You got it backwards. It's: "Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria!". The fact that I know that or am bothered by the fact you got it wrong bothers me.:)
If the rich spend it, they stimulate the economy further. If they "sock it away" (I assume you mean stash it in a bank) then those banks have those funds available to make loans which makes money available for economic activity at all levels. It's not like they stick it under their pillow.
The lower classes won't even be able to pay for the lost government services with their tax break.
So what government services are being lost that they'll now be unable to pay for?
And we all will pay (or our kids will pay) for huge deficit this creates.
If we would reduce socialized spending we wouldn't have a deficit. The recent increases in the budget are exactly in the areas that the federal government has a responsibility to act: law enforcement and defense of the country. Socialized programs are the most expensive part of the budget and we're not significantly better off from when we started that socialized spending a number of decades ago.
Don't believe trickle-down econ theory. It was proved to be a fallacy by economists years ago.
References? Sure, you can find economists that say it doesn't work (card-carrying liberals). You can also find those that say it does. But one thing is for sure: You can't create prosperity through taxation. Won't happen.
Regardless, we're not talking about "trickle-down" theory here. We're talking about fairness. The tax cut gives money back to those who pay taxes. The more taxes you pay the more you get back in dollar terms (though the less you get back in percentage terms). Only a liberal with socialistic tendencies could claim that that's unfair.
Liberals, I guess, would prefer that the tax cut give the poor cash money rather than reducing some of the taxes on the rich. So then you are in a situation where the rich are forced to work to generate wealth for someone else. Sounds like you favor slavery, my dear sir. Please think about what you're saying and you'll realize the standard liberal line doesn't make sense.
For years I've been interested in the national infrastructure. I currently live in Mexico and about 5 years ago Northern Mexico had a widespread power outage that was attributed to a failed substation here locally. Somehow, with the summer load and some brakes that failed, it took down most of Northern Mexico and, from what I understand, parts of some border states in the U.S. It got me wondering how everything was connected--not just within the U.S. but all of North America.
That information wasn't readily available when I was interested in that back before 2000 and I assume it's even harder to come by now.
I suspect that we are a lot more vulnerable than we suspect. And considering a power outage in Northern Mexico affected parts of the U.S. I wonder if someone could successfully attack our infrastructure without even attacking a physical point in the U.S., but in Mexico or Canada.
Yes, more money is saved by the rich because, surprise surprise, they are already paying the lion's share of taxes. If someone is essentially not paying taxes, how can you cut them even more? GIVE them money? Yeah, that's fair to the rest of us... NOT.
I don't have the link handy, but soon after the tax cut some op-ed piece on Newsweek or MSNBC or somewhere complained about the same think you are. That it was a giveaway to the rich. it then went on to give specific numbers. Again, I don't have them handy but it was along the lines of family earning $30k used to pay $1000, now will pay $50. A family that earns $500,000 used to pay $130,000 will now pay $110,000. Or something like that.
The exact numbers are not important. What is important is that low-income people that used to pay around a thousand dollars will now have virtually NO income tax, but the rich are still paying hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. Short of GIVING the low-income family cash money there's not much else you can do. But if you're going to give the poor a free ride tax-wise (which I'm not opposed to), don't complain if the people that are ACTUALLY PAYING THE BILL get some money back, too. It's not like they stopped paying taxes.
Isn't Earthlink the one that is using challenge/response? You might want to check the "spam bin" on your Earthlink account. Perhaps you're missing more than just spam!
I, for one, received nearly 400 spam over the 4th of July weekend. Of course, only 1 got by my spam filter and it was in Spanish.:)
Your proposal would force us to render pages as the webmaster sees fit. Err, no thanks. If you publish HTML you take your chance at how the end user renders it.
As a webmaster I know there are people who run banner blockers (I don't use pop-ups). That doesn't bother me--luckily my advertisers pay me based on how many times my page is displayed, not how many times their ad is served.
What WOULD piss me off is if some application doesn't just strip my advertisements, but puts OTHER advertisements in their place. The user is still seeing ads, but they're no longer mine. It also could imply that I endorse those advertisers who are hijacking my ad space.
Is/was it Gator that was doing this some time ago? I remember a lot of noise about that, but it seems the question here is popups. If they pop-up ads then that's none of my business, as long as it is clear that it's not my site that is popping them up. If the user chooses to be annoyed in that way, that's their business. But if someone/company comes along and not just removes but REPLACES my banner ads, THAT'S damn annoying and I'd tend to consider that actionable.
One of the main tenets of social democracy is that the better-off pay more tax and it has worked really well.
Yes, because we all know that the best thing to do with money is to give it to the government since they are the most efficient organization.:P
I agree that the rich should pay more taxes. If the tax rate is 10% someone who earns $30,000 will pay $3000 and someone who earns a million will pay $100,000. The rich pay more.
What is downright bogus--and what I assume you are referring to--is a "progressive" tax where not only do the rich pay more MONEY, but also a higher RATE. And that's unfair, period. It assumes the government is more efficient and better able to spend money. It assumes that the rich will never give away money, creating foundations like many, many wealthy people have. It assumes the rich will just stuff the money under their mattress rather than investing it which creates money and jobs in the economy. In short, it's based on a lot of wrong assumptions.
That we have done well under this system doesn't necessarily mean that the system is WHY we're doing well. In fact, we've done *better* since JFK reduced the highest tax bracket from, what, 92% to 70%. We continued to do even better after that was dropped to 35%. So don't make the erroneous conclusion that the rich should pay a higher tax rate. It's inherently unfair and there is more evidence to suggest that doing so harms the economy than evidence to suggest it creates a fair society that benefits everyone.
The economy is not helped by making some people dependent on hand-outs.
Yup, although if they could get this system to work so that anything below 1000 AGL is considered a "soft wall" and you enable that except for take-offs and landings, maybe all in-flight crashes can be prevented because the system wouldn't let them happen! Magic!:)
They just might hit other smaller targets that don't have "Soft Walls" around them, like Mount Rushmore for instance...
Terrorists cause terror by terrorizing people. While a terrorist crashing a plane into Mount Rushmore or even the Statute of Libery would piss me off to an extreme degree, it would not cause me any terror. I think for terror to be effective it really needs to cause a sense of fear that "I may be next." That just doesn't happen when they're targetting mountains.
FYI, it is generally accepted that the fourth plane was shot down by the US military.
Generally accepted? Hahah. You must be the same conspiracy theory anonymous coward that posted that link to the powerpoint presentation at GlobalHowler.
That the plane was shot down is not generally accepted. In fact, all evidence is to the contrary. The crash site itself does not suggest a plane that was targetted by a missile at altitude showering debris over a somewhat large area. The crash shite was quite small, suggestive of a functioning plane that hit the ground in one piece.
Everyone needs a 'Pearl Harbour' excuse to send boys to their death, this case is no different. Don't discount it until you've read it.
Yeah, just what I need... A website that doesn't work in Mozilla and looks like a Powerpoint presentation in IE. Definitely a site targetted at the least common denominator.
Come on, wake up and smell the conspiracy theory. I understand you don't like Bush. I hated Clinton. But how some people go on to smoke some wonder drug and publish this kind of BS is just offensive.
It's been said that conspiracy theories exist because certain people have a need to feel they "know something" the rest of the world doesn't. It gives them a feeling of power, of knowledge. Luckily, most of us don't need those kinds of fantasty-style reassurances and can deal with reality.
I would think that the gps coordinates would be firmware, and not user-configurable.
Not pilot-configurable, but it can't be firmware that never changes because the restricted airspace changes frequently. That's why the FAA issues new airspace charts every 3 or 6 months (can't remember which, I haven't flown since 1995).
So since the restricted airspace changes, the programmed "soft walls" have to be modifiable after delivery. If they can be modified legitiately, they can be modified in preparation for a hijacking.
I think 9/11 was a one-time thing because even if there are still lunatics that want to crash aircraft into buildings, passengers will no longer cooperate. The reason why 3 planes successfully crashed into their targets on 9/11 was the belief by most of the world that if you just cooperate with the hijackers you will eventually land, things will be negotiated or the plane will be stormed, and you have a good chance of getting out alive. After 9/11 passengers no longer believe that. If someone tries to hijack a plane, especially in the U.S., I think you will find that the passengers storm the hijackers because they'll probably assume they're going to die anyway.
RTFA. If GPS is jammed it would go to other navigation aids (VOR, etc.).
But changing the restricted GPS coordinates in the avionics is what I was thinking. You need to have a way to get that information into the avionics in the first place, so that's the weak link. Presumably you'd have some kind of wirefull connection that could only be accessed from the outside of the plane. But that'd just mean someone on the ground would have to be in on the plan, which isn't farfeteched.
Also, this is a safety-of-flight issue. If you are on the edge of restricted space and you see a plane coming right at you you have to take evasive maneuvers. If this system prevented a pilot from taking appropriate evasive action that'd be a bad thing.
Hmmm. It would be interesting to see how many people that have spam filters and/or are on the do-not-call list actually respond to the spam or calls that do get through. I may be mistaken, but I think that the people who actively make an effort to avoid spam and/or sales calls are people that really aren't going to buy.
I'm not saying that sales calls don't work--what I'm really saying is that if they think that since we no longer have to receive their calls that we're going to respond to a flood of spam and postal mail, I think they're wrong and probably just wasting time and money. I don't mind them wasting their time and their money, as long as they don't waste either of mine.
However, the bulk of the problem this is meant to cure is automated email signups by spammers, which is a very limited subset of web sites.
While I'd agree that there are many sites that don't use signup forms, I wouldn't agree that the group of sites that do are a "very limited subset." Quite a few sites have message forums and many of those forums require registrations--and it only takes one abuse before the webmaster resorts to some kind of anti-script tool, such as graphic-encoded passwords.
I personally would rather see spam eliminated via other means.
I personally don't use and haven't seen graphic passwords for anti-spam. I guess the challenge/response systems use them, but I think challenge/response is bogus anyway for reasons completely different than leaving out the blind. Personally, if I send email to someone and I get a challenge/response back it is doubtful I'll bother unless it's pretty dang important. I have better things to do than to do the work to solve someone elses spam problem.
While graphics-encoded passwords are used by companies such as registrars to try to make email harvesting more difficult, I've seen them used more to block automated account creation. And I think it's a perfectly valid solution to make sure a robot doesn't create 100,000 new accounts just to piss you off.
Anyway, please offer your own alternatives, if you have any. It's a field filled with potential, and every idea deserves at least a moment of thought, if nothing else.
I don't have an alternative to graphics-encoded passwords right now. I think it is (currently) a good way to let humans in and keep automated scripts out. Yes, it might not be perfect for blind people. But as others have said, we aren't going to open up our systems to massive abuse my automated scripts creating thousands or hundred of thousands of accounts just so that 1% (or less?) of the online population can be fully accomodated. Like I said elsewhere, I presume even blind people have friends that can help them signup when they find a graphic-encoded site. And I've also said, we can make the web much more accessible by having all websites in the U.S. available in Spanish as well as English. That'd be much more effective at making the web accessible than trying to accomodate the small fraction of the online population that the blind represent.
As for spam, I don't even see where this graphic-encoded stuff fits in. I think it is only used, really, in challenge/response which is a flawed and silly approach to spam anyway. Aside from revamping the mail protocol, Bayesian filtering is the solution. I'm currently receiving approximately 130 spams per day, of which I see about 1 or 2 a week. 1 or 2 a week is a lot easier to deal with than about 800 per week.:)
Spam is no longer a problem for me. Yes, it consumes disk space and bandwidth but, for me, the biggest problem with spam is the time it (used to) cause me to waste.
I bet I can filter their spam a lot easier than I can filter their phone calls. As for paper junk mail, kindling for the winter fires is always useful.:)
They don't seem to understand that we don't want their stuff. It doesn't matter how loud they shot, how annoying they are, or how many times they try to deliver their message--we aren't going to buy their products.
I didn't say that it was a *purely* visual media. But you are ignoring reality if you are suggesting that it isn't a predominantly visual media. Visual is the only one of my 5 senses I use when online.
It's an informational (read: text-driven) media.
For you, informational=text-driven. That is not necessarily the case. There are many ways to convey information and they aren't all text-based. Look around at the majority of websites and you'll see they depend heavily on graphics. Some are informational, some aren't... but the web is clearly not a text-only medium.
Graphics are and ought to be just added eye-candy for those of us who have working eyes.
Who says? You? Yes, this site works great as text because it's a forum. Many sites work less great as text and some just might not work at all.
Even if they DO work with text-only, perhaps the experience the designer wants to convey can only be achieved with graphics and I feel it is his or her right to develop their site that way.
It's not like Yahoo intentionally left these people out; it was just an honest oversight. If they don't bother to do anything to rectify the situation, then, yes, a lawsuit may be in order
The idea of providing wheelchair access, etc. is to make a reasonable effort so these people can function in society. And there are even exceptions in the cases for physical access.
"While it is not possible for many businesses, especially small businesses, to make their facilities fully accessible, there is much that can be done without much difficulty or expense to improve accessibility. Therefore, the ADA requires that accessibility be improved
without taking on excessive expenses that could harm the business." (from ADA Website).
So let's just apply the physical access criteria to the online world. The ADA doesn't require that accessibility be improved if it will cause excess expenses that could harm the business. The graphic-encoded passwords are to avoid abuse which can definitely lead to an increase in expenses that will harm the business; especially if it's a small one.
I think the issue here is whether or not there is a better way to validate that a human is filling out a form rather than a computer. So far, the password-encoded graphic seems to be the best method. Perhaps others will be found in the future. I don't have the time or budget to look for it though. Perhaps the blind (or their lawyers) should make an effort to publicize the problem and look for funds for R&D to FIND an alternative rather than contemplating lawsuits. That'd be money much better spent.
I don't think anyone intentionally wants to discriminate against the blind. But there's only so much effort and money you can expect a website to make for a demographic that represents so few of their visitors. Heck, even in the United States simply requiring Spanish translation would be a more effective method of reducing descrimination online.
My solution to the Yahoos and Hotmails and whoever else is using a CAPTCHA would be to use an automated voice response telephone system instead...Granted, I am assuming that most people who have Internet access also have telephone access of some sort.
You are also assuming that every website that can afford to display a graphic-encoded number can also afford to have a dedicated phone line with an automated voice response system. And that is a wrong assumption.
Blind people are just not going to be able to do everything that seeing people can.
Common sense!
It seems to me that if a feature cannot be made accessable that doesn't mean you should just toss it out. there is no reason why someone's handicap should hold back the whole world.
More common sense! Yeah!
However, that doesn't seem to be the case here.
An audio work around seems entirely plausable, and easily as effective, as a garbled image.
I doubt it. That depends on:
User having speakers. The blind might, but a large percentage of the non-blind (especially in offices) might not.
Language. Someone that just gets buy with English might be able to understand and copy a number from a graphic--they might not be able to understand that number when spoken... especially if garbling noise is added to intentionally distort it.
The other thing is here that a lot of these image challenge systems are there so that people can remain anonymous.
??? I've seen these systems around but I've never once seen it used to maintain anonymity. In some cases the systems might be anonymous, but the graphical "passwords" are inevitably used to avoid automatic submission by robots. I'm not sure I've ever seen one with the PURPOSE of maintaining anonymity.
So say if your yahoo and you want to let people be anonymous then your gonna get shady automated scripts.
No, that's not true. Anonymity may allow automated scripts without much threat of a response from Yahoo, but the reason the graphic-number things are used is to avoid multiple robot solutions. Yahoo is meant for humans, not robots.
And anonymity is not the goal--ease of use is. Can you imagine what a hassle it would be to the user and what cost it would be to Yahoo if you had to fax in an application to open a Yahoo account and someone there had to manually process it? That's very 20th century and is obsolete. We can now do these things online. But the ease of doing it online opens up the realm of abuse--and THAT'S what these graphic-number systems are for: avoiding abuse. It has nothing inherently to do with anonymity.
So IMNSHO there is no reaon why a company that has an image challange should lock out blind people. they should either drop the image challange or add an audio one.
Hmm. I was able to create an image challenge in probably about half an hour. I don't even know where to start with audio. I know nothing about audio. I know that I personally surf with audio OFF and that there are more people surfing with audio off or without speakers than there are surfing and blind.
That and one other thing: even blind people have friends. I'm sure if there's some website that requires an image challenge ONCE to create an account that that person can probably ask someone for help for that single step. That's the real common sense solution.
That's such bullshit. We should make an active effort not to exclude people, especially ones who are so unfortunate as it is. This doesn't have to do with "providing alternatives" this is just common courtesy for people who CAN'T SEE.
You know what?
The web is a visual media. Are the blind going to sue the MPAA because their movies aren't available in a blind-friendly format?
The web is, anymore, largely a graphical media with entire sections and selections graphically constructed rather than text. This isn't with the intention of screwing the blind, it is with the intention that--in the opinion of the webmaster--it's the best way to make their site visually appealing ti 99.999% of the visitors.
My websites are in English even though most of the world doesn't understand English. Am I to be sued because I don't offer my site in French, Spanish, and Chinese, too?
Websites are private property. If I don't like the person at IP address 1.2.3.4 I can block that IP address and there is no recourse. I am under no obligation to make sure that my website is accessible by every unique person in the world.
I certainly have nothing against the blind and I support anything anybody can do to help them. If you have some way to accomplish your goal that is compatible with them, great. But the fact remains that most websites are unusable for many users of the web due to their language, many others because they are graphically-based as opposed to text-based.
It's unfortunate that the blind are blind but, damn it, the web is a visual media. By definition the blind are going to have a problem with that. Sorry.
Slashdot Mirror
Makes me want to dig my old Atari 400 out of the attic and see if it still works. I'd try the Atari 520ST but I don't remember what I did with that.
If the rich spend it, they stimulate the economy further. If they "sock it away" (I assume you mean stash it in a bank) then those banks have those funds available to make loans which makes money available for economic activity at all levels. It's not like they stick it under their pillow.
The lower classes won't even be able to pay for the lost government services with their tax break.
So what government services are being lost that they'll now be unable to pay for?
And we all will pay (or our kids will pay) for huge deficit this creates.
If we would reduce socialized spending we wouldn't have a deficit. The recent increases in the budget are exactly in the areas that the federal government has a responsibility to act: law enforcement and defense of the country. Socialized programs are the most expensive part of the budget and we're not significantly better off from when we started that socialized spending a number of decades ago.
Don't believe trickle-down econ theory. It was proved to be a fallacy by economists years ago.
References? Sure, you can find economists that say it doesn't work (card-carrying liberals). You can also find those that say it does. But one thing is for sure: You can't create prosperity through taxation. Won't happen.
Regardless, we're not talking about "trickle-down" theory here. We're talking about fairness. The tax cut gives money back to those who pay taxes. The more taxes you pay the more you get back in dollar terms (though the less you get back in percentage terms). Only a liberal with socialistic tendencies could claim that that's unfair.
Liberals, I guess, would prefer that the tax cut give the poor cash money rather than reducing some of the taxes on the rich. So then you are in a situation where the rich are forced to work to generate wealth for someone else. Sounds like you favor slavery, my dear sir. Please think about what you're saying and you'll realize the standard liberal line doesn't make sense.
That information wasn't readily available when I was interested in that back before 2000 and I assume it's even harder to come by now.
I suspect that we are a lot more vulnerable than we suspect. And considering a power outage in Northern Mexico affected parts of the U.S. I wonder if someone could successfully attack our infrastructure without even attacking a physical point in the U.S., but in Mexico or Canada.
Yes, more money is saved by the rich because, surprise surprise, they are already paying the lion's share of taxes. If someone is essentially not paying taxes, how can you cut them even more? GIVE them money? Yeah, that's fair to the rest of us... NOT.
I don't have the link handy, but soon after the tax cut some op-ed piece on Newsweek or MSNBC or somewhere complained about the same think you are. That it was a giveaway to the rich. it then went on to give specific numbers. Again, I don't have them handy but it was along the lines of family earning $30k used to pay $1000, now will pay $50. A family that earns $500,000 used to pay $130,000 will now pay $110,000. Or something like that.
The exact numbers are not important. What is important is that low-income people that used to pay around a thousand dollars will now have virtually NO income tax, but the rich are still paying hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. Short of GIVING the low-income family cash money there's not much else you can do. But if you're going to give the poor a free ride tax-wise (which I'm not opposed to), don't complain if the people that are ACTUALLY PAYING THE BILL get some money back, too. It's not like they stopped paying taxes.
I, for one, received nearly 400 spam over the 4th of July weekend. Of course, only 1 got by my spam filter and it was in Spanish. :)
As a webmaster I know there are people who run banner blockers (I don't use pop-ups). That doesn't bother me--luckily my advertisers pay me based on how many times my page is displayed, not how many times their ad is served.
What WOULD piss me off is if some application doesn't just strip my advertisements, but puts OTHER advertisements in their place. The user is still seeing ads, but they're no longer mine. It also could imply that I endorse those advertisers who are hijacking my ad space.
Is/was it Gator that was doing this some time ago? I remember a lot of noise about that, but it seems the question here is popups. If they pop-up ads then that's none of my business, as long as it is clear that it's not my site that is popping them up. If the user chooses to be annoyed in that way, that's their business. But if someone/company comes along and not just removes but REPLACES my banner ads, THAT'S damn annoying and I'd tend to consider that actionable.
Yes, because we all know that the best thing to do with money is to give it to the government since they are the most efficient organization. :P
I agree that the rich should pay more taxes. If the tax rate is 10% someone who earns $30,000 will pay $3000 and someone who earns a million will pay $100,000. The rich pay more.
What is downright bogus--and what I assume you are referring to--is a "progressive" tax where not only do the rich pay more MONEY, but also a higher RATE. And that's unfair, period. It assumes the government is more efficient and better able to spend money. It assumes that the rich will never give away money, creating foundations like many, many wealthy people have. It assumes the rich will just stuff the money under their mattress rather than investing it which creates money and jobs in the economy. In short, it's based on a lot of wrong assumptions.
That we have done well under this system doesn't necessarily mean that the system is WHY we're doing well. In fact, we've done *better* since JFK reduced the highest tax bracket from, what, 92% to 70%. We continued to do even better after that was dropped to 35%. So don't make the erroneous conclusion that the rich should pay a higher tax rate. It's inherently unfair and there is more evidence to suggest that doing so harms the economy than evidence to suggest it creates a fair society that benefits everyone.
The economy is not helped by making some people dependent on hand-outs.
Terrorists cause terror by terrorizing people. While a terrorist crashing a plane into Mount Rushmore or even the Statute of Libery would piss me off to an extreme degree, it would not cause me any terror. I think for terror to be effective it really needs to cause a sense of fear that "I may be next." That just doesn't happen when they're targetting mountains.
Generally accepted? Hahah. You must be the same conspiracy theory anonymous coward that posted that link to the powerpoint presentation at GlobalHowler.
That the plane was shot down is not generally accepted. In fact, all evidence is to the contrary. The crash site itself does not suggest a plane that was targetted by a missile at altitude showering debris over a somewhat large area. The crash shite was quite small, suggestive of a functioning plane that hit the ground in one piece.
Yeah, just what I need... A website that doesn't work in Mozilla and looks like a Powerpoint presentation in IE. Definitely a site targetted at the least common denominator.
Come on, wake up and smell the conspiracy theory. I understand you don't like Bush. I hated Clinton. But how some people go on to smoke some wonder drug and publish this kind of BS is just offensive.
It's been said that conspiracy theories exist because certain people have a need to feel they "know something" the rest of the world doesn't. It gives them a feeling of power, of knowledge. Luckily, most of us don't need those kinds of fantasty-style reassurances and can deal with reality.
Not pilot-configurable, but it can't be firmware that never changes because the restricted airspace changes frequently. That's why the FAA issues new airspace charts every 3 or 6 months (can't remember which, I haven't flown since 1995).
So since the restricted airspace changes, the programmed "soft walls" have to be modifiable after delivery. If they can be modified legitiately, they can be modified in preparation for a hijacking.
But changing the restricted GPS coordinates in the avionics is what I was thinking. You need to have a way to get that information into the avionics in the first place, so that's the weak link. Presumably you'd have some kind of wirefull connection that could only be accessed from the outside of the plane. But that'd just mean someone on the ground would have to be in on the plan, which isn't farfeteched.
Also, this is a safety-of-flight issue. If you are on the edge of restricted space and you see a plane coming right at you you have to take evasive maneuvers. If this system prevented a pilot from taking appropriate evasive action that'd be a bad thing.
I'm not saying that sales calls don't work--what I'm really saying is that if they think that since we no longer have to receive their calls that we're going to respond to a flood of spam and postal mail, I think they're wrong and probably just wasting time and money. I don't mind them wasting their time and their money, as long as they don't waste either of mine.
While I'd agree that there are many sites that don't use signup forms, I wouldn't agree that the group of sites that do are a "very limited subset." Quite a few sites have message forums and many of those forums require registrations--and it only takes one abuse before the webmaster resorts to some kind of anti-script tool, such as graphic-encoded passwords.
I personally would rather see spam eliminated via other means.
I personally don't use and haven't seen graphic passwords for anti-spam. I guess the challenge/response systems use them, but I think challenge/response is bogus anyway for reasons completely different than leaving out the blind. Personally, if I send email to someone and I get a challenge/response back it is doubtful I'll bother unless it's pretty dang important. I have better things to do than to do the work to solve someone elses spam problem.
While graphics-encoded passwords are used by companies such as registrars to try to make email harvesting more difficult, I've seen them used more to block automated account creation. And I think it's a perfectly valid solution to make sure a robot doesn't create 100,000 new accounts just to piss you off.
Anyway, please offer your own alternatives, if you have any. It's a field filled with potential, and every idea deserves at least a moment of thought, if nothing else.
I don't have an alternative to graphics-encoded passwords right now. I think it is (currently) a good way to let humans in and keep automated scripts out. Yes, it might not be perfect for blind people. But as others have said, we aren't going to open up our systems to massive abuse my automated scripts creating thousands or hundred of thousands of accounts just so that 1% (or less?) of the online population can be fully accomodated. Like I said elsewhere, I presume even blind people have friends that can help them signup when they find a graphic-encoded site. And I've also said, we can make the web much more accessible by having all websites in the U.S. available in Spanish as well as English. That'd be much more effective at making the web accessible than trying to accomodate the small fraction of the online population that the blind represent.
As for spam, I don't even see where this graphic-encoded stuff fits in. I think it is only used, really, in challenge/response which is a flawed and silly approach to spam anyway. Aside from revamping the mail protocol, Bayesian filtering is the solution. I'm currently receiving approximately 130 spams per day, of which I see about 1 or 2 a week. 1 or 2 a week is a lot easier to deal with than about 800 per week. :)
Spam is no longer a problem for me. Yes, it consumes disk space and bandwidth but, for me, the biggest problem with spam is the time it (used to) cause me to waste.
They don't seem to understand that we don't want their stuff. It doesn't matter how loud they shot, how annoying they are, or how many times they try to deliver their message--we aren't going to buy their products.
I didn't say that it was a *purely* visual media. But you are ignoring reality if you are suggesting that it isn't a predominantly visual media. Visual is the only one of my 5 senses I use when online.
It's an informational (read: text-driven) media.
For you, informational=text-driven. That is not necessarily the case. There are many ways to convey information and they aren't all text-based. Look around at the majority of websites and you'll see they depend heavily on graphics. Some are informational, some aren't... but the web is clearly not a text-only medium.
Graphics are and ought to be just added eye-candy for those of us who have working eyes.
Who says? You? Yes, this site works great as text because it's a forum. Many sites work less great as text and some just might not work at all.
Even if they DO work with text-only, perhaps the experience the designer wants to convey can only be achieved with graphics and I feel it is his or her right to develop their site that way.
It's not like Yahoo intentionally left these people out; it was just an honest oversight. If they don't bother to do anything to rectify the situation, then, yes, a lawsuit may be in order
The idea of providing wheelchair access, etc. is to make a reasonable effort so these people can function in society. And there are even exceptions in the cases for physical access.
- "While it is not possible for many businesses, especially small businesses, to make their facilities fully accessible, there is much that can be done without much difficulty or expense to improve accessibility. Therefore, the ADA requires that accessibility be improved
- without taking on excessive expenses that could harm the business." (from ADA Website).
So let's just apply the physical access criteria to the online world. The ADA doesn't require that accessibility be improved if it will cause excess expenses that could harm the business. The graphic-encoded passwords are to avoid abuse which can definitely lead to an increase in expenses that will harm the business; especially if it's a small one.I think the issue here is whether or not there is a better way to validate that a human is filling out a form rather than a computer. So far, the password-encoded graphic seems to be the best method. Perhaps others will be found in the future. I don't have the time or budget to look for it though. Perhaps the blind (or their lawyers) should make an effort to publicize the problem and look for funds for R&D to FIND an alternative rather than contemplating lawsuits. That'd be money much better spent.
I don't think anyone intentionally wants to discriminate against the blind. But there's only so much effort and money you can expect a website to make for a demographic that represents so few of their visitors. Heck, even in the United States simply requiring Spanish translation would be a more effective method of reducing descrimination online.
You are also assuming that every website that can afford to display a graphic-encoded number can also afford to have a dedicated phone line with an automated voice response system. And that is a wrong assumption.
Common sense!
It seems to me that if a feature cannot be made accessable that doesn't mean you should just toss it out. there is no reason why someone's handicap should hold back the whole world.
More common sense! Yeah!
However, that doesn't seem to be the case here. An audio work around seems entirely plausable, and easily as effective, as a garbled image.
I doubt it. That depends on:
The other thing is here that a lot of these image challenge systems are there so that people can remain anonymous.
??? I've seen these systems around but I've never once seen it used to maintain anonymity. In some cases the systems might be anonymous, but the graphical "passwords" are inevitably used to avoid automatic submission by robots. I'm not sure I've ever seen one with the PURPOSE of maintaining anonymity.
So say if your yahoo and you want to let people be anonymous then your gonna get shady automated scripts.
No, that's not true. Anonymity may allow automated scripts without much threat of a response from Yahoo, but the reason the graphic-number things are used is to avoid multiple robot solutions. Yahoo is meant for humans, not robots.
And anonymity is not the goal--ease of use is. Can you imagine what a hassle it would be to the user and what cost it would be to Yahoo if you had to fax in an application to open a Yahoo account and someone there had to manually process it? That's very 20th century and is obsolete. We can now do these things online. But the ease of doing it online opens up the realm of abuse--and THAT'S what these graphic-number systems are for: avoiding abuse. It has nothing inherently to do with anonymity.
So IMNSHO there is no reaon why a company that has an image challange should lock out blind people. they should either drop the image challange or add an audio one.
Hmm. I was able to create an image challenge in probably about half an hour. I don't even know where to start with audio. I know nothing about audio. I know that I personally surf with audio OFF and that there are more people surfing with audio off or without speakers than there are surfing and blind.
That and one other thing: even blind people have friends. I'm sure if there's some website that requires an image challenge ONCE to create an account that that person can probably ask someone for help for that single step. That's the real common sense solution.
You know what?
- The web is a visual media. Are the blind going to sue the MPAA because their movies aren't available in a blind-friendly format?
- The web is, anymore, largely a graphical media with entire sections and selections graphically constructed rather than text. This isn't with the intention of screwing the blind, it is with the intention that--in the opinion of the webmaster--it's the best way to make their site visually appealing ti 99.999% of the visitors.
- My websites are in English even though most of the world doesn't understand English. Am I to be sued because I don't offer my site in French, Spanish, and Chinese, too?
- Websites are private property. If I don't like the person at IP address 1.2.3.4 I can block that IP address and there is no recourse. I am under no obligation to make sure that my website is accessible by every unique person in the world.
I certainly have nothing against the blind and I support anything anybody can do to help them. If you have some way to accomplish your goal that is compatible with them, great. But the fact remains that most websites are unusable for many users of the web due to their language, many others because they are graphically-based as opposed to text-based.It's unfortunate that the blind are blind but, damn it, the web is a visual media. By definition the blind are going to have a problem with that. Sorry.