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Theoretically more secure?

Lapras

Lapras

New Member
I had an idea and I was wondering if others though it would matter in preventing autosign-up. Sometimes a turing number or random word is used to verify that a human is signing up for something and not an automated program. Now while it can surely be circumvented by truly sophisticated software, it is sometimes true that such automated machines can interpret the graphic. But what if one were to use two images? I mean let's say the word is "Tapestry" how about placing an image marked with only some of the pixels required to spell the word, and then have another image go on top of it that is composed of black and transparent pixels so it would be more difficult for anything other than the human eye to see it.
 
Some sites make it near impossible to read those things as it is :confused5
Make a gif or image with questions like "what colour is white?", "how much is 2 + 2?", "type 'tapestry' in the box below" in a complex enough handwriting font.
OCR won't work with those because they're too irregular and the questions - if you have enough variety - require a human to interpret them.

Remember that they also just employ cheap labor workers who do nothing all day except sign up for services.
 
actually i think, such things like turing code would take aeons to be guessed even by an automated machines. but nothing could prevent labor workers that does the signup all day unless you prevent an IP from resigning up
 
Unless you make it somewhat difficult questions like:

Evaluate the following integral:

Code: 
       _
      |¹        dx
      |   -------------
     _|º    2+x²+x³

Which might deter the laborers, because hopefully they have never taken a calculus course.
 
You may have a point their CareBear but I recall that I when I visited California several years ago I went to a museum called "The Tech" or something like that. One of the exhibits was a electronic dog which could read pratically anything no matter how garbled I wrote it (i finally managed to hit it below the belt by writing some japanese kanji). But I suppose the best way to deter humans who are paid to sign-up would be to make it a lengthy time consuming process to sign up that would make it economically unsound for such purposes. Using a Calculus problem sounds good too but with out the element of surprise, required though and time spent filling out a form or something, a calculus problem could be entered into an application. However, difficult site subject related trivia or a math problem may be the best for logic. Afterall, if someone knows certain advanced math concepts you think they wouldn't be in a job situation where they get paid a meager salary to defraud a website's intent. Canuckkev valid useful point as well.
 
Umm...not, it's not useful. See, I thought it might be funny to suggest using calculus questions...because, well, I'm a geek.

Seriously now, if you are worried about OCR, vary the questions as suggested. Some simple math : "Take the sum of 5 and 3 and take away 2 from your answer." Other simple questions: "JFK's first name was : (blank)" "Little Johnny was so forgetful, everytime he tried to remember someone's name, he drew a : (blank)." The only problem is you need a LOT of them.
 
Some of these questions would beat me, a real user =)
"Little Johnny was so forgetful, everytime he tried to remember someone's name, he drew a : (blank)."
What did he draw? a letter? a picture? a card (draw out a card from his pocket to write on)? eh.....
 
what are you trying to make this so complicated. If someone is being paid to sign up for something he will eventually get it. Its supposed to confuse machines not humans
 
Agum said:
Some of these questions would beat me, a real user =)
"Little Johnny was so forgetful, everytime he tried to remember someone's name, he drew a : (blank)."
What did he draw? a letter? a picture? a card (draw out a card from his pocket to write on)? eh.....
Click to expand...

See, there is an expression that when someone tries to remember something, but they can't, they "draw a blank". Not "draw" as in draw a picture. Just draw as in "draw" their name from your memory.

So, now, with that in mind, you will see the joke I was making. The (blank) is what you would fill in with the correct answer. And in this instance, the correct answer is "blank". No, I'm not that genious, I stole it from Family Guy.

And this thread is pretty old now anyways...oh well.
 
GregT said:
I think doing 1 signup per IP and using the image would be a hell of a lot easier.
Click to expand...


Wouldnt they eventually get under a proxy and override that whole i signup per IP thing.
 
Lapras said:
I had an idea and I was wondering if others though it would matter in preventing autosign-up. Sometimes a turing number or random word is used to verify that a human is signing up for something and not an automated program. Now while it can surely be circumvented by truly sophisticated software, it is sometimes true that such automated machines can interpret the graphic. But what if one were to use two images? I mean let's say the word is "Tapestry" how about placing an image marked with only some of the pixels required to spell the word, and then have another image go on top of it that is composed of black and transparent pixels so it would be more difficult for anything other than the human eye to see it.
Click to expand...

You need to remember that the computer is composing that image for you to see in the first place. It's just a composite of two images -- it's not hard to write a program to join those two images together.

As for those images in the first place -- I was reading that a new technique is to use normal users to unknowingly unlock those images for a spammer (or whoever). Some porn sites apparently put the same image up that yahoo, or whatever service they want to get accounts at, and have their visitors type in the code before entering their site. That way they have the code and their robot can then complete an automated process at yahoo.
 
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