Have CAPTCHA's gotten too crazy?

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Could it be very individual?
I tested to see what they wrote today
and failed maybe 5 times or more in a row.

Had no idea what went wrong.
I did my best to write what I saw
but it where wrong almost all the time.

Very embarrassing.

Agreed

Look up Captcha presention in TED TALK website. It will tell you why they've gotten harder.

Essentially, they are transcribing old books from paper to digital by scanning them and having a computer identify the letters and convert them into computer text.

Unfortunately, the old books are written by hand and many in very odd stylished handwriting/cursive. The letters that computer-recognition software cannot identify are plugged into Captcha and when 1000 or so people identify the letter it gets processed.

Essentially, they got harder and you are helping preserve the old books content into digital format.

I've found a solution:
[img]Mod.%20edit:%20image%20redacted%20because%20of%20swearing.[/img]

Yeah, those reCAPTCHAs are the worst! It helps to know that you only need to get one word correct (as already pointed out), so if one word is clear, but the other is gibberish just enter the clear one and chances are that's the one it needs. I also find the audio version is usually a bit easier.

I wonder how these things are legal. There are some websites whereby if you can't read the captcha, (which I generally can't) they won't let you use the website / register. So, effectively, they're excluding those of us with reading difficulties.

I help moderate a forum for people / parents of children with a visual impairment and in order to register / prove you're not a bot, (we've had major issues with them) you have to answer a simple question.

Not Hebrew, BTW... But it *might* mean something in Aramaic, so I wouldn't discount it as a real word. Means nothing to me, though, although I can read it.

Thank you for posting. Absolutely amazing. Just what you expect from a TED lecture.

Now I'll feel less frustrated while typing a Captcha, knowing that I'm contributing to spreading human knowledge.
I'll sign up for Duolingo the day they add Korean, Portuguese or Tamil.

Captchas are cruel and unusual punishment. They are impossible to read and I doubt they do anything to prevent spam. I can't wait for them to disappear.

Any preventive measure that punishes or annoys law- and rule-abiding people rather than perpetrators is completely unacceptable. Captchas are one such measure.

Since people apparently can't behave on the internet, we need to make sure that everyone can be held legally accountable for their online behavior. It is simply not acceptable that someone can anonymously publish libel, for example. We need a reliable identification system for internet users, and all countries that refuse to use this system, as well as countries that haven't signed international intellectual property agreements, will be exluded from the www and can create their own internet. I refuse to be punished and restricted for the actions of others.

What annoys me almost as much as captchas and other "prove that you're not Skynet" measures are sites that won't let me pick a password without at least one letter, one number, one special character, one kanji sign and one ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic. If I want to pick an insecure password, let me bloody pick an insecure goddamn password. It's my own risk after all.

Thanks, this is quite interesting I'm still mad at captchas, because re-captchas make me type twice as much as previous captcha solutions and I'm forced to do someone's work for free. But I love the duolingo project. This makes me want to freshen up on my French or learn a fourth language.

I can't stand CAPTCHA nor do I understand the point of it.

Thank you for sharing this! Very interesting.

Lol I know!! Sometimes I'll sign up for some random website off the internet, and because they have all of these crazy password requirements, it forces me to use my "super-secure" password that I use for important things on some insignificant site that I could care less about. I personally think that this lowers my security rather than improves it since it spreads my password around on multiple sites, but its not like I'm going to come up with a million different letter+number+caps+lowercase+special character passwords for every different site I have to register for lol. If only they'd let me be insecure

As a side note, I remember once I had to sign up for something once and it required a 16-digit password with like 18 different requirements. I ended up having to make up some random string of capital letters and special characters and whatnot to satisfy it, and I ended up having to call tech support to look up my password every time I wanted to log in lol.

I'm sorry, but do we really need to have the boot of a fascist police state on our necks just to use the Internet without being jerks to each other?