[jr2]

Question, would it be feasible to code a small, cross-platform program (java? possibly loaded from web page?) that accepts the first part of a validation code generated by an algorithm on user ID and registration date + time (manually, or automatically from its launch, for later use), then basically takes a user through a simple, 30-second game, and then, on completion, performs a calculation on the first code entered and displays a user account registration verification code (and possibly, copies that code to the clipboard for convenience?).

Would that eliminate the bot issue?  I mean, you could still manually register bots, however, I think, if the game was half-way interesting and a bit fun, no one would mind and it would kill the auto-bot registrations.  Thoughts?

Yeah, I know... someone would have to code it, and I can't code. 

[Fury]

Not everyone has java, and not everyone wants to even install it.

I'm thinking animated gif would work well. Let's say you have one randomly selected word, you generate an animated gif that has that word. The word moves around slowly and there is animated noise included. Bots would have very hard time deciphering that, but it would be easily readable to people. Of course you need roughly a dozen of such gifs. Then enforce captcha on people that have 2 posts or less. Should work much better than any randomly generated static image. Creating animated gifs should be fairly simple to a lot of people here.

[Mongoose]

As long as it's more readable than that ReCaptcha nonsense.  It's like trying to decipher moon runes.

[mjn.mixael]

As long as it's more readable than that ReCaptcha nonsense.  It's like trying to decipher moon runes.

 

[Fury]

As long as it's more readable than that ReCaptcha nonsense.  It's like trying to decipher moon runes.

Depends on who creates the gifs. But such gifs should be very much readable as long as the pixels are kept in move and some noise added in the mix. Of course it won't prevent chinese from registering and posting, but any automated process should have difficulties with such captcha. The best thing about it is that animated gifs are relatively easy to make.

Actually, if someone wants to make a dozen of these gifs, I'm pretty sure admins would be more than thrilled to add them in the same day.

[jr2]

How about a line drawing with the text / numbers inside it?  I mean, basically, only one line of data is present on the screen at a time, but the refresh rate is 60 hz or something.


            Scan goes down, displaying only one line at a time, however, scan rate (Hz) is high enough to produce the illusion of a sequence of numbers / characters to the viewer.  This way, bots can't individually take each separate part of the .gif (which is a sequence of images) and try OCR on the ones that produce legible results.

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Thoughts?

[The E]

Sounds like a good idea.

[karajorma]

Something like this perhaps then?

http://diaspora.hard-light.net/images/other/ScrewYouBots.gif

Probably a little smaller though.

[zookeeper]

Uh... well, frankly, it takes about 20 seconds to get to the part where you actually see the text, it goes by very quickly and is not very legible.

[karajorma]

Like I said, a bit shorter/smaller.

[jr2]

I think the shorter/smaller version of that should work nicely, esp. considering that the entire text required for verification never appears in its entirety in any frame.

[Fury]

[mjn.mixael]

I saw the conversation on #SCP. I can try to whip a couple up.