CAPTCHA

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SophiaMerlin_II
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CAPTCHA

Postby SophiaMerlin_II » Tue Jul 24, 2018 1:58 am

Today I was logging in from my computer, and it asked me to fulfill a CAPTCHA, which is fine, by all means. But I got a bit of a toughie.

If you departed from Kings Cross train station and arrived in the Gare De Nord what two European cities were you in? :shock:

Perhaps most Europeans wouldn't struggle with this at all. But the only reason I've heard of Kings Cross is because it's in Harry Potter, but I still had to Google what city it was in. :oops:

Gare De Nord I have never heard of before in my life, and Google states that it's properly "Gare Du Nord". :!:

I don't think I should have to use Google to answer a CAPTCHA, so is there some way to check the questions for ones like this and remove them?

The other two questions I was asked were pretty straightforward: If the train leaves at 14:24, then what time does the train leave? Type the middle letter in these letters AAAAbbbbCCCC. (or similar enough)

Please don't use my lack of Geography knowledge against me! :D
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Re: CAPTCHA

Postby rdearman » Tue Jul 24, 2018 7:32 am

SophiaMerlin_II wrote:Today I was logging in from my computer, and it asked me to fulfill a CAPTCHA, which is fine, by all means. But I got a bit of a toughie.

If you departed from Kings Cross train station and arrived in the Gare De Nord what two European cities were you in? :shock:

Perhaps most Europeans wouldn't struggle with this at all. But the only reason I've heard of Kings Cross is because it's in Harry Potter, but I still had to Google what city it was in. :oops:

Gare De Nord I have never heard of before in my life, and Google states that it's properly "Gare Du Nord". :!:

I don't think I should have to use Google to answer a CAPTCHA, so is there some way to check the questions for ones like this and remove them?

The other two questions I was asked were pretty straightforward: If the train leaves at 14:24, then what time does the train leave? Type the middle letter in these letters AAAAbbbbCCCC. (or similar enough)

Please don't use my lack of Geography knowledge against me! :D

The idea is to use Captha which cannot be googled in one single search string. This is because most spam bots can also use google. This means any question which you can google like: What is the capital of Canada? or similar questions could be answered by the spambot and we'd have even more of them than we do now. Users don't see them, but for example this morning when I logged in I had to Banhammer seven spammers who actually went through the sign-up process. Imagine the spam we'd get if they could automate it! (Actually I don't have to imagine, because we used to get upwards of 150 spam posts per day)

The misspelling is actually deliberate since bots don't typically use spell checkers, and humans are very good at pattern matching. Also that question would take a bot two google queries "where is..." and then a joined up answer. Currently beyond their capabilities, but they are getting better at figuring out the questions. So I have to rotate them more frequently now. It is also very hard to think of a question which you can't google the answer too.

I make up all the questions and while I try to make them both simple and non-googleable it isn't easy. So if anyone wants to PM me some sample questions which are human easy and google impossible I'd appreciate it. Make sure to PM them to me, because if you post them, then google with pick them up when it next scans the website and presto the spammers have the answer.
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Re: CAPTCHA

Postby Serpent » Tue Jul 24, 2018 3:45 pm

By the way, if a question is confusing or requires cultural knowledge, you can refresh the page to get a new one. Maybe we should indicate that more clearly?
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Re: CAPTCHA

Postby MamaPata » Tue Jul 24, 2018 3:52 pm

(Not wanting to undermine the OP, but I have been meaning to say for a while that I am very amused by the questions! It's nice to have something a bit different from the usual)
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