{"id":2208,"date":"2012-02-16T17:29:27","date_gmt":"2012-02-16T22:29:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/acro.net\/blog\/?p=2208"},"modified":"2012-02-16T17:45:44","modified_gmt":"2012-02-16T22:45:44","slug":"im-getting-too-old-for-this-the-letter-captcha-rant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acro.net\/blog\/im-getting-too-old-for-this-the-letter-captcha-rant\/","title":{"rendered":"I&#8217;m getting too old for this: The letter captcha rant"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There are probably several billion reasons to use a captcha on a form; as many as the amount of spam one is in danger of receiving.<\/p>\n<p>The <strong>&#8220;C<\/strong>ompletely <strong>A<\/strong>utomated <strong>P<\/strong>ublic <strong>T<\/strong>uring test to tell <strong>C<\/strong>omputers and <strong>H<\/strong>umans <strong>A<\/strong>part&#8221; works well when the characters are straightforward letters or numbers that must be entered inside an input box to validate its content.<\/p>\n<p>All worked well, until this method was cracked by automated bots that could identify the letters and numbers with extreme accuracy, thus rendering the captcha useless.<\/p>\n<p>The remedy was to twirl, slant, extrude or otherwise stretch letters so that they aren&#8217;t recognizable, unless one &#8211; <em>presumably human<\/em> &#8211; tries hard to read <strong>what the hell<\/strong> is the text to be typed.<\/p>\n<p><strong>But it has gotten ridiculous.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2213  aligncenter\" title=\"captcha\" src=\"http:\/\/acro.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/captcha.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"487\" height=\"255\" srcset=\"https:\/\/acro.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/captcha.jpg 487w, https:\/\/acro.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/captcha-300x157.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 487px) 100vw, 487px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Perhaps it&#8217;s just that my analytical perception and vision have gotten worse as I&#8217;m aging, or maybe because with each new rollout of such captchas there is an extra degree, an extra amount of distortion to be overcome.<\/p>\n<p><strong>I&#8217;ve really had it. (<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/imnk\/status\/170273817174876161\" target=\"_blank\">Apparently, I&#8217;m not the only one.<\/a>)<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There are alternatives to captchas that seem to display letters as if they came out of the fire, all melted and gooey. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.toddlahman.com\/spam-free-wordpress\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>This is the one I use on this very blog.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are probably several billion reasons to use a captcha on a form; as many as the amount of spam one is in danger of receiving. The &#8220;Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart&#8221; works well when the characters are straightforward letters or numbers that must be entered inside an input [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,3,6],"tags":[9,193,10,37,68,761,1189],"class_list":["post-2208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-domains","category-gadgets","tag-acro","tag-acronet","tag-acroplex","tag-acroplex-llc","tag-acroplexcom","tag-captcha","tag-domains","entry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>I&#039;m getting too old for this: The letter captcha rant - Acro.net - A Domain Investing Blog by Theo Develegas<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/acro.net\/blog\/im-getting-too-old-for-this-the-letter-captcha-rant\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"I&#039;m getting too old for this: The letter captcha rant - Acro.net - A Domain Investing Blog by Theo Develegas\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There are probably several billion reasons to use a captcha on a form; as many as the amount of spam one is in danger of receiving. 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