Bid to kill CAPTCHA security test gains momentum

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http://www.smh.com.au/technology/techno ... 2r9a2.html

Consumer groups are calling for captcha to be abolished.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0Z0Jo1tlmI[/youtube]

yes please! if only.
am fed up with CAPTCHAs because have got to get support staff to fill it in, am not blind am just not able to process the letters when distorted or with all the crap on them nor am able to understand numbers,not able to listen to the audio either.

Well, huzzah! One can hope that this ridiculous CAPTCHA will stop.

Well I remember when spam was a serious problem to daily Internet usage. You had to spend time everyday to delete bad mail and put them on filter and hotmail even had cap on how many you could block. It was maddening. At one point I really thought that scam and spam stuff would bring the entire Internet down. I am happy to see how this menace has been contained for the last 5 or 10 years, and if captchas has facilitated that, I don't grasp how people can be against them.

Just look at the sig.
VVVVV

Of course, many uses of CAPTCHA are unnecessary and many could be improved, but this doesn't mean that the whole idea is useless. The article uses the term "CAPTCHA" incorrectly - it means any automated test designed to tell a human from a computer, not just the visual test. If their main issue is accessibility then that's already been solved and most websites do, in fact, implement audio CAPTCHAs - the icon is even visible in some of the examples they give. And email validation to detect bots? I don't think so.

It's certainly annoying, as all WP users know , but a petition to kill CAPTCHA will do about as much as petitions to end wars and hunger in the world - for the same reason. The reality is that the problem of spam on the Internet is very complex and there is no perfect solution. Saying "we don't want this solution" will not make the underlying problem go away.

^ This.

I left the site for a while during the recent spate of CAPTCHA problems. We all hate them and find them frustrating to varying degrees. However, if there were no CAPTCHAs at all the site would be overrun with spammers. Every forum and thread would be full of posts for cheap nike shoes and viagra. It wouldn't be possible to see the valid posts amongst the fog of automated spam and the site would likely crash under the weight of the spam traffic. The site went through a phase a few months ago where an automated spammer was creating somewhere in the region of 1000 new member accounts every day - just to put links to spam products in their profile! Changes were made to the site, tightening up the CAPTCHAs necessary to join and they helped to stop the onslaught.

Until / unless a suitable alternative to CAPTCHAS is found; they are likely to be around and annoying everyone for many years to come.

Actually, I think WP is a good example for the first half of my post - the "many uses of CAPTCHA are unnecessary and many could be improved" part. But, as with many sites, the person responsible lacks the time or motivation to do so.