CAPTCHA is dead, long live ... ???

It’s a well-known expression "The King is dead, long live the King!" to introduce a new reigning monarch. But what is going to replace the defunct CAPTCHA system?

http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;489635775;pp;1;fp;;fpid;

Did you follow the link to son of CAPTCHA ?
Don’t think my maths skills are up to it!

I know better than to even look at it!

Quote from: bunk58 at Jul 16, 2008, 07:14 AM

Did you follow the link to son of CAPTCHA ?
Don’t think my maths skills are up to it!

If you reload the page a few times, you can get a fairly easy one. I think they’re static .gifs and I don’t know how many there are so possibly a bot could just reload until it found the one it knew. If so, they’d be better off generating the image on the fly like (ahem) SPForm, although their generator would be orders of magnitude more complex.

On the death of CAPTCHA, I recently registered with a message forum, passed a relatively easy CAPTCHA test, and got this rejection notice:

This is a system generated notice. Your account on the ___ web site forum was not approved because of our automated spam filter. If you are among the small percentage who are rejected but are not spammers, please accept our apology. If you don’t know what forum we are even talking about it is possible that someone else has attempted to register using your email address, in which case you have our apology for this intrusion and the best thing to do is simply ignore this email. If you are not a spammer, please re-register providing more information about yourself in the appropriate fields.

I re-registered and got the same message again even though I filled in every field (both times). I think it may be because I emailed them through GMail. I assume that their CAPTCHA isn’t stopping the bad guys any more.

I reloaded the page about 5 times and still couldn’t get a question I could answer!
I’ve got SPForm down to try on my next site.

The king is dead...MODx revolution. Interesting

Quote from: bunk58 at Jul 16, 2008, 07:14 AM

Did you follow the link to son of CAPTCHA ?
Don’t think my maths skills are up to it!

WTF? I cna’t even start to figure out that math! My skills peaked at the 2+2 questions. I personally hate captcha, and the ones that are so distorted that you cant understand really boil my brain. On that note if I were to get a math question like this I would block the site permanently (with my firewall) and move on!

I think that an e-mail confirmation is an interesting option (but a little over the top).

BTW - Interesting article, thanks for pointing it out.

I didn’t read the article but I have read about using generated JS browser sniffing as anti-spam measure. The theory is that no browser = bot (not really true). They do acknowledge issues with accessibility but aren’t most CAPTCHA’s inaccessible? Yes.

It is entirely possible to use Akisment for MODx since they have a full API.

I am currently working on a blog extension/expansion pack and it may be something I should include.

I hate, hate, hate captcha. The worst though, is the ones they use in forum search for non-subs. Don’t you feel like a moron when you get the "Error: Your image verification code does not match." Well F.U. I just wanted to search for a solution not squint and guess lower/uppercase.

Quote from: smashingred at Jul 16, 2008, 02:24 PM

I didn’t read the article but I have read about using generated JS browser sniffing as anti-spam measure. The theory is that no browser = bot (not really true). They do acknowledge issues with accessibility but aren’t most CAPTCHA’s inaccessible? Yes.

It is entirely possible to use Akisment for MODx since they have a full API.

I am currently working on a blog extension/expansion pack and it may be something I should include.

I hate, hate, hate captcha. The worst though, is the ones they use in forum search for non-subs. Don’t you feel like a moron when you get the "Error: Your image verification code does not match." Well F.U. I just wanted to search for a solution not squint and guess lower/uppercase.

Amen. That’s why SPForm’s images are so easy to read.

SPForm has the option to check the time spent on answering (easy enough for bots to fake but it can vary from site to site) and has JS that requires the use of the mouse, and/or keyboard. I’m not sure how hard those would be to fake. I think the ultimate solution is to stop looking for a magic bullet and start using as many different anti-spam options as are available with different sites using different combinations of them.