Wednesday, May 23, 2012

What I Heard

You may have noticed the "prove you're not a robot" word has been replaced by two words.  The system is called "Captcha."

The basic idea is, a random, known image is created and you have to type in what the computer created.  If it matches, then a person typed it.  I have heard that you can be "close" (off by one letter) and still be accepted, but I haven't tested this myself.

The second word is the fun (read: nerd-friendly) part.  It's not a known word.  It's part of a project to scan in old books.  When the computer has a problem with a word or letter combination, it's put into the Captcha system as the second word.  It then tallies what humans think it is, and figures out the letter(s) by consensus.

We're all unpaid labour.  I'm not sure how I feel about this yet.  Am I part of a great endeavour, or am I being forced to supply my time and effort for free?




2 comments:

  1. do you have a source for the factoid about the captcha system?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Google

    captcha two words

    and ye shall find.

    ReplyDelete

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