Suggestion: reCaptcha for account creation

[elShoggotho]

Have every new member fill out a reCaptcha. That way, we won't get spambots anymore. Only manual spammers.

[Augustus Longeye]

I believe this was covered before. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I recall;
 - It's not foolproof
 - It makes it harder for people who have difficult reading to join
 - I think there might also have been a compatibility issue?
That's just what I seem to remember off the top of my head.
~Longeye~

[Lady Chrystal]

I haven't seen a discussion on this board, but I have seen one on another site.

It was found that people who suffer with colourblindness could not read the letters.

The site admin posted a comment that they should "just increase your brightness and stop moaning" - at which point I left the site.

It's a difficult problem and I don't know if anyone's come up with a decent solution yet. The trouble is that these pesky machines are getting better at reading than many humans.

Maybe we're finally being out-evolved!

[Augustus Longeye]

~Longeye~

[Lady Chrystal]

What we need is a Voight-Kampf testing rig...

[HAC]

I believe this was covered before. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I recall;
 - It's not foolproof
 - It makes it harder for people who have difficult reading to join
 - I think there might also have been a compatibility issue?
That's just what I seem to remember off the top of my head.
~Longeye~

True..
   the Spam/SEO "tool" Xrumer uses some pretty decent OCR and can get past 75% of the popular captcha setups, including the default ones built into most forum software.
There are also various issues with compatibility, and they can be rather difficult for anyone with vision or reading issues..

Cheers
Harold

[elShoggotho]

That said, reCaptcha only uses text bits that already failed Google's OCR, and offers a sound option if you can't read it. As of now, there is no automatic way to crack it. If there were, the whole idea would have no sense.

Seriously, I'm somewhat sick of 99 percent spambot registration, which is the perceived number right now. Why do you act like I suggested using captcha for posting? It's one captcha to fill out on registration or password change, which should be acceptable for everyone.

[HAC]

Believe me, I would heartily welcome a working reCaptcha system.. I was referring to the standard  SMF captcha which is pretty lame... (ie, it never changes and is pretty much a dead snap for OCR)
Sadly, its not my decision, though, as I don;t hold the server keys..

Cheers
Harold

[elShoggotho]

Another suggestion: Have the system ask one of a number of history questions on registration. Makes sure that someone comprehends the question and answers appropriately.

[proteus]

Any sort of "CAPTCHA" -- Completely Automated Program to Tell Computers and Humans Apart -- has problems.

Question-based ones can have a Q&A dictionary built quite easily.

Character-based ones cause some accessibility problems, and can be beat by good OCR.

All of them make the site a little harder to register for, because it's too easy for a human to fail any CAPTCHA that's hard enough for spambots.

That said, reCAPTCHA has now been implemented; not because it's better protection (though it is), but because it has an audio CAPTCHA option that should make it easier for those impaired of sight to complete the challenge. Accessibility wins every time in my book.  I think that reCAPTCHA -- now that I finally got it to actually work on this old bucket -- is a good balance.

[Mister P]

Must admit, had to click several times before I found one I could actually read when I went through the registration process. Could have done with the image being a bit larger.

[proteus]

That would be good feedback to share with reCAPTCHA; they really do try to build a good balance, and in my experience have been receptive to feedback (though they don't always reply -- I imagine they get a lot of mail).