(OT) Google spam reduction: reason

[Christopher]

I just discovered that Google groups is requiring the user to enter
the contents of a picture into a textbox. At least for my first post
of the day. It isn't requiring it for the second (this one). So a
spammer has to man his PC at least once. koodos for Google doing
something, even if it isn't that full proof.

 

[Tim Slattery]

I just discovered that Google groups is requiring the user to enter
the contents of a picture into a textbox. At least for my first post
of the day. It isn't requiring it for the second (this one). So a
spammer has to man his PC at least once. koodos for Google doing
something, even if it isn't that full proof.

That's called a CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing Test to
tell Computers and Humans Apart). It's supposed to make it impossible
for bots to use the page. Unfortunately, CAPTCHAs have now been
broken....

 

[Jerry Coffin]

[ ... ]

There is no proof yet that _Google's_ CAPTCHAs have been broken.

No, but there's pretty solid reason to believe so -- and the amount of
spam seen originating from Google certainly seems to support that
conclusion as well.

 

[Jerry Coffin]

[ ... ]

I thought that the whole CAPTCHA mini-discussion started because the
amount of spam had visibly *reduced* supposedly due to the [recent]
introduction of CAPTCHAs by Google... So, are you seeing the increase
of spam from Google and conclude that the CAPTCHAs have been broken,
while others see no more spam flood, thanks to [still unbroken] Google
CAPTCHAs? Glass is half-something?

Google started out with no CAPTCHA to protect the newsgroup. For a
while, there was a _tremendous_ amount of spam.

They added a CAPTCHA. The result was (is) a lot less spam, but some is
still posted, and the vast majority of the obvious spam still seems to
come through Google.

My conclusion is that there are some (a _few_) "robots" that are capable
of getting past Google's CAPTCHA -- but only a few. This has reduced the
amount of spam drastically, but I think if the CAPTCHA hadn't be broken
at all, the spammers would have moved on to posting via a different host
(I'd say "or given up entirely", but I doubt that'll happen).