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Fallout From the Fall of CAPTCHAs

An anonymous reader recommends Computerworld's look at the rise and fall of CAPTCHAs, and at some of the ways bad guys are leveraging broken CAPTCHAs to ply their evil trade. "CAPTCHA used to be an easy and useful way for Web administrators to authenticate users. Now it's an easy and useful way for malware authors and spammers to do their dirty work. By January 2008, Yahoo Mail's CAPTCHA had been cracked. Gmail was ripped open soon thereafter. Hotmail's top got popped in April. And then things got bad. There are now programs available online (no, we will not tell you where) that automate CAPTCHA attacks. You don't need to have any cracking skills. All you need is a desire to spread spam, make anonymous online attacks against your enemies, propagate malware or, in general, be an online jerk. And it's not just free e-mail sites that can be made to suffer..."

12 of 413 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Anyone usinging specialised tests? by jim.hansson · · Score: 3, Funny

    then you write a little program that will show nude pictures, if users identify pictures for you. do not underestimate the length some people will go to for seing mostly skin.

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    preview button, my computer does't have any preview button
  2. Re:Anyone usinging specialised tests? by AndGodSed · · Score: 3, Funny

    No.

    You see there is an ongoing war against the postmasters by the webmasters. I am a postmaster, and I get roughly 300ish spam mails per site.

    And the webmasters sit and chuckle. Bastards, they could make it stop!

    But they don't... animals...

  3. Re:Mix it up a bit? by jandrese · · Score: 5, Funny

    I can't wait until someone's daughter tries to make an account on Barbie's Horse Talk website and is presented with the following CAPTCHA:

    Prove that a 3-manifold space has the additional property that each loop in the space can be continuously tightened to a point then it is just a three-dimensional sphere.

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    I read the internet for the articles.
  4. turing test by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    The first thing to actually pass the Turing test will probably be a spam-bot. Isn't that disgusting?

  5. The Irony by techsoldaten · · Score: 4, Funny

    The irony about this is that a CAPTCHA is a Turing test, a form of authentication designed to prove that a human is making the request. Given that some CAPTCHAs are rapidly becoming too hard for people to read, the outcomes of the tests are reversed - humans cannot win the test, only computers.

    I have CAPTCHAs on my blog, but only deny posters who actually fill them in. Goes a long way to deterring spammers.

    M

  6. Re:Mix it up a bit? by QuantumRiff · · Score: 3, Funny

    You just eliminated one third of the US population from accessing your site..  Sad, isn't it.
    Now if you had said,
    What color of hair does the 3rd girl on the right have,
    A: green
    B: brown
    c: Blond
    D: I drive a ferrari, I don't care about hair color!
    you would only eliminate about one eighth

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    What are we going to do tonight Brain?
  7. Re:fall of open email by TheLostSamurai · · Score: 5, Funny

    it is no wonder that the "under 25" crowd now says "myspace me" or "facebook me" and no longer use email. why would they?

    Whatever happened to giving someone your phone number and actually talking to them. I asked a girl for her number the other night and she gave me her myspace address. Thanks, but no thanks. At least make the effort and give me a fake phone number if you don't ever really want to talk to me again.

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    I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
  8. Make Them Write by linuxpyro · · Score: 4, Funny

    I've toyed with the idea of making users write a 500 word essay on a random topic. I would then send this to my high school English teacher, and if it got maybe a B or above I would consider it legit.

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    Saying "I'll probably get modded down for this" in a post is the best way to get it modded up.
  9. Re:A dumb question: by Kingrames · · Score: 5, Funny

    Howcome /. is so spam free?

    You must be new here.

    and blind.

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    If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
  10. Re:Mix it up a bit? by beta21 · · Score: 3, Funny

    I can't wait until someone's daughter tries to make an account on Barbie's Horse Talk website and is presented with the following CAPTCHA:

    Prove that a 3-manifold space has the additional property that each loop in the space can be continuously tightened to a point then it is just a three-dimensional sphere.

    So thats why Grigori Perelman decided to solve that CAPTCHA.

  11. Re:Anyone usinging specialised tests? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    what is the third word of this sentence?

    No, its the first.

  12. Re:Mix it up a bit? by OldManAndTheC++ · · Score: 3, Funny

    And I can't wait until someone's daughter answers back:

    This can be shown by (...200 pages of brilliant mathematics ommitted...)

    Q.E.D.

    Now, SHOW ME THE F*CKING PONIES!!!!

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    Soylent Green is peoplicious!