Apr 24, 2024 19:00:00

CAPTCHAs to prove 'I'm not a robot' are becoming increasingly difficult

When you try to log in to a social networking site, you may be presented with

a CAPTCHA that asks you to click on an image of a pedestrian crossing or decipher distorted text. Advances in technology have made it easier for bots to crack CAPTCHAs, so CAPTCHAs are becoming more and more difficult to counter them, and are finally becoming impossible for humans to solve, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported.

It's Not You. Those 'I Am Not a Robot' Tests Are Getting Harder. - WSJ
https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/captcha-not-robot-tests-harder-5129caf2

You're not dreaming: Those 'I'm not a robot' CAPTCHA tests are getting harder
https://nypost.com/2024/04/23/tech/youre-not-dreaming-those-im-not-a-robot-captcha-tests-are-getting-harder/

CAPTCHA stands for 'Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart' and is used to distinguish between human users and protect websites from harmful bots.

However, advances in AI have made it possible for bots to crack CAPTCHAs with greater accuracy than humans, making it difficult for humans to prove they are human.

'I'm not a robot,' British comedian Jack Whitehall said in his Netflix show 'Settle Down,' 'I'm not a robot. Is this just me or is this test getting harder to do? I've been failing it a bunch of times recently and I'm stuck. Has anyone else had that moment where they think, 'Maybe I'm a robot?''

CAPTCHAs have been

criticized for being 'a way to prove you're American, not human,' because they use designs that are unique to the U.S., such as fire hydrants and traffic lights. However, even tech-savvy people living in the U.S. find CAPTCHAs difficult to solve.

'When I tried to log in, I was asked to choose an apple that grew on a tree, but the CAPTCHA showed a bowl of fruit growing out of a tree, which just seemed insane,' Mustafa Al Hassani, a Houston-based game developer, told the WSJ. 'It looked real, but it was so wrong that I thought I'd hit myself on the head.'

The reason why CAPTCHAs have become more difficult is said to be the emergence of companies that specialize in breaking CAPTCHAs and the emergence of technology that makes it easier to decode distorted characters and identify images. As bots have become able to solve CAPTCHAs easily, more complex CAPTCHAs have been created, such as solving puzzles or rotating objects to make them the correct orientation.

'Frankly, things are going to get weirder and weirder, because you're going to have to do ridiculous things that an AI can't understand,' Kevin Goszczak, CEO and founder of Arkose Labs, which develops CAPTCHA products, told the WSJ.

by Duncan Rawlinson - Duncan.co

Developers are also trying to create CAPTCHAs that only humans can solve. For example, freelance journalist Scott Nover came across a CAPTCHA that showed him an image of a raccoon wearing a jacket and vest, then asked him to choose a bow tie for the raccoon. Although he thought it was a strange CAPTCHA, Nover, who was bored with the mundane task of choosing traffic lights, said it actually motivated him.

In this way, CAPTCHAs have emerged that are difficult but have a first-try success rate of 94.6%.

According to Gosscholk, who is developing such CAPTCHAs, the goal of CAPTCHA development is not to create something that cannot be solved by a robot, but to create something that would be expensive for developers to train AI.

'Software has gotten so good at labeling pictures that we're entering a new era of logic-based CAPTCHAs that test human reasoning,' Goszczak told the Journal.