Most people who use the internet have encountered a CAPTCHA. It is that verification that asks the person to enter the letters and/or numbers to confirm that the site user indeed is a human - and not a bot. CAPTCHA stands for ‘completely automated public turing test to tell computers and humans apart’. From that comes the acronym ‘captcha’. One use of CAPTCHAs is try to control spammers. Although it is not the only use of CAPTCHAs, its function in fighting spam is most well known.

Going beyond CAPTCHAs, one researcher at Microsoft is considering using kittens to limit spam:

“…Kevin Larson, a researcher at Microsoft’s advanced reading technologies group, has found that asking a user to identify the subject of a photo, like a kitten, could help block spam programs.”

link: Kittens Could Solve Spam

As the idea is developed further, hopefully the limitations of the human are kept in mind. Sometimes, the letter and numbers that require identifying are so distorted that it is difficult to enter a correct sequence. Not only does it thwart a computer, it thwarts the human too. Perhaps kittens will be easier…

Catherine Forsythe

[tags]captcha, spam, microsoft, bots, security[/tags]