Verification codes, Or how difficult can reading get Options

[lordtup]

I apologise unreservedly if this grouse has had a previous airing , but why oh why do internet sites expect you to enter a verification code in order to submit your enquiry. I have just signed an online petition with respect to the budget proposals on my pension tax allowance . Highly commendable I hear you cry but it took 3 attempts to send owing to having to copy a sequence of illegible letters into a box , and I mean illegible .
I am told it's to prevent spam , though what corned beef has to do with anything is beyond me .

[Guest_xjay1337_*]

Because people write "bots" to sign up to things, whether that is petition, email accounts, etc.
So you having to struggle for 30 seconds means that, in this situation, all of the votes are actually made by people, not by someone's software program (thus making the petition pointless).

They are called CAPTCHA for a reason

[Simon Kirby]

I apologise unreservedly if this grouse has had a previous airing , but why oh why do internet sites expect you to enter a verification code in order to submit your enquiry. I have just signed an online petition with respect to the budget proposals on my pension tax allowance . Highly commendable I hear you cry but it took 3 attempts to send owing to having to copy a sequence of illegible letters into a box , and I mean illegible .
I am told it's to prevent spam , though what corned beef has to do with anything is beyond me .

Spam - SPiced hAM - is a pork product, whereas corned beef is a beef product.

But to answer you question the verification code is meant to be scrambled enough that a spam-bot can't read it, but not so scrambled that a human can't - so as Alan Turing might have asked, which are you?

[Nothing Much]

Simon Kirby. It is a shame that Turing was never given the credit for his work.
Someone will always find a way round things...as he did. He has been credited recently.

My old man worked during WW2 in N.Africa, and other places. For Y Services.... Spies.
He knew when a pilot took off and where he was going. Tough luck for the enemy pilot.
ce

[NORTHENDER]

Spam Bots are a real pain in the nether regions to me I can tell ya. I own one, and admin
two other fora, and I can tell you that spam bots are getting so sophisticated that they
can get round anything. I just had a quick look, and on just one of the fora I have
deleted 207 pages of spammers with 50 spammers per page, you do the maths.
All those have been deleted (banned) since Sept last year. We try to stay one step ahead
but they will always get through.

[Strafin]

I apologise unreservedly if this grouse has had a previous airing , but why oh why do internet sites expect you to enter a verification code in order to submit your enquiry. I have just signed an online petition with respect to the budget proposals on my pension tax allowance . Highly commendable I hear you cry but it took 3 attempts to send owing to having to copy a sequence of illegible letters into a box , and I mean illegible .
I am told it's to prevent spam , though what corned beef has to do with anything is beyond me .

I was putting my McDonalds monopoly codes last night and had the exact same problem! Not as noble, but still important, and the first time I realised how difficult these codes are!

[Jayjay]

Strangly that is what I was doing this morning too. Six attempts to read the d..m thing before it cut me off, now I have to go through hoops to try again. Thought I would get round the problem of not recognising if the letter was a r or an n by going audio but the link wouldn't work.

[NORTHENDER]

Most have a tab that you can hit and change the letters to find an easier set.
The ones I admin have and with a ten try max that I set.

[Simon Kirby]

Simon Kirby. It is a shame that Turing was never given the credit for his work.
Someone will always find a way round things...as he did. He has been credited recently.

My old man worked during WW2 in N.Africa, and other places. For Y Services.... Spies.
He knew when a pilot took off and where he was going. Tough luck for the enemy pilot.
ce

I think Turing, almost uniquely, has now rightly got the recognition he deserves for his work, whereas most military technologists never receive recognition, and some even see their prior inventions re-discovered and say nothing - I'm thinking of the history of public key encryption for example. What of course is utterly despicable is the way Turing was persecuted for his homosexulaity causing him to take his own life. That was truely an injustice.

[Nothing Much]

That is a long time ago. Simon Kirby and a few aged folk are only speaking now in their dotage.
The girls who worked Colossus where totally worn out.

But many became ill and doctors were called into UK sites to cope with hysteria.
I was at Kew Archives for the old man, and the rest was troubling.
That was the word used in 1943ish. Beaumanor.
ce

[Simon Kirby]

That is a long time ago. Simon Kirby and a few aged folk are only speaking now in their dotage.
The girls who worked Colossus where totally worn out.

But many became ill and doctors were called into UK sites to cope with hysteria.
I was at Kew Archives for the old man and the rest was troubling.
That was the word used in 1943ish. Beamanor.
ce

I'm grateful never to have been involved in one, but for those who have been I imagine they understand what it means when people say war is ****. Some come out heros, but most of those can't cope with the twist of fate that left them alone and killed their friends, and then many are heroic and die without anyone ever know what they did.