[Closed] Image captcha for login

There's been a few spammers recently so a possible reaction to that.

Still, it's not like you have to re-login frequently.....

how many traffic lights can you see?

Still, it’s not like you have to re-login frequently…..

Not on my iPad.

Image Captcha - getting people to train AI's for free 🙂

Seems to have been set to "most irritating" mode too.

Image Captcha – getting people to train AI’s for free

Don't knock it. The more AIs we get visiting this site, the higher the average IQ will be.

Just run into it, wasn’t there earlier this morning.

If it’s to prevent spam then at time of post seems far better than at time of login. Hardly likely to stop people deliberately logging in but will certainly annoy people dropping by for a browse on a coffee break etc.

Totally agree with wwaswas too, longer term image captchas will be useless. If someone isn’t AI training with them then I’m very surprised.

Well I better post something to let like Mike know don’t want him getting upset we never told him about it.

Image Captcha – getting people to train AI’s for free 🙂

Yep just had it, most annoying security feature known to man.
Got into an endless cycle of trying to find a storefront. 5 minutes later after closing the browser and trying again I’m now logged in.

I only had the tickbox, will I have the never ending horror of the trafficlights/crossing/storefront game next time.

Not on my iPad.

I have to log in again every time I close and reopen my browser, I wouldn't mind if they would just forgo the "keep me logged in" tickbox taunt.

Just an 'I'm not a robot' checkbox for me....

From the gifs you could watch all day thread:

Father Jack

That would be an ecumenical matter

Drac

Not on My iPad

;-p

Seems to have been set to “most irritating” mod too.

Yup

Proper tears of laughter at that "deal with it" bot. 😆
I've seen so many of those Captchas, is my excuse (not on here though). Match.com - "check all crosswalks" eh? spent 3 hours on that once.

There’s been a few spammers recently so a possible reaction to that.

That's exactly what it is, specifically the classifieds.

Then you'd put it on the sign up pages, wouldn't you?

Unless there's been a credential stuffing attack... in which case I'm sure STW would have done the right thing and informed those affected.

Seems to have been set to “most irritating” mod too.

Yup

Does someone need a hug?

That’s exactly what it is, specifically the classifieds.

Are those dodgy ads posted by bots then? I'm still waiting for £500 in counterfeit notes and a kilo of weed. Paid proper Paypal gift n everyfing

😆

Are those dodgy ads posted by bots then?

Yup even bots have worked out how to use the classifieds.

Drac's seen my latest ad 😥

There's several techniques available to stop spam/scam accounts that don't require captchas. Which one or ones you use tends to depend on levels of usage and how much work you want an actual human to do. Most are aimed at scripts and are hidden from normal users, things like honey pot fields, timing of data entry, random field names in the code. Simple domain specific questions can work as well - "What's the name of the big Japanese component manufacturer?", that sort of thing.

The last change I made to a form where I've been seeing a lot of spam attempts (10 for every genuine user but maybe one in a hundred gets through to me) has resulted in a complete block, so far. Those last two words are important, it's a never ending battle.

Drac’s seen my latest ad

Oooh that's gone a bit wrong.

Simple domain specific questions can work as well – “What’s the name of the big Japanese component manufacturer?”, that sort of thing.

You'd be amazed how "simple" questions aren't always all that simple. I don't know if it's still the same now or not, but the forum sign-up used to ask you to name a part of a bike which, even in the unlikely event that you didn't know, was readily Googled. We still got moderator emails from people signing up who couldn't answer the question.

@Cougar - I thought that question was on the tech application form 😳😉

More seriously, it's really quite hard to come up with a foolproof anti-spam system that doesn't give false positives - I use a hidden honey pot field but one of the default settings in Chrome can trigger it if the user has entered that particular information on some other site. That took a little while to work out.

Well I better post something to let like Mike know don’t want him getting upset we never told him about it.

Still waiting for the email...
But ffs if the people fixing the bugs have not worked out they will get a little thanks/appreciation letting people know stuff is being done then maybe it needs pointing out. It fits perfectly with the comms strategy the site has though.

In this case they could have saved the unpaid volunteer mods some time posting a quick hey we have put a capcha on login because we are getting a spam issue.

I've just logged out, turned on my VPN and logged back in. It just asked me to click the I'm a Human box and that was it. No puzzle or anything.
Did it again with VPN turned off. Again, no puzzle box. And then repeated with adblock turned on. Still nothing. How come you lot get to play the game but I dont?

the forum sign-up used to ask you to name a part of a bike which, even in the unlikely event that you didn’t know, was readily Googled.

Asking us lot to name part of a bike was bound to go wrong. Nobody in here actually owns one do they? 😀

Oh goodie, I like playing captcha roulette. Get a bunch of photos taken by 3 year old on manual focus camera with a lens smeared with Vaseline, shrink to 1/4 size and display on a phone. 6/10 times I cannot tell what is in the picture never mind what isn't.
Have the people who design the captchas been introduced to mobile phones or tablets, or are they still using 19" crts?

Still waiting for the email…
But ffs if the people fixing the bugs have not worked out they will get a little thanks/appreciation letting people know stuff is being done then maybe it needs pointing out. It fits perfectly with the comms strategy the site has though.

In this case they could have saved the unpaid volunteer mods some time posting a quick hey we have put a capcha on login because we are getting a spam issue.

I put an update about a recent couple of bug fixes in the "Our forum" sticky. It took me a few days to get around to this as I had the sheer audacity to go on holiday. Starting a thread announcing such things is superficially laudable but it's pissing into the wind as it'll be three posts saying thank you and eight pages of people whining that their particular pet glitch or gripe is far more important and should have been a higher priority. I've seen this movie before I'm afraid.

We've discussed the advert thing at length before, many times, and I'm not opening that can of worms again here just so you can attempt to point-score or otherwise have cheeky little digs. As ably demonstrated back when STW dared to change the background wallpaper once, some folk won't be happy until the site is completely devoid of any chrome or content bar the actual specific words they want to read. And that's not gonna happen for what should be fairly obvious reasons so I'd suggest you get used to it. Sorry.

The moderators knew the Captcha was coming, so I'm not sure what your point is there. It's not the method I would have implemented personally, but it's not my site.

I put an update about a recent couple of bug fixes in the “Our forum” sticky. It took me a few days to get around to this as I had the sheer audacity to go on holiday.

Exactly my point it's not your job to do that. Starting a locked update thread would work though...

As for the odds it's a point of fact not points scoring. Stw can play the dead parrot sketch all they like.

some folk won’t be happy until the site is completely devoid of any chrome or content bar the actual specific words they want to read. And that’s not gonna happen for what should be fairly obvious reasons so I’d suggest you get used to it. Sorry.

Or just what people have exchanged money for it's actually really simple. But it's worth remembering the mods can't make these changes or decisions so why bother defending them?

Starting a locked update thread would work though…

Like the one we already have, you mean?

Or just what people have exchanged money for it’s actually really simple.

You've exchanged money for a magazine subscription. One of the perks of that is "optimised, ad-free browsing" which is what you've got, it's just that your definition of "advert" differs from that of STW. No-one promised you no deals or any other sponsored content at all, and no links to other parts of the website.

If a box in the margin with special offers bothers you that greatly then in all seriousness I suggest you email Mark and take it up with him, arguing with me about it is a waste of both your time and mine. As you correctly said, there's nothing the moderators can do about it. He's on holiday today but back tomorrow I believe. If you genuinely feel that you've not got what you paid for then you can always talk to subs about cancelling your subscription. Which would be a shame, but ultimately it's your call.

Well at least it has proven to me that Captcha is broken on the complaints site for Jacob's crackers and it's not a fault at my end. I strongly suspect it's a ploy by Jacobs not to get any complaints.

I don't mind the image captures you used to see that had a value to them, I remember ones that were miss-spelt, miss-printed or unusual words found when text recognition could not convert a scanned newspaper into text. Or when you help google learn how to distinguish red cars or letterboxes from a selection of photos.

But I use tinypic and that is really annoying, each time I login in it gives me a captcha and about 2/3rds of the time the captcha is always the same, Sausage Rolls or Chicken Caesar Wrap seem to be two favourites. I have wondered if they are actually a scam way of serving an ad in the background that you unwittingly interact with as there is a delay waiting for it to load (helpfully my browser chooses to only display non-irritating ads!). The site also regularly has other shady pop ups so I would not put it past them...

Oh goodie, I like playing captcha roulette. Get a bunch of photos taken by 3 year old on manual focus camera with a lens smeared with Vaseline, shrink to 1/4 size and display on a phone. 6/10 times I cannot tell what is in the picture never mind what isn’t.
Have the people who design the captchas been introduced to mobile phones or tablets, or are they still using 19″ crts?

This! It’s at its most aggravating when trying to book tickets and you’re on the clock from the start, and you have to try to make out what’s even in the teeny little pictures on a phone screen. Drives me nuts.

no captcha on mobile re login today on mobile

Cheer up. According to the Eu Referendum thread we probably wont have internet after March 29 so that problem will go away.