Weird Harold-?

[bearlee]

Not exactly a How To thing, but I can't get an answer on this one. The new security code thing for sending feedback(which comes up after you vote)-is it a way to stop people from voting more than once(I hope)? But if so, how come it doesn't come up until after you vote?

 

[Seattle Zack]

WH can correct me on this if I'm wrong, but that little code is not for the voting, it's for the feedback e-mail.

Many sites are doing the same thing now to keep 'bots from crawling through and sending spam to every e-mail address they can find. That's why the code is somewhat irregular, so it can't be easily read except by a real person.

 

[bearlee]

Well, I guess that makes sense-haven't noticed it anywhere else, but then I don't really go anywhere else. I need to get out more My thanks

 

[Weird Harold]

WH can correct me on this if I'm wrong, but that little code is not for the voting, it's for the feedback e-mail.

Many sites are doing the same thing now to keep 'bots from crawling through and sending spam to every e-mail address they can find. That's why the code is somewhat irregular, so it can't be easily read except by a real person.

Thanks for fielding this. I haven't voted on a story for a longtime, so I haven't encountered the new script yet.

 

[quickfoot]

Its called a turing test, a test designed to detect non humans. There is actually a contest held that pit the best AI against a good turing test, no computer has been able to win yet.

A lot of major online sites have implemented this, godaddy has implemented it on its domain whois script to prevent bots from harvesting information.

Some of the online turing tests are harder to read than others because it is possible to read a normal graphic with a computer script so they do things like put gradients in the background or randomly rotate the letters and text to make it harder for OCR to reliably detect what the text is.

 

[quickfoot]

Its called a turing test, a test designed to detect non humans. There is actually a contest held that pits the best AI against a good turing test, no computer has been able to win yet (the requirements are that the computer not be identified as a computer from the result of being asked a series of questions).

A lot of major online sites have implemented the turing test recently to help combat spam and also prevent unwanted automated scripts from visiting their more private webpages, godaddy has implemented it on its domain whois script to prevent bots from harvesting information.

Some of the online turing tests are harder to read than others because it is possible to read a normal graphic with a computer script so they do things like put gradients in the background or randomly rotate the letters and text to make it harder for OCR to reliably detect what the text is.