How Useful Is CAPTCHA?

"CAPTCHA", which is trademarked the Carnegie Mellon University, is a short form for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart". It is a test, which helps the computer to differentiate between machines and human beings. It has the capability of creating and grading tests that automatically accepts all humans and rejects all machines.

The idea is that while as humans we can make out a series of distorted letters and numbers, a machine will not be able to make sense of such images. To learn more about how the program works you can visit http://www.protectwebform.com/. There is also a site for our more advanced version of the program at http://www.protectwebform.com/smartcaptcha.

Most website owners find CAPTCHA very useful. Such tests help to prevent programs known as bots. Bots are programs that pretend to be humans and abuse the services of the internet. Bots try to sell or make you sign up for thousands of free mail services. The bots spam your inbox daily. They intrude into common chat rooms to accumulate personal information and publishing links to various sites for promotional benefits.

In addition these bots can put a worm on your system, getting your passwords, and other personal information and taking it back to the Internet for others to use commercially without you even knowing how they got it.

CAPTCHA is a sure shot way of preventing these bots from creating havoc. The CAPTCHA asks the user to recognize the distorted image of letters and numbers usually with a string over a ‘noisy’ background. While it is easy for a human to decipher it, the machine usually cannot. And, that is how CAPTCHA distinguishes between a human user and a computer. Various large and small sites find CAPTCHA quite useful. No wonder, you see them in mail services, banking sites, blogs, chat rooms and similar places.

Spammers send unsolicited messages in bulk to you inbox. These messages are not desirable at all. The most common kind of spam is email spam. However there can be other spam too in the form of usenet newsgroup spam, log spam, search engine spam, instamessaging spam and similar others.

The reason why advertisers resort to spamming is because it does not cost much. They have to bear only the cost of managing the list of individuals that are targeted to receive the mails. Moreover, you cannot hold the sender accountable for the mass mailers they send. Spamming has become really ubiquitous since there are no entry barriers. No wonder your inbox is always flooded with mass mailers.

Usenet spam is a message that can be sent to twenty or more Usenet newsgroups. This kind of spam is usually targeted to those people who visit and read the newsgroups but do not post anything or give any kind of address. This kind of spam inundates the newsgroups with unnecessary advertisement and posts. It also challenges the owner’s ability to accept and manage the topics on the system.

The other kind of spam, which is the email spam usually targets individuals with direct messages. The list of ids that are targeted to spam can be created by scanning postings from Usenet or pilfering with the Internet mailing list. This kind of spamming does incur a little more money.

Oleg is an expert on CAPTCHA design and development. Click to learn more about his revolutionary new CAPTCHA Plugin technology.

Title:
How Useful Is CAPTCHA?
Article Distribution and Free Web Content by www.reprint-content.com

Please Rate this Article

5 out of 54 out of 53 out of 52 out of 51 out of 5 

Not yet Rated