Deciphering a CAPTCHA
Not familiar with CAPTCHAs? Even if you don't know the name, I'm sure you recognize them by sight.
A CAPTCHA is a skewed or squished word, sometimes with embedded numbers or even a line drawn across the middle.
I understand why CAPTCHAs exist: to help computers tell us humans apart from automated evil (a.k.a. spammers or spambots). These tests are important to filter out the monsoon of Viagra and mortgage auto-posts that would otherwise flood blogs and websites.
What bothers me is when CAPTCHAs screen me out.
I stare intently, but can't figure out the right term. I tilt my head, lean in closer to my monitor and eventually hit the refresh button (circular arrow) to request an alternate CAPTCHA, preferably on that's easier to read.
Sadly, that's when I usually realize I haven't saved what I typed before the CAPTCHA appeared. Kapoof! My comment or post vanishes. Back to square one.
A former colleague recently blogged about the potential to use CAPTCHAs to cut down on "reply all" email messages. I think it would be brilliant to apply this frustrating technology to trim down on what I call workplace spam (after all, we don't ask to be bombarded by all those replies, right?).
Why does that proposal ring true? Because I'm not alone in failing to read CAPTCHAs. That's why it feels like I hit the jackpot when I decipher a CAPTCHA on the first try.
AWESOME!!!
P.S. Many thanks to those of you who have jumped through CAPTCHA hoops to post comments on this blog. I appreciate your efforts to decipher warped words to share your feedback with me.
A CAPTCHA is a skewed or squished word, sometimes with embedded numbers or even a line drawn across the middle.
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| I thought I had this one down pat. Turns out the image to the right wasn't an ad I could ignore; that photo's embedded 39 was a critical part of my CAPTCHA. D'oh! |
What bothers me is when CAPTCHAs screen me out.
I stare intently, but can't figure out the right term. I tilt my head, lean in closer to my monitor and eventually hit the refresh button (circular arrow) to request an alternate CAPTCHA, preferably on that's easier to read.
Sadly, that's when I usually realize I haven't saved what I typed before the CAPTCHA appeared. Kapoof! My comment or post vanishes. Back to square one.
A former colleague recently blogged about the potential to use CAPTCHAs to cut down on "reply all" email messages. I think it would be brilliant to apply this frustrating technology to trim down on what I call workplace spam (after all, we don't ask to be bombarded by all those replies, right?).
Why does that proposal ring true? Because I'm not alone in failing to read CAPTCHAs. That's why it feels like I hit the jackpot when I decipher a CAPTCHA on the first try.
AWESOME!!!
P.S. Many thanks to those of you who have jumped through CAPTCHA hoops to post comments on this blog. I appreciate your efforts to decipher warped words to share your feedback with me.
My uncle emailed me the link below to a TED Talk by Luis von Ahn. In this talk Luis explains how CAPTCHAs are being used for public good to digitize millions and millions of books.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ted.com/talks/luis_von_ahn_massive_scale_online_collaboration.html
Suddenly I don't resent having to decipher those little buggers. Thank you for sharing the link, Uncle Don!