Re: ASCII Captcha

On 30 Aug 2008, at 05:32, Robert Cummings wrote:

On Sat, 2008-08-30 at 00:25 -0400, Eric Gorr wrote:

On Aug 30, 2008, at 12:19 AM, Robert Cummings wrote:

On Sat, 2008-08-30 at 00:05 -0400, Eric Gorr wrote:

Oh, here's an interesting story: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/13/breaking-google-captchas-for-3-a-day/

This was written by a journalist, not a technology expert. Even the person to which he was talking needed to clarify the meaning of "crack".

From the article:

"If by cracked, you are saying that a machine can solve the captcha as easily as a human being, I’m confident that is not the case," Interestingly the word crack only appears in the article in two places. In the above quote and in the following excerpt: Another piece of evidence that sheds light on the mystery was uncovered by Websense, one of the security firms that suggested that spammers are having at least some success using bots to crack Google’s captchas. I really don't see how this story supports your arguments in the least and as such I will not be answering anymore of your drivel. You appear to have nothing of usefulness to add to the conversation.

I didn't think it would take very long for you to begin the fear the intervention of the moderators. I sure the rest of the list will appreciate your silence as well. But since I doubt you are telling the truth and have the habit of quoting everything I write back to the list: Please, would all of the other readers of this mailing list write to php-webmaster@lists.php.net and ask them to shut Robert Cummings down? Thank you.

I'm sorry list *lol* But this one made me laugh so hard I had to share this last one with you. I'm gonna be grinning for days *giggle*.

Thanks Rob, this was my first chuckle of the day. Eric... 1) Quoting an NYT blog as an authority on technical matters is both naive and asking for it. The mainstream press have never used industry-specific terminology correctly, and they probably never will. Hacker vs. cracker is the best example of this. 2) CAPTCHA's have one single purpose... to prevent automated form posting. Any system that uses humans to get past them is not "breaking the CAPTCHA", or cracking it or any other terminology you decide to use. 3) This list is self-moderating so your pleas to the PHP webmaster, list moderator and $DEITY (you'd have gotten to her in the end) are pointless beyond their comedic value. 4) Rob is one of the most valuable members of this mailing list ... don't take him on, you'll lose!! Have a great weekend folks! -Stut -- http://stut.net/