Many sites, for example Skydrive, try to stop robots entering by requiring
you to enter a string of letters which have distorted shapes. I cannot seem to
get it right. Is case important? I cannot distinguish between lower and
uppercase for the letters.
In this excerpt from
Answercast #93 I look at CAPTCHA tests on website forms that ask you to
prove you are not a robot, and how to pass the test.
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The other question that crops up from time to time with regards to CAPTCHA’s is “Is a space required between two words”…
…Of course, that is also an ‘It depends’ answer. I’ve only ever seen one CAPTCHA that actually specified whether the space was required or not.
It does have me wondering whether the space I’ve used, or lack of one, has caused the ‘failure’, as I thought I had all the letters correct!
The only frustating thing about “prove you are human” techniques is when the technique itself is failing. I’ve been to sites that won’t let me get past the captcha check despite my indefatigable attempts at passing. I’m talking 50 to 60 tries, just to prove to myself that THIS site isn’t functioning properly. It has happened to me 3 times in the last year or so. My guess is that it could be the site or it could be the sites communication to the captcha server but probability says it can’t be me.
At 73 with slowly fading eyesight, I dislike captcha’ with a passion. I’ve often had to try another one 30, 40, 50 times and give up. I cannot distinguish many of the squiggly little symbols Many more enlightened sights use simple math: “what is 2 + 2?” Others show a wiggling tif file. There are many options available without using captcha.
I agree with Bob Price particularly, being older than him
Expanding on his comments, there are those sites, all too many, that insist on using poorly contrasting font colours against the prevailing background, eg dark grey font on a light grey background.
And very small font sizes.
Yes, there are the Disability Options and other ways such as highlighting as for COPYing; but why should we have to go to these lengths, simply to make sites legible.
Back around 1990, Microsoft commissioned research about such aspects; and I read the report once on the early Web; but have not found it since.
My eyes are failing too, and find many captchas hard to decipher. If I can, I use Ctrl_+ to make the captcha big enough that I can read it (ctrl_0 resets zoom) If I can’t, I use screen capture (in Paintshop Pro) to snag the captcha image and blow it up. That almost always works.
Alex Dow’s comment about poorly contrasting font and background colours is so true, not only in terms of CAPTCHAS but also in website content. I do not understand why some websites persist with ignoring common sense. Aesthetism is rarely a viable excuse. One of the reasons why I have subscribed to Ask Leo, is because it is easy to read.
I use a magnifying glass to ensure I am seeing
every character elearly, and yet I can type in
the characters again and again and fail the test.
There is something wrong with this type of captcha.
I passed the Graduate Record Exam. Alas! I have
been locked out of very vital information more than
once. This cannot always remedied with a phone call.
I am just locked out and I won’t type Captchas all day.
I’ve tried the audio CAPTCHAs and they were worse than the originals. Since this article was written, most CAPTCHAs use the select all photos containing a certain item. A bit of an improvement for me, but I still hate them. I liked the ones that uses a simple arithmetic problem. I don’t see those anymore. I guess they were too easy for the bots.