CAPTCHAs are annoying!

Monday, 2 Apr 2007 in Internet Related Ramblings 12 comments
CAPTCHA

Tell me, what is the number on this CAPTCHA?

A CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) is supposed to do the job of telling computers and humans apart, to reduce spam by getting the human to read the text in the image and then retype it out in a text box.

But look at the one I was posed with. Can you tell the numbers?

I think this one should be called “CAPTSESE” instead: Completed Automated Public Turing test to Squint Eyes and Spoil Eyesight” :mrgreen:

Seriously. I think CAPTCHA programmers and designers need to start thinking about the whole idea behind CAPTCHAs. I don’t know exactly how powerful the bots can be in telling the text within images, but if a human can’t tell the characters behind the image, what is the point?

Some particularly irritating annoyances with CAPTCHAs are:

  1. (Like the example above) The text totally blends into the image
  2. The image is too small! People are using bigger screens with higher resolutions today, the pixels will be displayed smaller.
  3. The phrase is terribly long. I’ve seen 9 character phrases before!
  4. The phrase is hard to type, because they don’t use the regular combination of English characters (e.g. how fast can you type “qzwjmp” as opposed to “armeno” ?) Some people are not versed in looking at the screen and typing at the same time. By making the word pronounceable (by including some vowels), you can make the experience better

Comments

  2. Well Hairy Beast, whether they are working or not, they are plain irritating! I saw another one today, 9 characters, that goes something like “yqpzlbmq”

  3. My favourite way to stop bots is using a hidden input box and if they enter text in to it then don’t allow them 😉 best way and very simple!

  5. Hi Kian,
    I do agree with you Captchas are really irritating and I alwasy struggle to get it right too and that makes me mad!
    Anyway, I drop by to thank you for your wonderful e-course. I’ve learn so much from you that I feel I do not have to go elsewhere to set up and smoothly publish my blog. You rock!

  6. Thanks Joe for your comment! The most wonderful feedback that a trainer would like to hear is that his/her material has helped someone else!

    Thanks! 🙂

  7. I edited wp-comments-post.php i added right at the top
    if( $_post[‘botcheck’] >= “”){

    and then

    } at the bottom

    also edit your comments.php for your theme adding

    In theory bots should enter information into all the box’s so the PHP part says if their is more than blank we wont accept your comment.
    Haven’t tried this out on wordpress against the bots though.

    I use it on my contact forms on other websites and it works perfectly.

  8. oops just noticed it didn’t show my box

    input type=”hidden” name=”botcheck”

    remember too add the though :p
    you want to put this somewhere in the form.

  9. Thanks Mike for sharing! Now I know spam bots are stupid enough to fill up every little field on a form 🙂 Great work.

  10. Their is some bots which are made for wordpress etc so if you want to trick them further change the name field and if they enter their name you wont allow them, just means moving the script around a little bit though but shouldn’t be too hard.

  11. phew.. I thought I was the only one who find captchas annoying. I had a hard time typing in the captchas for Reddit so I typed in “captchas are annoying” on Google and found this site. Nice blog!