This is horrible, especially the quote "So why to waste these focussed eyeballs" – these focused eyeballs were being used to digitise the world's books, which to me is far more valuable than an attempt to replace something good in the world with advertising.
A friend of mine worked at an ad network that did a trial on "sponsored captchas" and they found that it created and overall negative brand experience.
I wouldn't consider it invulnerable to OCR, considering the fact that only half of the captcha is actually doing validation -- the other half is digitization.
Plus, statistically a few groups have worked to break it in the past[1]. Even without breaking it programatically, buying human labor to solve them is sometimes equal or less expensive[2].
I think the beauty of reCAPTCHA is that if there's stronger OCR, those algorithms can be integrated into Google's book digitization system, resulting in a new version of reCAPTCHA that will only show words not recognized by this new algorithm. As a result, the captchas will get harder if there's better OCR.
Of course eventually, OCR systems will become as good as a significant fraction of the population, and then the idea breaks down.
Judging by the CAPTCHAs I've been getting lately, OCR is pretty much as good as humans. I used to always be able to solve them, but reCAPTCHAs have recently become ridiculous, requiring four or five tries to solve.
> Plagued by a sense of immense emptiness, intrigued by the plethora of possibilities, born was the idea of Simpli5d Technologies with a vision to decipher the entrails of seemingly endless mystics of the digital age. An age defined not by the action but the reaction, an age where constant innovation is not the need but the compulsion, an age where Quality and Excellence are the sin qua for existence.
>
> We at Simpli5d Technologies thrive hard every moment for the realization of this vision. Self motivated with funding from an angle, we are a bunch of professionals with multifarious expertise dedicated towards conquering the digital world. The words Techies, Entrepreneurs, don’t define us… We call ourselves Missionaries to En-(On)-lightenment.
It seems this website doesn't display as intended which is a bad starting point, then it is ads everywhere and a collection of logos some of which are amateurishly slapped there.
The "try it" is really a long and stupid signup form disguised as a trap to collect your domain name to whois your name and email and probably spam you to death.
I wonder how a captcha you can actually read would be useful and not detrimental as in not blocking bots and still annoying users. Probably better to add a hidden checkbox as a bot trap.
[+] [-] unfunco|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dsl|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] meowface|12 years ago|reply
reCAPTCHA is the only solution that's so far proven itself invulnerable to OCR.
[+] [-] Shank|12 years ago|reply
Plus, statistically a few groups have worked to break it in the past[1]. Even without breaking it programatically, buying human labor to solve them is sometimes equal or less expensive[2].
[1]: http://arstechnica.com/security/2012/05/google-recaptcha-bro... [2]: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1305940...
[+] [-] codeflo|12 years ago|reply
Of course eventually, OCR systems will become as good as a significant fraction of the population, and then the idea breaks down.
[+] [-] StavrosK|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Ihmahr|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] twiceaday|12 years ago|reply
I _really_ hate this.
[+] [-] clin_|12 years ago|reply
>
> We at Simpli5d Technologies thrive hard every moment for the realization of this vision. Self motivated with funding from an angle, we are a bunch of professionals with multifarious expertise dedicated towards conquering the digital world. The words Techies, Entrepreneurs, don’t define us… We call ourselves Missionaries to En-(On)-lightenment.
oh my god
[+] [-] ta_thisisatrap|12 years ago|reply
It seems this website doesn't display as intended which is a bad starting point, then it is ads everywhere and a collection of logos some of which are amateurishly slapped there.
The "try it" is really a long and stupid signup form disguised as a trap to collect your domain name to whois your name and email and probably spam you to death.
I wonder how a captcha you can actually read would be useful and not detrimental as in not blocking bots and still annoying users. Probably better to add a hidden checkbox as a bot trap.
[+] [-] james33|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pyalot2|12 years ago|reply
Please, just stahp.