Tuesday, November 13, 2012

You Know Those Jumbled Letter and Number Thingys


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I don't know about you guys, but those things people put on their blog comment area that have what appears to a jumble of unreadable numbers and another even more annoying box that sometimes appears to be numbers (you know the ones) are totally confusing to me.

This one seems to be very popular and I still never get it right on the first try.



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and this one...


reCAPTCHA challenge image


Whenever I try to post my comment on their blog posts (and you know which ones of you have this set up), I spend all afternoon trying to figure out the letters and numbers to prove I'm not a robot and get my comment to post. Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a little about the "all afternoon" part, but even a minute of one failed attempt after another is frustrating, humiliating and time wasting.  

Then I imagine there is a little geeky computer nerd security monitor somewhere out there watching my futile attempts from cyberspace.  Laughing to himself as he thinks he's weeded out yet another robot trying to comment on some poor unsuspecting blog.  Only I'm not a robot!  I'm a real person!

I understand the need to prove I'm a real human and not a robot because I mean who wants a comment from a robot!  Robots have nothing to say.  Absolutely nothing!  I, on the other hand, have plenty of important stuff to say.  

What I don't understand is why are they so darn hard to read.   Even when I put on my super duper 200X magnified reading glasses, I have a hard time deciphering the jumbled mess.  Are robots that smart?

Am I the only one who just can't get it on the first, second or third try?

These little things do seem to "dumb down" after each try until finally, after about 20 million tries (okay, I'm exaggerating again),  I get one like this that even I can understand...



urstupid    123    

Why can't we just start with this one in the first place?

6 comments:

  1. They're getting trickier to read, especially the numbers. It often takes me several tries to get it right when I attempt to comment on my favorite blogs. So annoying. I wonder: are robots getting so clever that the tech people in charge of CAPTCHA are having to get sneakier? I mean really.
    I removed mine from my blog once. It was only a matter of time before my email inbox was bombarded with spam comments. I couldn't take it, so I turned on the CAPTCHA thingy again.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Your blog and Jim's are actually the worst CAPTCHA culprits. Sorry!! I would have it on mine if I got a lot of spam comments which I haven't so far. But on the other hand I should probably just be excited that I got a comment! Even a robot one. : )

      Delete
  2. Very funny - and totally TRUE! I get a little bit of spam in my comment section, but I just hit the delete button, and that takes care of that. I would rather do that a few times a day than have my readers go through alphabet hell.

    If I can't get it by the 2nd try, I ditch the effort.

    Great post!

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Now I'm wondering if I have captchas set up on my comment section since I don't get spam. I never have the boxes come up when I reply to comments. Guess I need to check it...

      Or maybe I just don't recognize when I get spam.... lol

      Delete
  3. I'm laughing at this one! I swear every week I'm threatening to NOT comment on blog posts that have capshas and then theyll be a non-techie blogger who cant figure out how to disable it, and ugh. But it is a big time waste and like you sometimes it takes a few tries for me too. However if you were a robot, I would like to hear what you have to say- c'mon, a Robot would be a great little idioms and stories!

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    1. I think the captcha robots found me and took all the captcha photos off my blog. They don't want to give anyone a chance to study. One thing I have noticed is after writing that post, I have been able to solve the captcha thingy on one try - 4 times already.

      Delete