[Nfbmo] Towson Technology Aims To Help The Blind

Bryan Schulz b.schulz at sbcglobal.net
Mon Apr 28 18:27:13 UTC 2014


hi,

I can't think of a place to test it right now but as far as I know, it still 
works.
The webvisum plugin may be easier to get now.  You had to have an invite 
from someone in the past.
Bryan Schulz

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Gary Wunder" <gwunder at earthlink.net>
To: "'NFB of Missouri Mailing List'" <nfbmo at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Monday, April 28, 2014 12:59 PM
Subject: Re: [Nfbmo] Towson Technology Aims To Help The Blind


> Is this service still active?
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Nfbmo [mailto:nfbmo-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Bryan Schulz
> Sent: Monday, April 28, 2014 12:01 PM
> To: NFB of Missouri Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Nfbmo] Towson Technology Aims To Help The Blind
>
> hi,
>
> This is why I provided instructions how to use firefox and webvisum to get 
> past the captia word verification and it worked 98% of the time.
> Bryan Schulz
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Nancy Lynn" <freespirit.stl at att.net>
> To: "ATI List" <ATI at moblind.org>; "mcb chat" <chat at moblind.org>; "Our 
> List"
> <ourplace at list.audioldies.com>; "nfbmo list" <nfbmo at nfbnet.org>; "NFBC 
> List"
> <nfbc-info at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Sunday, April 27, 2014 5:46 PM
> Subject: [Nfbmo] Towson Technology Aims To Help The Blind
>
>
>> This comes by way of The Baltimore Sun.
>>
>> By Carrie Wells, The Baltimore Sun
>>
>> April 27, 2014
>>
>> While blind people can browse the Internet through a variety of means,
>> there is often one thing that stops them cold — a security feature known
>> as a CAPTCHA that's designed to distinguish human users from robots.
>>
>> CAPTCHAs, in which a user must identify the letters in a distorted image,
>> are commonly used to block automated bots from grabbing up all the 
>> tickets
>> for an event, signing up for thousands of email addresses in a short
>> period of time or unfairly swaying the results of an online poll. They
>> have drawn criticism from advocacy organizations for the blind for being
>> too difficult to use, but last month, Towson University secured a U.S.
>> patent for a new kind of CAPTCHA that's intended to be easier for those
>> with limited or no eyesight.
>>
>> With Towson's SoundsRight CAPTCHA, users listen to a series of 10 random
>> sounds and are asked to press the computer's space bar each time they 
>> hear
>> a certain noise — a dog barking, a horse neighing — among the other
>> sounds. The developers say it is superior to Google's current audio
>> alternative CAPTCHA, citing studies showing that version's failure rate 
>> of
>> 50 percent for blind users.
>>
>> "Blind people are capable of doing everything that a visual person can on
>> the Internet," said Jonathan Lazar, a Towson professor who has led a 
>> group
>> of graduate and outside researchers on the project. "We just try to come
>> up with some equivalent features that make it easier."
>>
>> "Some people are unaware that blind people can use the Internet," Lazar
>> added.
>>
>> The SoundsRight CAPTCHA is still in a "beta" version, Lazar said, and the
>> developers are hoping a real-world rollout will help identify any
>> necessary tweaks.
>>
>> The Towson researchers worked closely on testing with the National
>> Federation of the Blind, which is headquartered in the Riverside
>> neighborhood of Baltimore. Anne Taylor, the federation's director of
>> access technology, said there are several types of software available for
>> blind users to read the text on a Web page aloud. Taylor, who is blind,
>> said not being able to use visual CAPTCHAs could impede a blind person's
>> ability to enjoy the benefits of the Internet and hurt their ability to
>> hold a job.
>>
>> A sighted person could help a blind user with the visual CAPTCHAs, she
>> said, but the blind want to be independent on the Internet. Further, 
>> since
>> many CAPTCHAs are on web pages that ask for personal financial
>> information, she has concerns about privacy.
>>
>> "The Internet is such an important and integral part of our daily lives
>> now," Taylor said. "Just think of how many hours you spend on the web as 
>> a
>> sighted individual. Would you really want to have someone with you all
>> that time?"
>>
>> CAPTCHA, which stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell
>> Computers and Humans Apart, was introduced as a concept by computer
>> scientist Alan Turing in 1950. The term was coined in 2000 by researchers
>> at Carnegie Mellon University who developed an early Web page test 
>> program
>> for Yahoo.
>>
>> The CAPTCHAs protect from automated hacking programs that can also leave
>> spam comments on blogs, attack protected passwords and send junk email.
>>
>> Tim Brooks, the chief software developer on the SoundsRight project since
>> 2010, said the audio CAPTCHA can be embedded into any Web page and
>> customized by the webmaster. Brooks said its script could be tweaked to 
>> be
>> used in any number of different languages or have users identify any
>> number of sounds. An organization for train enthusiasts, he said, could
>> potentially have users identify the sounds of different types of trains.
>>
>> The SoundsRight CAPTCHA is just as secure as the traditional visual
>> CAPTCHAs, he said. Sighted users can use the audio CAPTCHA as well, or a
>> Web page could give the option of either a visual CAPTCHA or the
>> SoundsRight CAPTCHA, he said. The only potential downside to the
>> technology is that it takes about 30 to 40 seconds to complete, versus
>> less than 10 seconds for a visual CAPTCHA, Brooks said.
>>
>> "A lot of people don't have that kind of patience," he said.
>>
>> The Towson CAPTCHA project was the brainchild of then-undergraduate
>> student Jon Holman in 2007 as a class project, Lazar said. In a 2007 
>> focus
>> group, blind users identified visual CAPTCHAs as the biggest impediment 
>> to
>> their using the Internet independently. Several other students, faculty
>> members and outside researchers have assisted in developing the 
>> technology
>> since the project began.
>>
>> "We've always done the evaluation with blind users at every step," Lazar
>> said. "This was research that was done because blind users were telling 
>> us
>> this was important."
>>
>> The project was partially supported with a $50,000 grant from the 
>> Maryland
>> Technology Development Corp., Lazar said. The researchers went through
>> several different prototypes, rejecting those that weren't found to be
>> secure enough.
>>
>> The SoundsRight CAPTCHA is in use on the National Federation of the
>> Blind's website, and the organization is working to encourage various
>> groups and businesses to adopt it.
>>
>> "We are all one step away from a sudden disability, so why not make the
>> Internet an inclusive place for everybody?" Taylor said.
>>
>> cwells at baltsun.com
>>
>> twitter.com/cwellssun
>>
>> Copyright © 2014,
>>
>>
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