Stymieing Spambots
Scientific American has an article up about some of the methods people/websites are using to keep spambots out. The focus of this article was on CAPTCHAs, which are “cognitive puzzle that can be solved by humans but not by computers.” You’ve probably seen an example of a CAPTCHA where you had to type in the number/letter combination shown in an image that had a busy background.
This is a great system and it certainly helps protect against spambots or other automated/unwanted access. However, I was kind of disappointed that the article didn’t even mention two huge drawbacks to this method:
1. It’s a real annoyance to have to type that crap in, especially if you have to do so every time you log in to a site (which I’ve seen)
2. The system assumes that your human users will be able to solve the “puzzle”. That isn’t necessarily the case for people with visual difficulties or those who may be using a text- or audio-based browser.
It’s a nice idea, but it certainly isn’t something I would implement on a site I built…
Posted Tuesday October 21, 2003 in Web Development by Chris Curtis
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Oh whatever. If you were paid, you’d put whatever they wanted. Even animated GIFs. Muahahaha!
By Derek Jones on October 21, 2003 at 03:30pm link