Meriem Guerar, a researcher at the University of Genoa, Italy, offered a simpler explanation for the poor quality of the images. “The challenge presents often noisy and blurry images in order to make it harder to recognize, for bots using state-of-the-art image recognition technologies,” says Guerar, who has coauthored papers with Migliardi on captcha. “Noise, distraction of images, making them blurry, these are known as anti-recognition mechanisms.”
Sometimes the captchas are flat-out wrong. Charles Bergquist said he felt a mix of amusement and frustration when he was asked to pick parking meters, was denied when he chose the one meter shown, and could only solve the puzzle by selecting the meter and two mailboxes. “It was frustrating that I couldn't get by it to get into the page that I wanted without feeding back incorrect information,” says Bergquist, who is director of NPR’s Science Friday radio program.
Goofs like this are frequently discussed on social media or the /r/captcha Reddit group that finds comedy in bad captchas. Another Reddit group, /r/CaptchaArt, with nearly 20,000 members, incorporates captchas into cartoons and other art.
Since captchas aren’t going away anytime soon, here are some tips to lower the frustration level with the captcha-solving process.
Remember, Captchas Provide Protection
It might be small comfort if you are stymied by a poor puzzle, but captchas are designed to protect the websites you visit, and ultimately you.< ..
Support the originator by clicking the read the rest link below.
