“Chances are, you’ve been CAPTCHAd” (PC Magazine Online, 20 August 2003)
Have you ever wondered why the internet tests your ability to read a configured word and reenter it into a box provided? The internet is not testing our vision or ability to read. It is using CAPTCHA as a function on the internet. CAPTCHA stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart. CAPTCHA is “a small rectangular graphic containing a short, well-known word, such as "coat," "manage," or "worry"” (PC Magazine Online, 20 August 2003). It was implemented by email services and antispam products due to the large increase in internet spam issues.
History of CAPTCHA began in 1950 when Alan Turing wrote “Computer Machinery and Intelligence”. Since then, the term turing has been applied to any test used to decipher an unknown entity as being either human or machine. Because only humans are able to read the CAPTCHA, the process requires the user to read and correctly enter the word into an adjacent box. Any person who has used the internet will run into CAPTCHA and will rarely know the reason it is being used. CAPTCHA has primarily been used as security precautions, such as registering for email accounts or purchasing items on the web. As machines or computers are unable to read the words, internet services are able to prevent spam, filter unwanted advertisements, and block online misconduct. Many people are even use CAPTCHA in their homes because “Internet users often install software that uses CAPTCHA to weed incoming spam from legitimate correspondence” (PC Magazine Online, 20 August 2003).
As more spammers find ways around CAPTCHA, the concept to identify obscured words have evolved to, “a new breed of CAPTCHA called BaffleText” (PC Magazine Online, 20 August 2003). BaffleText are words hidden in a digital graphic and the image is then visually degraded. The next time you are asked to decode a CAPTCHA, you will now know that the service provider is trying to determine if you are human or machine.
Source:
CAPTCHA-ing the Spammer. August 20, 2003 pNAPC Magazine Online, p.NA. Retrieved September 23, 2009, from Computer Database via Gale:
http://find.galegroup.com/gtx/start.do?prodId=CDB
1 comment:
Although I have wondered more times than I can remeber I had no idea what the CAPTCHA actually was, or that it had a name. Usually by the time I was done doing whatever it was I was doing I had forgotten that I was curious about that CAPTCHA.
Post a Comment