Using random words in captcha?

Is it possible to use random words (or string of characters) in captcha rather than the word list?

OR

Does anyone have a list of random words to use rather than the standard modx ones?

Quote from: dev_cw at Sep 11, 2008, 03:48 PM

Is it possible to use random words (or string of characters) in captcha rather than the word list?

OR

Does anyone have a list of random words to use rather than the standard modx ones?

Yes, but no one wants to "publish" their list for obvious reasons. You can make up your own comma-separated list and paste it into the CAPTCHA words field in Tools | Configuration (User Tab) in the MODx Manager.

You can easily modify veriword.php to generate random words (there’s a message here somewhere suggesting how to do it) but, IMO, it’s a bad idea for several reasons. Some of the generated words will be obscene and filtering out obscene words in multiple languages is a real pain. Also, since the current code appends a random number to the end of the words, the word the user is entering is already random enough for my money.

If you make up your own words, I recommend that you make it easy on your users by leaving out the letters I and O, lowercase L, and the number 0 and make the words pronouncable so users can easily type them from memory (teklip is a lot easier than elkhjg).

There’s a different list of words in the source code of the SPForm snippet, IIRC.

Some of the generated words will be obscene and filtering out obscene words in multiple languages is a real pain.

Ouch, that would be a pain. I was hoping for an output like: Hs3N2wx49 where numbers and chars would be mixed together to avoid the chance of any actual words. The same mechanism that generates the passwords in modx could work for this as well.

If you make up your own words, I recommend that you make it easy on your users by leaving out the letters I and O, lowercase L, and the number 0 and make the words pronouncable so users can easily type them from memory (teklip is a lot easier than elkhjg).

Good tip. I hate not being able to read the captcha.

Remember that MODx appends a three-digit number to the word, so anyone trying to hack in by brute force would have to get the login name, the password, the CAPTCHA word *and* the three-digit number correct (and the last two change with every try). Even with a fairly fast web connection, I doubt if they’d make it in before they died of old age.