Captcha a la XKCD

This XKCD comes at just the right time for me. I’m struggling with an issue with the Captcha in Yii Framework. In case you didn’t know, the captcha is that slightly distorted codeword that you type into a computer program to tell it you’re a human being. Bots supposedly can’t read them…. Of course I don’t really see a problem with chatting with a bot if it’s a good enough one to provide you joy and/or other types of entertainment. XKCD fans tend to be abstract types anyway.

OK, I pledge to post my problem with the Yii captcha and why I have to override it and my solution, because it potentially affects Leopard users.

12 comments to Captcha a la XKCD

  • This comes is very funny. These distorted codewords are sometimes also for real persons hard to read. That my opinion. But also a good way to protect websites from spam. I am more than a spambot our love is real;-)

  • Captcha is a kind of challenge-response test used in computing whether the person sitting on a system is a human or not…? Its a basic test which ensures the presence of human being..

  • I have the worst time with Captcha, I always get two letters mixed up, like i and l. And I agree, who cares if it’s a bot, as long as it makes you happy, and it’s not like they were having a physical relationship…that’s where it would get tricky.

  • admin

    well in this case, yeah. In general captchas try to prevent spam. but they are the opposite of user-friendly. and every captcha can be broken. I have decided to use other methods to prevent spam, I want to make nice experience for the user and captchas make a barrier. The only place I would still allow them would be on a customer complaint form. hee hee….

  • I understand the intent behind Captcha, but as the posts above me state, I also find the codewords hard to read. And I’m human!! While it does provide good protection, I think they should make the words a bit easier for us “real” humans to read.

  • LOL.. very funny. The spambot just got filtered by the captcha. Even in Yahoo Messenger, flooded with spambots.

  • admin

    Actually, I think the captcha has outlived its useful life. It is 180 degrees the wrong way in terms of user friendliness. I know I personally have thought twice about commenting on blogs because I had to do a captcha in order to submit my comment. I just think we’ll have to allow the spam to flow and clobber it either with something like akismet, or if it’s email at the receiving MUA.

  • Gr8 write up…The CAPTCHA security image works by asking the website visitor to type in a code they see correctly. A human can do this, but an automated computer
    program cannot. May be least bounce rate.

  • I hate CAPTCHA’s my favorite anti spam is the simply math to tell if you are human.

  • admin

    The math to tell if you’re human is just another form of CAPTCHA, albeit a little less annoying. I will put a CAPTCHA on a once-off thing, like a signup. I also had them on customer service forms where the vast majority of the answers were actually in the FAQ and the customers were just too lazy to look. (We really didn’t want to pay extra support costs now did we?) But for stuff where you WANT people to interact such as blog comments, don’t have CAPTCHAS, have good spam filters.

  • I’ve disable captcha too which makes harder time for readers to voice out their thoughts.. There’s plenty of anti spam tool that doesn’t need readers to verify

  • Goodbye, USA. Most entertaining thing I have read all week.

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