why are they so hard to read?

Why are the captcha security words that you have to enter on some forms so hard to read? For example, the feedburner sign up form for emails. A lot of times they look like squiggly lines and I am suppose to be able to read it and enter the word in the input box in order to complete the transaction. Why do they need to make it so difficult to read? Do they think that bots won’t be able to read it or something? What is the logic behind this annoying trend of almost unreadable text? Sometimes I have to refresh the word 5 or more times until it comes up with some random readable word.

I’ve noticed they’ve gotten more difficult lately. I don’t know if it is because the bots have gotten smarter, or if they have already run out of easy ones from the books they are digitizing. I have had to refresh a few times on the last couple I’ve done.

I guess almost every time. It’s pretty ridiculous.

Putting special symbols on them is too far.

fillerspace said
I’ve noticed they’ve gotten more difficult lately. I don’t know if it is because the bots have gotten smarter, or if they have already run out of easy ones from the books they are digitizing. I have had to refresh a few times on the last couple I’ve done.

I’d say you were right with the first part, bots are becoming more advanced. I saw an article on it recently which was fairly detailed, I’ll try and dig it out + post the link.

This is what happened to me when TinyPic enabled CAPTCHA . That was also the day I stopped using TinyPic and jumped to imgur.

Some friends even told me I should post this on digg.it and it would become popular. Meh..

I have had some that I couldn’t refresh to get a new code. I just had to keep doing it until it went through

I had a good look into replacing reCaptcha with something new on our signin/signup forms, unfortunately they’re one of the most effective methods of anti-spam prevention. Most other methods out there are too easy to bypass.

Also, perhaps you don’t realise.. but by solving a captcha you’re also contributing to the conversion of printed documents into digital form: http://www.google.com/recaptcha/learnmore

well Ian, that is an interesting article. I knew there had to be a good reason for those strange words. Thanks for posting the article

crozer said
This is what happened to me when TinyPic enabled CAPTCHA . That was also the day I stopped using TinyPic and jumped to imgur.

Some friends even told me I should post this on digg.it and it would become popular. Meh..

My wife (a doctor) says that this is what bones are made of (tricalcium phosphate). I’m not sure how they expect you to enter the subscripts. Ca₃(PO₄)₂?