Ran into some funny or amusing captcha you feel like sharing with the world?
write it down at the comments section and we’ll add it to our list

During the years it has become almost an integral part of our digital lives (most of us get really pissed off when we have to copy those weary letters before login a web).
Nevertheless, the bright side of Captcha is revealed, strange enough, in art.

The name is Aram Barholl.
Aram Barholl is an artist that deals with the intersection between real life and digital world and now he decided to use the Captcha concept as part of streets graffiti.

His art can be seen on the following video

Sweet, right?
Or as Gizmodo says it:
“I like to imagine him announcing that you may not continue walking down a sidewalk before reading an alphanumeric sequence out loud”.
LOL 

]]> http://adscaptcha.com/2010/05/26/captcha-mixing-security-with-art/feed/ 0 http://adscaptcha.com/2010/05/14/confident-captcha-next-captcha/ http://adscaptcha.com/2010/05/14/confident-captcha-next-captcha/#comments Fri, 14 May 2010 23:41:08 +0000 Ads Captcha http://adscaptcha.com/?p=205 Confident Technologies is a new company created by Curtis Staker and William Goldback that deals with web security and the authentication of site’s users.

In the next couple of weeks, Staker and Goldback will release a new Captcha called ConfidentCaptcha which is an image based captcha .

The ConfidentCaptcha was born due to the fact that on each day of the week, 200 million Captchas are presented all over the online sphere and yet it seems like they don’t do their job properly – not only that bots find ways to bypass the captcha test, 20% of websites are abandoned simply because “people can’t read those squiggly characters”!!!

The ConfidentCaptcha should make it easier for internet users to decipher the captcha image while preventing bots to do so and by that to increase the online security of all kinds of websites.  The ConfidentCaptcha presents an image grid not of letters and numbers but of objects such as  refrigerators, houses or people.
So simple and yet brilliant. Don’t you think?

]]> http://adscaptcha.com/2010/05/14/confident-captcha-next-captcha/feed/ 0 http://adscaptcha.com/2010/04/24/captcha-paradox/ http://adscaptcha.com/2010/04/24/captcha-paradox/#comments Sat, 24 Apr 2010 10:13:15 +0000 Ads Captcha http://adscaptcha.com/?p=194 OR: Using CAPTCHA for scientific purpose

Most of us probably know by now the meaning of Captcha and what it is used for.
But did you know that Captcha is also used as a tool of creating highly intelligent computers, better bots that can crack Captchas more easily?

“Can Computers Read” is a very interesting post by Aiden Fennelly about computers artificial intelligence.
He claims computers are intelligent and dumb at the same time.
Why? Becaues humans have perceptive intelligence while computers have artificial intelligence.

Confused?
The following example should clarify his statement:

When a human sees a tiger in the bush he’ll recognize both the tiger and the bush even if he sees only a part of it, its tail, for instance. A computer will fail to recognize the tiger by its tail ’cause it doesn’t have the skill of abstract thinking.
That explains why Captchas can tell bots and human apart with quite high accuracy.

However, Baird and Lopresti, two professors researching the field of OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software, regard this particular software as a slow procedure of minimizing the gap between artificial intelligence and artificial perception. In due time, we’ll have computers with abstract thinking similar to human beings.

In order to develop more advanced computer’s abstract thinking, Baird “works on creating more advanced OCR software and more complicated Captchas”.
As a matter of fact, complicated Captchas develop more intelligent computers…

What a paradox…

If you have an I.Q of a genius you may solve the following Captcha:

In case you feel stupid after endless attempts of Captcha entry, this one is meant for you:

And what about SEX. Want some?

Hard to read, Impossible to decipher.
Try this one:

Wish to browse some additional funny captchas?
Join Funny Captchas group on Facebook.

So what is this dream captcha?
Just like a dream catcher, which supposes to assure you a good night (or afternoon) sleep, only this one has a captcha code on it.
The artist who created the dream captcha says “that one use of Captcha is to protect a website’s identity” and that he decided to create it because of his interest to understand how the internet affects his life and more specifically his identity.

Living in the digital world of 2010 I must say that I don’t find it weird at all. Anything can happen, including nightmares to be demanded to pass a captcha test in order to get into people’s head…

It has been said that Captchas suffer from lack of efficiency in preventing spam mail,
That Captchas are easy to be cracked by bots,
That human users get pissed off when they try to decipher Capchas,
That Captchas discriminate disabled users with sight problems or dyslectic persons,
That it’s about time to change the system…etc,’ etc’,

Well, incidentally, I’ve read an article lately about reverse Captcha and I said to myself:
Wow! That’s a great idea! Why haven’t all those smart guys thought about it earlier…

The idea of Reverse Captcha is based on a system which tries to trap the bot spammer, not the human user.

How?
Well, the well known Captcha sets a turning test for the human user before submission. Usually it consists an image with distorted alphanumeric letters and the user is asked to decipher and copy into a certain blank field. The system is based on an assumption that bots are not intelligent so they are doomed to fail. Unfortunately, robots become more and more “smart” thanks to high technology, and so a great percentage of Captchas are cracked.

Reverse Captcha is a turning test which bots can deal with and but humans will fail! How? Very simple: BY using a hidden filed which humans do not recognize. Bots fill out every field trying not to miss anything, and so they are trapped and filtered out of non desire submission.

A genius idea!

10 Resources for Free Captcha

1. Free Captcha by reCAPTCHA – You must sign up to the site in order to use their free captchas.

2. An open-source free PHP CAPTCHA script by Securimage

3. Free Captcha images by captchas.net.

4. Free ASP security image generator software by Web Wiz Guide.

5. Free PHP Captcha scripts by thefreecountry.com.

6. Free Captcha by Protect Web Form.

7. A free Captcha generator by Captchator.

8. Free captcha script by Andyydev.com.

9. Captcher (=a PHP script that generates and verifies captchas) by White Hat Crew.

10. VidoopCAPTCHA – a free image Captcha by Vidoop (read more about it on our post: Image based Captcha).

For other security solutions that work like Captcha, feel free to read this comprehensive post by Netwaver:
34 Free Captcha Script and Anti Spam Services.

Got some free Captcha resource to recommend on?
Write it down on the comments section below…

Unfortunately, automated hackers become more and more sophisticated these days, but the more they become sophisticated – the more Captcha becomes difficult. Consequently, more human users give up login to sites with difficult Captchas, not to mention disabled users with cognitive problems such as dyslexia, or physical disabilities such as blind persons – they are denied access to Captcha right from the beginning!

Image based Captcha is the latest alternative to current text based Captcha. It’s based on a set of images easier to be recognized and classified by human users than traditional textual Captcha, yet at the same time, much more difficult for robot hackers.

How does it work?
Very easy. It only takes a few steps to be solved. First, a set of images with letters above are displayed. The user is being required to identify and click on a sequence of images. After he completes correctly the test and is verified as a human – he is allowed to carry on his online session. It’s easy, funny, not boring as a text based Captcha.

VidooCAPTCHA is an example to an image based Captcha.
Click here to read about 3D images captcha.

Defeating Captcha?
Most Captchas contain distorted letters or alphanumeric characters. Some Captchas display a mathematic problem, logical questions, audio letters or words for blind people, all are easy to be deciphered by human beings but not by robots. Yet currently scientists are working hard on developing robot computers which are capable to pass the captcha test, meaning they manage to crack it. Currently the statistics stands on the fact that 1 out of 5 Captchas is being cracked.

3D Image Recognition captcha
What can be done to stop this captcha bot cracking? Websites can use a different kind of captcha based on a 3 dimensions images. 3D Image Recognition Captcha is unbreakable by robots so far, since it requires a function of a human brain.

How does the 3D Image Recognition Captcha work? One or three 3D images are displayed. Than the user is required to click on another box which opens and shows another 9 3D images. Among those 9 images, 3 are identical to the formers but rotated. The user has to match them consequently with 3 empty boxes. A human brain can discern the images easily but no robot has a perception of discerning rotated images… not yet! Therefore, 3D Captcha image is a marvelous spam blocker..