works better for the
>> blind? It does not appear so from what I see here<grin>.
>>
>> Sincerely,
>>
>> Curtis Chong
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
>> Of Nicole B. Torcolini at Home
>> Sent: Thursday, March 08, 2012 1:21 AM
>> To: NFBCS Mailing List List
>> Subject: [nfbcs] {Disarmed} Captchas
>>
>> I was going to just post the link, but, when I read the last line, I just
>> had to post the article instead.
>>
>> Time to Kill Off Captchas
>> How the bot-proofing of the Internet is bringing humans down
>>
>> By David Pogue | February 28, 2012 | 18
>>
>>
>>
>> a.. Share
>> b.. Email
>> c.. Print
>> d..
>> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=time-to-kill-off-captchas
>>
>>
>>
>> Time to Kill Off Captchas
>>
>>
>>
>> Whenever there’s a problem in the modern world, we try to solve it by
>> building barriers. Music piracy? Copy protection. Hacked Web sites? More
>> complicated passwords.
>>
>> Unfortunately, these barriers generally inconvenience the law-abiding
>> citizen and do very little to impede the bad guys. Serious music pirates
>> and Web hackers still find their way through.
>>
>> Maybe all the hurdles are enough to thwart the casual bad guys. That seems
>> to be the thinking behind the Web blockades known as Captchas. (It’s a
>> contrived acronym for Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell
>> Computers and Humans Apart.) Surely you’ve seen them: visually distorted
>> words—sometimes real English ones and sometimes nonsense words—represented
>> as a graphic when you try to sign up for something online. You’re supposed
>> to type the words you see into a box.
>>
>> Captchas were designed by their Carnegie Mellon University inventors to
>> thwart bots (automated hacker programs) that might bring online services
>> to their knees. For example, some bots sign up for Hotmail or Yahoo e-mail
>> accounts by the thousands for the purpose of spewing spam. Some post bogus
>> comments in hopes of raising a site’s search-results ranking.
>>
>> In theory, only an actual human being can figure out what word is in the
>> Captcha graphic. The letters are just twisted enough and the background is
>> just cluttered enough that a person can read them, but not a computer.
>> Good guys in, bad guys out—the perfect barrier.
>>
>> In practice, Captchas have just replaced one public nuisance with another.
>> First of all, the images are often so distorted that even a human can’t
>> read them. That’s a particular problem in nonsense words like “rl10Ozirl.”
>> Are those lowercase Ls or number ones? Zero or letter O? Second, there’s
>> the vision thing. If you’re blind, you can’t do a visual Captcha puzzle.
>>
>> The best Captchas (if that’s not an oxymoron) offer alternatives to fix
>> these problems. There might be a button that offers you a second puzzle if
>> the first is too hard to read or an audio Captcha option for blind people.
>> Above all, though, increasing evidence shows that Captchas are losing the
>> technology war. Researchers and spammers have both been able to get around
>> them.
>>
>> There have been efforts to replace visual Captchas with less user-hostile
>> puzzles. Some ask you to take an easy math test, answer a simple question,
>> identify a photograph or listen to garbled audio. All of them exclude one
>> group or another, though—such as non-English speakers or deaf people.
>>
>> Overall, the Carnegie Mellon team estimates that we spend a cumulative
>> 150,000 hours at the gates of these irritating obstructions every single
>> day. In a newer variant, called reCaptcha, at least that time is put to
>> public use. You see a muddied-looking word that comes from a wonky scanned
>> Google book; when you type what it really says, you’re actually helping
>> out with the process of cleaning up and recognizing an actual text.
>>
>> Nevertheless, we the law abiders are still wasting 17 person-years every
>> single day. That’s a disgraceful waste of our lives. Surely there are
>> better solutions worth exploring.
>>
>> Maybe we should invent a voluntary Internet identity card so we’re already
>> known when we sign up for something. Maybe Web sites should enforce a
>> short-term limit of one new account or posted comment per “person.” Or the
>> Web site should look at the speed or irregularity of our typing to
>> determine if we’re human.
>>
>> Or fingerprints. Or retinal scans. Something.
>>
>> Spammer bots are a problem, yes. But Captchas are a problem, too. They’re
>> a bother, they’re not foolproof and they assume that everyone is guilty
>> until proven innocent. What Captcha really stands for, in other words, is
>> Computers Annoying People with Time-Wasting Challenges That Howl for
>> Alternatives.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Image: Illustration by Thomas Fuchs
>>
>> Supplemental Material
>> a.. Overview Use It Better: 8 Alternatives to the Hated Captcha
>> Whenever there’s a problem in the modern world, we try to solve it by
>> building barriers. Music piracy? Copy protection. Hacked Web sites? More
>> complicated passwords.
>>
>> Unfortunately, these barriers generally inconvenience the law-abiding
>> citizen and do very little to impede the bad guys. Serious music pirates
>> and Web hackers still find their way through.
>>
>> Maybe all the hurdles are enough to thwart the casual bad guys. That seems
>> to be the thinking behind the Web blockades known as Captchas. (It’s a
>> contrived acronym for Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell
>> Computers and Humans Apart.) Surely you’ve seen them: visually distorted
>> words—sometimes real English ones and sometimes nonsense words—represented
>> as a graphic when you try to sign up for something online. You’re supposed
>> to type the words you see into a box.
>>
>> Captchas were designed by their Carnegie Mellon University inventors to
>> thwart bots (automated hacker programs) that might bring online services
>> to their knees. For example, some bots sign up for Hotmail or Yahoo e-mail
>> accounts by the thousands for the purpose of spewing spam. Some post bogus
>> comments in hopes of raising a site’s search-results ranking.
>>
>> In theory, only an actual human being can figure out what word is in the
>> Captcha graphic. The letters are just twisted enough and the background is
>> just cluttered enough that a person can read them, but not a computer.
>> Good guys in, bad guys out—the perfect barrier.
>>
>> In practice, Captchas have just replaced one public nuisance with another.
>> First of all, the images are often so distorted that even a human can’t
>> read them. That’s a particular problem in nonsense words like “rl10Ozirl.”
>> Are those lowercase Ls or number ones? Zero or letter O? Second, there’s
>> the vision thing. If you’re blind, you can’t do a visual Captcha puzzle.
>>
>> The best Captchas (if that’s not an oxymoron) offer alternatives to fix
>> these problems. There might be a button that offers you a second puzzle if
>> the first is too hard to read or an audio Captcha option for blind people.
>> Above all, though, increasing evidence shows that Captchas are losing the
>> technology war. Researchers and spammers have both been able to get around
>> them.
>>
>> There have been efforts to replace visual Captchas with less user-hostile
>> puzzles. Some ask you to take an easy math test, answer a simple question,
>> identify a photograph or listen to garbled audio. All of them exclude one
>> group or another, though—such as non-English speakers or deaf people.
>>
>> Overall, the Carnegie Mellon team estimates that we spend a cumulative
>> 150,000 hours at the gates of these irritating obstructions every single
>> day. In a newer variant, called reCaptcha, at least that time is put to
>> public use. You see a muddied-looking word that comes from a wonky scanned
>> Google book; when you type what it really says, you’re actually helping
>> out with the process of cleaning up and recognizing an actual text.
>>
>> Nevertheless, we the law abiders are still wasting 17 person-years every
>> single day. That’s a disgraceful waste of our lives. Surely there are
>> better solutions worth exploring.
>>
>> Maybe we should invent a voluntary Internet identity card so we’re already
>> known when we sign up for something. Maybe Web sites should enforce a
>> short-term limit of one new account or posted comment per “person.” Or the
>> Web site should look at the speed or irregularity of our typing to
>> determine if we’re human.
>>
>> Or fingerprints. Or retinal scans. Something.
>>
>> Spammer bots are a problem, yes. But Captchas are a problem, too. They’re
>> a bother, they’re not foolproof and they assume that everyone is guilty
>> until proven innocent. What Captcha really stands for, in other words, is
>> Computers Annoying People with Time-Wasting Challenges That Howl for
>> Alternatives.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Subscribe Buy This Issue
>>
>> Already a Digital subscriber? Sign-in Now
>> If your institution has site license access, enter here.
>> ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)
>> David Pogue is the personal-technology columnist for the New York Times.
>> He is the host of "Hunting the Elements" on NOVA, which airs April 4 on
>> PBS.
>>
>>
>>
>> Post a Comment | Read Comments (18)
>> Reprints and Permissions »
>> inShare37
>>
>> Articles You Might Also Like
>> a.. Use It Better: 8 Alternatives to the Hated Captcha
>> b.. Use It Better: The Worst Tech Predictions of All Time
>> c.. Use It Better: The Smart Ways to Pick Passwords
>> d.. How Siri Makes Computers (and Coders) More Human
>> e.. How to Predict the Future of Technology
>> 18 Comments
>> Add Comment
>> Show All | Jump To: 1-10 | 11-20 | Next
>> View Oldest to Newest Newest to Oldest
>> 1..
>> 1. bikerusl 02:10 AM 2/17/12
>> This article is so incredibly wrong I felt compelled to go on the
>> internet and comment on it after reading it in print.
>>
>> This is supposed to be a scientific magazine, where is the evidence
>> that Captcha is failing? I might as well be reading this on about.com or
>> some other robot created website. How did you come up with that 17 years
>> per day figure, is that really counting accurately?
>>
>> Captcha is annoying, the only thing more annoying would be all of the
>> suggestions you propose. All of your suggestions have more problems - and
>> serious ones - instead of annoying ones.
>>
>> Internet identity card? Retina scan? Fingerprint? Privacy? Free
>> speech? Simplicity? Do you mean like a password username combo? The point
>> of a captcha is to be something quick that doesn't require that sort of
>> commitment. I think it is telling that this article has no other comments
>> but mine - there is no possible quick way to post one. Such as a captcha
>> would afford.
>>
>> Time limit? Single post only? Heuristics of words used or typing
>> style? Have you ever failed those things? I have. It is a heck of a lot
>> worse than having to redo an illegible captcha. Because it is mysterious.
>> I have no idea what is causing me to be flagged by mistake - is it a link?
>> Am I too fast a typer? Too slow? The mechanism is not transparent and they
>> are totally intolerant of false positives. At least with a captcha the
>> system is transparent. I know why I pass or fail. I know what I have to do
>> to pass. (at least for a properly implemented captcha system like reCaptch
>> - which is also the most popular and easy for websites to install)
>>
>> Just because you are annoyed by using captchas you can't just write an
>> article about something you haven't really thought through. I'm thankful
>> when I see a Captcha as I know that the security mechanism is going to be
>> transparent and honest. The alternatives (so far) are far worse and might
>> even bring up more serious concerns of privacy, free speech and censorship
>> if they were to be implemented.
>>
>> Your opening line about making too many barriers on the internet is
>> right on. However I think that, upon closer examination, something like
>> captcha that is transparently enforced - is the better way to avoid real
>> barriers including spam - compared to the highly questionable alternatives
>> you have (so far) proposed.
>>
>> The Internet is an amazing thing. Just because it can
>>
>> Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
>> 2..
>> 2. crashbrown 11:01 AM 2/19/12
>> I am guessing David Pogue does not have first-hand experience with any
>> of the internet entities (blog, forum, etc) that are being hit the hardest
>> by spammers. If he did, he would not think of -- let alone suggest --
>> doing away with captcha unless he had an actual, functioning alternative
>> ready to take its place.
>>
>> I am part of a team that runs an online forum (bulletin board). It is
>> both tiny and obscure, and yet it averages over three dozen registration
>> attempts per day by both human spammers and spambots. We go through phases
>> when we are hit hundreds of times each day. Captcha is one of three
>> methods we employ to keep them out.
>>
>> The article states, "Spammer bots are a problem, yes. But Captchas are
>> a problem, too." I am a little agog at this. I feel like a front-line
>> combat soldier listening to a rear echelon desk jockey compare artillery
>> shells to the hassle of wearing a helmet. The latter is occasionally
>> uncomfortable. The former can drop your site by overloading your server,
>> and once the spambots are gotten in, the amount of work to get rid of them
>> is many times greater than the brief nuisance of asking people to decipher
>> some twisty letters.
>>
>> I eagerly await a better alternative; but for the moment, captcha
>> remains a highly effective element in the defenses required to fend off
>> the spambarian hordes.
>>
>> Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
>> 3..
>> 3. bob_easton 08:29 AM 2/20/12
>> Yes, Mr. Pogue's article is a bit light from the "Scientific" point of
>> view. The figure of 150,000 hours per day comes directly from the home
>> page for Google's captcha product, reCaptcha.
>> (http://www.google.com/recaptcha/learnmore) Simple math divides 150,000 by
>> 24 and then by 365, to yield 17 days.
>>
>> Proof of CAPTCHAs decreasing usefulness is easy to find. Google's own
>> actions are prime evidence. On Feb 16, 2012 they changed Blogger's CAPTCHA
>> technique from something almost usable to a much more complex reCaptcha
>> scheme. Why would they annoy millions of readers? Likely because the older
>> CAPTCHA was no longer useful! All across the Internet we see service
>> providers upgrading their CAPTCHAs to ever more complex versions. It is
>> implicit evidence that the spammers are effective. The CAPTCHA arms race
>> is on and the innocent humans are losing.
>>
>> For a more concrete example, researchers at Newcastle University in
>> the UK have developed automated methods that solve even the latest
>> reCaptchas easier than humans. Read "The Robustness of Google CAPTCHAs" at
>> http://homepages.cs.ncl.ac.uk/jeff.yan/google.pdf. One need not be a geeky
>> doctoral candidate in academia to do this. We see evidence of it's reality
>> in that war of escalation.
>>
>> Solutions? The best are behind-the-scenes engines that use massive
>> collaborative filtering to recognize and reject spam. Once these systems
>> reach a viable size, in terms of network deployment and sampling scope,
>> they become extremely effective. Two that have reached that high level of
>> effectiveness are AKISMET and the Spam-Be-Gone feature of Disqus
>> commenting systems. (hint: search easily finds these tools.)
>>
>> A small business, an individual blogger, the community bulletin board
>> owner can all fare well with Akismet. Larger firms often replace their
>> content management system's entire commenting facility with Disqus.
>> Neither of these systems challenge readers / visitors / customers with
>> annoying CAPTCHAs. They allow security to be implemented by the service
>> provider, not a task left to the end user.
>>
>> Other solutions? For those who develop their own code, there are a
>> number of useful "client side" techniques that spammers can't see or
>> subvert. Too little space to describe here, so search for "hidden input
>> field."
>>
>> Lastly, as for being "thankful" when I see a CAPTCHA, I get about the
>> same feeling as when I see a blue uniformed TSA agent. They both share two
>> traits: the ability to stop one's travel, and an unnecessary level of
>> annoyance.
>>
>> Bob Easton, author of the blog "CAPTCHAs Must Die"
>>
>>
>> Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
>> 4..
>> 4. sagamore9 12:08 PM 2/27/12
>> I agree with the other commentors here. An internet ID card. I know
>> Sci Am is an establishment magazine and while I enjoy the knowledge
>> imparted here, please don't try to condition the public into big
>> brotherism. While captchas are annoying, I haven't found one that I
>> couldn't decipher after a few reloads. I too question the statistics
>> quoted, a quick footnote of his sources would clear that up. My main
>> complaint is the social concerns he raises. I know liberals would love the
>> gov't to ensure all is safe, just let me opt out of that totalitarianism,
>> we still live in a free america (maybe).
>>
>> Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
>> 5..
>> 5. jtdwyer 08:38 AM 2/28/12
>> I find it ironic that SA should attack Captcha use by other sites,
>> when this site was infuriatingly cursed by advertiser spamming of its
>> comments for many, many months! Personally, I would have gladly endured
>> the inconvenience of Captcha use to have prevented that prolonged spamming
>> of scientificamerican.com.
>>
>> Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
>> 6..
>> 6. Paleoecologist 11:03 AM 2/28/12
>> I'm really surprised that the awesome crowd-sourcing side of Captchas
>> haven't been mentioned yet! reCaptcha is a book digitization project
>> that's helped digitize 20 years of the New York Times, among other things.
>> Whenever I do one of those, I get a little warm and fuzzy inside.
>>
>> Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
>> 7..
>> 7. nogero 12:24 PM 2/28/12
>> It is worth noting that comment giant craigslist.org has recently
>> eliminated captcha when posting. At least they did for me.
>>
>> Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
>> 8..
>> 8. silvrhairdevil in reply to sagamore9 02:16 PM 2/28/12
>> You are not accounting for the facts that,
>>
>> first - not all internet users are Americans
>>
>> second - not all internet users want their real identities on record
>>
>> Third - most spammers are not Americans either. The vast majority are
>> from the Far East.
>>
>> Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
>> 9..
>> 9. scottpatrickwright 09:40 AM 2/29/12
>> The captcha process could probably be improved. A good test would be
>> very easy for a human and hard for a computer. I think most people find
>> that the average captcha is both hard for a human AND hard for a computer.
>> I remember hearing about a new idea under development at Microsoft (of all
>> places) called a 'catcha'. The idea was to present, for instance six
>> pictures, 5 are puppies and 1 is a cat. The user's job is to select the
>> cat from the group. Hence 'catcha'. While realizing that technology will
>> likely (hopefully)catch up I think this idea is closer to the easy for
>> humans hard for computers mark.
>>
>> Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
>> 10..
>> 10. Steve D 12:39 PM 2/29/12
>> Instead of criminalizing spam and going through the tedium of
>> prosecuting spammers, there's a simpler approach. Tax it. A buck a
>> message. Per addressee.
>>
>> But that will penalize legitimate e-mail ads? Too bad. If people want
>> something, they can take the initiative to find out about it. The
>> advertising business model needs to die - period.
>>
>>
>>
>> Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
>> 11..
>> 11. Steve3 01:37 PM 2/29/12
>> Yeah yeah yeah Dave -- er -- we all waste time everyday- What's new?
>> Taking the key out of my pocket unlocking my door, my file cabinet
>> etc.Locking the keypad on my NOT iPhone etc.
>> Come to think of it reading the column was a waste of time and so was
>> typing this..............
>>
>> Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
>> 12..
>> 12. mhenriday in reply to silvrhairdevil 03:23 PM 3/1/12
>> �Third - most spammers are not Americans either. The vast majority are
>> from the Far East.�, Perhaps, silvrhairdevil, you would care to produce
>> some evidence for this interesting claim (in which, I suspect, the term
>> Far East is a metonym for China) ? According to the latest figures from
>> ICSA Labs' Spam Data Center
>> (https://www.icsalabs.com/technology-program/anti-spam/spam-data-center#top10),
>> which relate to the week from 13 to 19 February 2012, the country of
>> origin at the head of the list of the top ten was the US, at 10.1 % of the
>> total, with India second at 7.5 %. While geography seems to be poorly
>> taught today (consider, for example, how the term �the West� is employed),
>> I think we can agree that neither of these two countries are located in
>> the Far East. The first East Asian country to appear on the list is South
>> Korea, in fourth place at 4.8 %. Taiwan is seventh (3.5 %) and Vietnam
>> (3.0 %) ninth. China, with its huge internet population doesn't even make
>> the top ten....
>>
>> Generally speaking, it is wise to do one's research before posting,
>> rather than afterwards....
>>
>> Henri
>>
>> Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
>> 13..
>> 13. northernguy 12:59 AM 3/2/12
>> I am amazed at the arrogance of posters on this topic. Captchas are
>> not an inconvenience for me. They are an insurmountable obstacle.
>>
>> The hundreds of captchas that I have run across over the years have
>> blocked my access on every occasion except two. I refresh them dozens of
>> times to no avail. The audio alternatives are even worse.
>>
>> I have no issue with those people who design their sites in such a way
>> as to exclude people because the programmers are not capable or not
>> inclined to program their site to be inclusive. However, I do have an
>> issue with those designers who say it is not a problem at all because it
>> is not a problem for them.
>>
>> If you don't want me to visit or use your site then fine. Just don't
>> say it's me that has a problem.
>>
>> Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
>> 14..
>> 14. rksudhir 05:02 PM 3/2/12
>> Wow.. 17 person-years wasted every single day which could've been
>> spent on Facebook!
>>
>> May be we should come up with Captchas that are fun and
>> brain-teasers.. so people will just want to solve them again and again,
>> instead of Scrabble, or Sudoku.
>>
>> Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
>> 15..
>> 15. PolishMartian in reply to mhenriday 07:19 AM 3/3/12
>> When you told silvrhairdevil: "Generally speaking, it is wise to do
>> one's research before posting, rather than afterwards...." you forgot to
>> mention something important upfront from your reference to "the latest
>> figures from ICSA Labs' Spam Data Center
>> (https://www.icsalabs.com/technology-program/anti-spam/spam-data-center#top10)..."
>> That is, that ICSA Labs is not a non-profit organization (.org) like some
>> labs which do (anti)virus and other (anti)malware testing, but rather a
>> commercial for-profit company (.com), an independent division of Verizon
>> Business. They do efficiency tests for customers that produce anti-spam
>> products. This information and that below comes from the report "ICSA Labs
>> Anti-Spam Testing Revealed" dated 18 May 2011 [Copyright 2011 by
>> Cybertrust, Inc.]
>> (https://www.icsalabs.com/sites/default/files/AntiSpamTestingExplained_110518x.pdf).
>>
>> Customers can choose from either daily live testing or certification
>> testing. I saw no prices listed, but why would two different choices be
>> offered otherwise and why would there be any comparisons between ICSA Labs
>> and its competitors? I saw no endorsements or list of user companies to
>> use as a guide. So, why should we trust just one company's statistics over
>> another's? Do you have some similar percentages from another company to
>> help prove your point? Some security products (free and paid) are rated
>> much higher or lower than others, so couldn't the same be true for some of
>> the paid labs?
>>
>> The ICSA Labs material describes how it gets its data from a honeypot,
>> which sources of email it samples and which sources it doesn't use at all.
>> I don't feel completely comfortable with their sampling techniques, some
>> of which they called negotiable for the future.
>>
>> Also, I don't believe they or their competitors test spam found in
>> comments on various forums, blogs, etc. Those may not be emails that we
>> have to remove from our Inbox or Junk/Spam folders, but they're still spam
>> (not just stupid comments) which we users have to waste time reading (and
>> hopefully flagging).
>>
>> Percentages by country MIGHT differ if this other spam were counted,
>> based on samples other users and I have tracked back manually using
>> linguistic analysis, Whois, user comments, etc. That's probably where some
>> impressions of higher Chinese amounts arise, but I know of no plausible
>> way to get accurate stats on that manually or otherwise. The U.S. and
>> Russia are bad spammers (both kinds), but no area has a majority, so
>> silvrhairdevil's actual claim isn't supportable and my estimates would
>> only be unprovable guesses.
>>
>> Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
>> 16..
>> 16. silvrhairdevil 02:52 PM 3/3/12
>> My "guesstimates" are derived from empirical experience cleaning
>> spammers out of an online forum, not the ones that put Viagra offers in
>> your email.
>>
>> Far Eastern spammers, to which I loosely ascribe China, India,
>> Indonesia, Pakistan are the ones that join a forum and dump a load of
>> spam. They are mostly spambots, churned out by the thousands.
>>
>> Russia and Germany both contribute a lot of spam and African spammers
>> are usually email harvesters who will sell your email to the Nigerian
>> lawyer who wants to give you your inheritance.
>>
>> Very little of the spam I deal with is from the US or Canada.
>>
>> I did my research - YMMV
>>
>>
>>
>> Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
>> 17..
>> 17. ThomasWeb 11:04 PM 3/3/12
>> I once made the mistake of establishing a non-captcha forum. Within a
>> day it was deluged with over 250 spam entries.
>>
>> Ironic: In order to post this comment, I had to:
>> - Register
>> - Go to my e-mail to verify
>> - Return here to log in.
>> That required a great deal more time than a captcha.
>>
>> Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
>> 18..
>> 18. ctisn 06:40 PM 3/7/12
>> Here's an alternative to CAPTCHA that I really like:
>> http://demo.confidenttechnologies.com/captcha/
>>
>> Just click the "Click Here" button to launch it and then follow the
>> instructions to click on the correct pictures. It's so much faster and
>> easier than trying to decipher warped letters.
>>
>> They say it's more secure than using words because bots aren't able to
>> make a judgement about what the subject matter of each picture is.
>>
>> Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
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