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Google Using ReCAPTCHA To Decode Street Addresses

Posted by timothy on from the you-are-the-crowd-being-sourced dept.

smolloy writes "Apparently some users of reCAPTCHA have recently begun seeing photographs appear in their CAPTCHA puzzles — photos that look very much like zoomed in house numbers taken from Google Streetview. It appears that Google has decided to put the reCAPTCHA system to help clean up Google streetview images, and 'according to a Google spokesperson, the system isn't limited to street addresses, but also involves street names and even traffic signs.' A large collection of these has appeared on the Blackhatworld website."

2 of 104 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Take off your tin foil hat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    Sorry, what is "great" about unwittingly asking people to do unpaid work?

    Everyone knows that when filling in a re-captcha you write "nigger" for the word Google doesn't know. Or, better, make a minor mistake someone else is likely to make, in the hope that the wrong answer is recorded.

  2. Re:I'm a Microsoft whore by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    ReCaptcha will accept any sequence of symbols for the unknown word.

    Wait - you can type something other than "nigger" for the unknown word?

    One of these days I'm going to do that when someone's looking over my shoulder and get a serious WTF from them.