Verification Nomenclature

[yankeeharp]

When you go sign up at a website and they want you to read a line of distorted looking letters and numbers that humans can read but machines can't so they can tell if you're a human and not a robot, what do they call the line of distorted letters and numbers and what do they call the whole process of authenticating humanness by returning a correct interpretation of distorted numbers and letters?

[sidney]

what do they call the line of distorted letters and numbers and what do they call the whole process of authenticating humanness by returning a correct interpretation of distorted numbers and letters?

That's called a CAPTCHA, an acronym for

Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart.

You can read more than you probably want to know about it in this Wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captcha).

-- sidney

[Judy G. Russell]

I'll be darned... I had no idea what it was called... but I love it!

[fhaber]

I didn't know that, either! I'm amused to learn that the origins of that twisted, distorted and partially crossed-out text are the inverse of what some scanner manual recommended in 1999.

This brings to mind some evil, low-tech techniques for "cryptography on paper, in plain sight." Just cut and paste all your documents, physically. Then photocopy them onto gelatin and float in a tub of water. Stretch. Dry.

Now scribble on them with a crayon. Scatter the documents out of order in the stairwell, then walk on them for a week.

Wait a minute. Sounds like some galleys I had to read several years ago.

[yankeeharp]

That's called a CAPTCHA, an acronym for

Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart.

You can read more than you probably want to know about it in this Wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captcha).

-- sidneyI found it fascinating. Thanks very much.

[Lindsey]

I didn't know that, either! I'm amused to learn that the origins of that twisted, distorted and partially crossed-out text are the inverse of what some scanner manual recommended in 1999.
I got a kick out of this from the article on the Turing test:

Documented cases [of people being fooled into thinking they are talking to a human, when they're really talking to a computer] are usually in environments such as Internet Relay Chat where conversation is sometimes stilted and meaningless, and in which no understanding of a conversation is necessary, are common.
:confused: Engaging in IRC doesn't really require that you understand the conversation that you are having, or that there be any meaning behind it anyway?? I guess that explains some of the messages I see on the CompuServe message boards from chat-types, though.

--Lindsey

[Judy G. Russell]

Wait a minute. Sounds like some galleys I had to read several years ago.ROFL!!! Or some student papers I've had to grade...

[Judy G. Russell]

:confused: Engaging in IRC doesn't really require that you understand the conversation that you are having, or that there be any meaning behind it anyway?? I guess that explains some of the messages I see on the CompuServe message boards from chat-types, though.<splutter> Now STOP THAT. I mean, who's gonna clean up the monitor from my spitting a mouthful of tea while laughing???

[Dan in Saint Louis]

student papers I've had to grade...
And this is time of year they all come rolling in. The students gripe about how much homework they have (one lab report a week?) and forget that for every one they write, I must grade 30.

[Judy G. Russell]

And this is time of year they all come rolling in. The students gripe about how much homework they have (one lab report a week?) and forget that for every one they write, I must grade 30.Oh yeah... and by the time the last few cross my desk, I'm tempted to do what my father always claimed he did with papers when he taught at the Colorado School of Mines: throw them up the stairs and the one that landed on the top stair got an A, second stair got a B...