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Over the coming weeks, I’ll highlight a few of the best (and weirdest) CAPTCHA systems available on the web. CAPTCHAs are those “type this word” or “answer this question” tests you see on many web forms — they’re there in an attempt to prove that the entity filling out the form is not a spambot.
The term CAPTCHA is an acronym for “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart.” (The subject of Turing tests deserves its own blog entry, but let’s just summarize here by saying that such tests are designed to test human-style intelligence.) While most CAPTCHA systems are designed using scrambled text — something that’s easy for humans to decipher but hard for computers — there are some interesting variants in the wild. Let’s start with my favorite weird CAPTCHA system: KittenAuth.
Developed by programmer Oli Warner, the KittenAuth system presents a series of pictures of cute animals, and asks the user to click on all the kittens. Well, that’s the simplest form — the current version may ask you to pick out a different animal, so you may have to click on all the pandas or lambs — this adds some fun to the game, and presumably prevents spammers from investing all their effort on kitten-detection software. Here’s a screenshot of an example from Warner’s contact form (it’s not clickable):
I like KittenAuth because it’s cute and actually kind of fun. I wouldn’t want to use the system constantly (for example, every time I added a Facebook friend), but for occasional use it’s a great idea — and surprisingly hard for a spambot to crack. It’s difficult for a computer because image recognition is both difficult and computationally expensive.
In future weeks I’ll go in-depth on the ReCAPTCHA system used on this very blog, and other interesting variants. But in the meantime, we’ve noticed a lot of commenters finding bizarre and interesting things in the ReCAPTCHA boxes. For example, today adrienne wrote: “I love ReCaptcha: ‘Philbin girl’ this time.” We even held a CAPTCHA Contest in April in which commenters made poetry out of the CAPTCHA text. But I thought I’d ask: what’s the craziest CAPTCHA text you’ve seen? I just tried two at random, and got ‘integrated ex’ and ‘tingle tempers.’ This is art, people.
Comments (20)
Comment
I have to say I love the one I got at the end of reading this: takes choice.
posted by ACute Angle on 6-6-2008 at 1:34 pm
My question: Does the tiger count as a kitten?
posted by Cat on 6-6-2008 at 2:14 pm
The CAPTCHA on my current page, honest to god, is ‘grow WEBSTER’.
Poor Emmanual Lewis. Being given orders over things he can’t control.
posted by EV on 6-6-2008 at 2:26 pm
Cat - yeah, I guess that’s a problem. I’m gonna say…yes, because it’s a tiger kitten?
posted by Chris Higgins on 6-6-2008 at 2:26 pm
Mine is “Broncos butt”!!
posted by ... on 6-6-2008 at 2:48 pm
My most bizarre CAPTCHA was on a US Patent website:
“government” and “terrorist”
I typed the words to enter the site, then wondered how many red lights were flashing at Homeland Security.
posted by Bryan on 6-6-2008 at 3:07 pm
My weirdest CAPTCHA was “Hungarian despotism.” It popped up on this site, actually.
I’ve been wary of despotic Hungarians ever since.
posted by Casey on 6-6-2008 at 3:13 pm
I swear, I got one here once that was something like “butt Cakes”. It seemed oddly lowbrow for m_f, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t make me giggle for an hour.
Currently have “performer outsider”, which suggests a sad tale.
posted by Aemi on 6-6-2008 at 3:25 pm
I got one yesterday, on this site, that I really like:
“Character Quished”
I don’t think that “quished” is even a word, but it does have a certain ring to it…
posted by PJ in SF on 6-6-2008 at 3:31 pm
right now, mine is “autopsy clubs.” which makes for a fairly odd visual!
posted by ll on 6-6-2008 at 4:48 pm
The current one is pretty good: Mr Turnstiles
posted by fruppi on 6-6-2008 at 5:06 pm
I’ve found a new pass time. Flipping these CAPCHA’s until I find a good one.
Currently showing “Mobile ethics”
posted by mike on 6-6-2008 at 6:00 pm
I love shout outs as well, Chris! Thanks, I feel so special. This reCAPTCHA is weird, though: Giovanna latter. I have nothing witty to say.
posted by adrienne on 6-6-2008 at 6:15 pm
I just commented on the strange pet names post and my CAPTCHA was
college canoists
and the one I have right now is, and I am not kidding
Safety Mr
posted by Dana on 6-6-2008 at 8:16 pm
Who *won* the April CAPTCHA, btw?
I can’t recall/nor find it in the archives!
posted by Anonymous on 6-6-2008 at 11:59 pm
Anonymous — good question; I’ll ask folks and get back to you!
posted by Chris Higgins on 6-7-2008 at 2:28 am
I just had a captcha that was: 1008 tomatoes
posted by Steve on 6-7-2008 at 10:03 am
“snuff specialist”
Awesome.
posted by Jess on 6-7-2008 at 12:20 pm
Currently ‘porkers leaving’ is at the bottom of the page. *refreshes*
‘Children panicking.’
o_O
posted by Vexworth on 6-7-2008 at 1:35 pm
ored parochial.
O.K. This is how bands choose a name, right?
posted by AMR on 6-7-2008 at 3:20 pm