It was a simple idea: get internet users to prove their humanity via tasks they can easily complete, but which machines find difficult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Machines were already causing havoc online. Websites were flooded with bots doing things like setting up fake accounts to buy up concert tickets, or posting automated comments to market fake Viagra or to entice users to take part in scams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Companies needed a way to stop this pernicious activity without losing legitimate users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The early versions of Captcha were basic but effective. You\u2019d see wavy, distorted letters and type them into a box. Bots couldn\u2019t \u201cread\u201d the text the way humans could, so websites stayed protected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This went through several iterations in the years ahead: ReCaptcha<\/a> was created in 2007 to add a second element in which you had to also key in a distorted word from an old book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then in 2014 \u2014 by now acquired by Google \u2014 came reCaptcha v2. This is the one that asks users to tick the \u201cI am not a robot\u201d box and often choose from a selection of pictures containing cats or bicycle parts, or whatever. Still the most popular<\/a> today, Google gets paid by companies who use the service on their website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today\u2019s AI systems can solve<\/a> the challenges these Captchas rely on. They can \u201cread\u201d distorted text, so that the wavy or squished letters from the original Captcha tests are easy for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thanks to natural language processing<\/a> and machine learning<\/a>, AI can decode<\/a> even the messiest of words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Similarly, AI tools such as Google Vision<\/a> and OpenAI\u2019s Clip<\/a> can recognise hundreds of objects faster and more accurately than most humans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If a Captcha asks an AI to click all the buses in a picture selection, they can solve it in fractions of a second, whereas it might take a human ten to 15 seconds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This isn\u2019t just a theoretical problem. Consider driving tests: waiting lists for tests in England are many months long, though you can get a much faster test by paying a higher fee to a black-market tout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Guardian reported<\/a> in July that touts commonly used automated software to book out all the test slots, while swapping candidates in and out to fit their ever-changing schedules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In an echo of the situation 20 years ago, there are similar issues with tickets for things such as football matches<\/a>. The moment tickets become available, bots overwhelm the system \u2014 bypassing Captchas, purchasing tickets in bulk and reselling them at inflated prices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Genuine users often miss out because they can\u2019t operate as quickly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Similarly, bots attack social media platforms, e-commerce websites and online forums. Fake accounts spread misinformation, post spam or grab limited items during sales. In many cases, Captcha is no longer able to stop these abuses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Developers are continually coming up with new ways to verify humans. Some systems, like Google\u2019s ReCaptcha v3<\/a> (introduced in 2018), don\u2019t ask you to solve puzzles anymore. Instead, they watch how you interact with a website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Do you move your cursor naturally? Do you type like a person? Humans have subtle, imperfect behaviours that bots still struggle to mimic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not everyone likes ReCaptcha v3 because it raises privacy issues \u2014 plus the web company needs to assess user scores to determine who is a bot, and the bots can beat the system anyway<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are alternatives that use similar logic, such as \u201cslider\u201d puzzles<\/a> that ask users to move jigsaw pieces around, but these too can be overcome<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Slider Captcha:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Some websites are now turning to biometrics to verify humans, such as fingerprint scans or voice recognition<\/a>, while face ID is also a possibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Biometrics are harder for bots to fake, but they come with their own problems \u2013 privacy concerns, expensive tech and limited access for some users, say because they can\u2019t afford the relevant smartphone or can\u2019t speak because of a disability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The imminent arrival of AI agents<\/a> will add another layer of complexity. It will mean we increasingly want bots to visit sites and do things on our behalf, so web companies will need to start distinguishing between \u201cgood\u201d bots and \u201cbad\u201d bots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This area still needs a lot more consideration, but digital authentication certificates<\/a> are proposed as one possible solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In sum, Captcha is no longer the simple, reliable tool it once was. AI has forced us to rethink how we verify people online, and it\u2019s only going to get more challenging as these systems get smarter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whatever becomes the next technological standard, it\u2019s going to have to be easy to use for humans, but one step ahead of the bad actors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So the next time you find yourself clicking on blurry traffic lights and getting infuriated, remember you\u2019re part of a bigger fight. The future of proving humanity is still being written, and the bots won\u2019t be giving up any time soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Irfan Mehmood<\/a>, Associate Professor in Business Analytics and AI, University of Bradford<\/a> and Kamran Mahroof<\/a>, Associate Professor, Supply Chain Analytics, University of Bradford<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The tools designed to prove we’re human are now obstructing us more than the machines they’re supposed to be keeping at bay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":340972,"featured_media":576790,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[92837,18],"tags":[6444,10826,167,40084],"class_list":["post-576788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ai","category-internet","tag-captcha","tag-carnegie-mellon-university","tag-google","tag-recaptcha"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576788"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/340972"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=576788"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576788\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":576793,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576788\/revisions\/576793"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/576790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Old-Captcha-by-Chris-Messina-Flickr-CC-BY.jpg\")
How AI has outgrown the system<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
What\u2019s happening now?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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