Wednesday, December 20, 2006


CAPTCHAs Don’t Work?


Maybe it’s just because I’m a blogger who never posts (okay, that’s almost certainly it) but recent arguments that CAPTCHAs have failed as a means of stopping blog comment spam befuddle me. Honestly, I used to get dozens of comment spams a day (sometimes hundreds) and since implementing CAPTCHAs I get maybe one a month. It’s true that I get almost no legitimate comments either, but like I said, that’s mostly because I wrote maybe a dozen real entries in all of 2006…


:: Dave Walker 13:08 (EST/EDT) [+]

:: [/tech/computers/internet]
:: tags:

:: Comments (4)

Comments:

Hans wrote:

Title:

Date: 12/20/2006 15:22:06

Response:
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Sorry, couldn't resist :)
Randy Charles Morin wrote:

Title:

Date: 12/20/2006 17:44:44

Response:
I don't see the argument that CAPTCHAs don't stop blog comment spam. For certain they do. Most of the blog comment spam is automated. Today along I think i got in the 10 of thousands of automated and easily detected and deleted blog comment spam. A simple CAPTCHA would have reduced that to zero. But that same CAPTCHA would've reduced my total comments to near zero also. You have to understand that most people don't even know what a CAPTCHA is and basically leave when they are presented with one.
d.w. wrote:

Title:

Date: 12/21/2006 10:09:46

Response:
I used to think that maybe I was killing too many potential comments with the CAPTCHA barrier to entry, but then, my mom posted a comment, and hey, if it's not too scary for Mom, then it can't be too bad, right?

Hans: :)
Gordon Weakliem wrote:

Title:

Date: 1/2/2007 23:23:23

Response:
Randy: "For certain they do" My weblog (CAPTCHAs and all) is an existence proof against that claim. Next time I get hit with a spam wave, would you volunteer to clean it up for me? Exhibit B: both Brad Wilson and Peter Provost (we share a server and the same .Text installation) disabled comments. Even with CAPTCHAs, they were spending way too much time deleting spam comments.



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