https://www.wired.com/story/smiling-dogs-horses-made-of-clouds-captcha-has-gone-too-far/
When Jared Bauman was asked to look at nine dog pictures and identify which ones were smiling as part of a captcha test to log in to a website a few weeks ago, he was stumped. "To be honest, I had a bit of a moment," the founder of a creative marketing agency in San Diego, California, says. "Do dogs really smile?" Most of the dogs looked neither happy nor sad—some were grimacing, or simply had their mouths open. No one is sure whether dogs can actually smile, meaning that correctly identifying smiling dogs in a captcha is a near-impossible task.
This kind of conundrum is becoming a bigger issue as captchas—tests designed to weed out robot web surfers from humans on websites—have grown increasingly cryptic. The smiling dogs were the final straw for an increasing number of people posting their disbelief on social media in recent months.
(Score: 4, Funny) by krishnoid on Monday August 15 2022, @03:19AM
So they finally have CAPTCHAs to know whether or not you're a dog [wikipedia.org]! I'm impressed. Maybe they were asking which ones you'd feel comfortable petting, or maybe if you're a cat person. Or Cesar Millan.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by drussell on Monday August 15 2022, @04:12AM (14 children)
Anything "protected" by a "CAPTCHA" is something I have absolutely no need to visit.
Problem solved!
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2022, @05:08AM (5 children)
Until you do.
But CAPTCHAs won't be with us for much longer...
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Monday August 15 2022, @05:12AM (4 children)
Maybe so, but I'm worrying what will replace them...
(Score: 5, Interesting) by maxwell demon on Monday August 15 2022, @06:45AM
xkcd already made an interesting suggestion. [xkcd.com]
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 5, Funny) by driverless on Monday August 15 2022, @07:04AM
"Please click on each image that depicts a person who's thinking about noodles".
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday August 15 2022, @02:19PM (1 child)
My guess is some kind of crowd sourced set of questions from google maps.
If you play that game google maps will ask you questions about your area "does this store sell noodles?" "Does this building have handicapped access ramps?" etc.
Add some ip location tracking data and show a picture of a quick-trip convenience store and if 99% of the people say they sell windshield washer fluid and you get the answer wrong, well...
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Monday August 15 2022, @08:50PM
well... it proves you don't own a car? :)
(Score: 5, Funny) by driverless on Monday August 15 2022, @06:34AM (7 children)
Years ago, before anyone had heard of CAPTCHAs, I posted puzzles on my office door that people had to solve if they wanted to talk to me. One was "n = [1024-bit number], e = 3, solve for d". No-one every did (youth of today, rhubarb rhubarb), it was a great way to get some peace and quiet.
The HoD, who was two doors down from me, also used puzzles on his door. When he was out, I subtly modified them to make them unsolvable.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2022, @09:11AM (4 children)
I call a website that had simple generated maths like 1 + 2 = or 12 - 9 = which works really well. Maybe what we need is a captcha unique generator to make and remake them fast enough the hackers will find it expensive to keep up. Isn't that the point of security? To make it as expensive as possible for attackers?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2022, @09:16AM
Following on from this (yes, it's me again, hi!) you could add colours and orientation (up/down/sideways etc), so it could be what is the total of blue numbers or have three or five questions in different colors and patterns and accept the vertical one as the answer.
I really dislike that 'rotate the image' one. I get where they are coming from. It's a nice idea. No. A computer can do that better than I can. Faster too.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Monday August 15 2022, @09:24AM (2 children)
Or you could tune for specific demographics, e.g. "enter three lowercase letters which are not valid options for the 4.3BSD version of ls", or "write a short essay on why vi is better than emacs", or if you want to make it really specific, "write a short essay on why vi is better than emacs using only Middle English or Guernsey French".
(Score: 3, Funny) by maxwell demon on Monday August 15 2022, @11:14AM (1 child)
“Please click on all words that are offensive.” :-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Monday August 15 2022, @08:52PM
To the Academie Francaise, that'd be every English word.
(Score: 5, Touché) by sonamchauhan on Monday August 15 2022, @02:55PM
> was a great way to get some peace and quiet.
Those who could solve it, probably did not need your help.
Those who couldn't, probably could not get your help.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Monday August 15 2022, @04:26PM
It sounds like you uhh... put a hex on them.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday August 15 2022, @02:15PM (1 child)
Where? I don't see captchas much anymore other than 4chan.
They seemed vastly more popular in the past. I'm trying to remember the last time I solved a captcha other than posting to 4chan... Its been awhile?
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Monday August 15 2022, @08:54PM
I still see them now and again, but I can't immediately recall where.
It definitely wasn't 4chan, though.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2022, @03:09PM
It got me thinking of some other CAPTCHAs that would be hard for a robot to figure out, but easy for sentient human beings:
* Rape / consensual sex
* Good guy with a gun / bad guy with a gun
* Shiny object / turd
* Segmentation fault / compiler bug
* Your mom
(Score: 2) by digitalaudiorock on Monday August 15 2022, @06:47PM
Ever since an SNL skit with an ad saying "Vote Because Stupid People Vote Too", captchas always remind me of a line in that one from Aidy Bryant:
Never gets old...
(Score: 1) by Chromium_One on Monday August 15 2022, @10:07PM (1 child)
It's a sad thing that crapcha.com isn't working anymore.
You can look at the idea via https://thomaspark.co/2013/04/crapcha-completely-ridiculous-and-phony-captcha-that-hassles-for-amusement/ [thomaspark.co]
When you live in a sick society, everything you do is wrong.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2022, @11:45PM
Nice idea. Reminds me of the xkcd color test.