What's in a Captcha?

A few years ago I was contacted by a blind tutor that was having difficulty using findAtutor.ca. I was asked to include an audio Captcha (you know, that annoying picture of random letters and characters you are forced to enter to confirm you are a real person and not a spamming computer robot) to make the website more accessible.

This was honestly something I over looked, and having learned a great deal about various disabilities since starting tutoring and the website, I try to be as inclusive as possible for everyone. I set out to look for an audio Captcha, and as part of my search, I tried using them myself. These things are developed (supposedly) to make technology more accessible, so it should make it easier for me, a sighted person, in addition to a visually impaired person, right? Well, not always.

I wasn't able to successfully use any audio Captcha program I found. I went back to the tutor that had requested it in the first place, and she laughed! Yes, she agreed, she found the “accessible” audio Captcha almost as inaccessible as finding a friend to help with a standard visual Captcha. She had figured out how to use findAtutor.ca, and most of her frustrations were related to the lack of familiarity of a new website. She didn't feel it was as much of a priority to include an audio Captcha now that she had everything set up and working for her.

I didn't continue my pursuit of finding an audio Captcha I liked, however it hung in the back of my mind that I really should include an audio option.

About a month ago I was on a trip, and was watching some TED Talks video podcasts for entertainment. I came across a talk by Luis von Ahn about creating Captcha, and his development of a newer version: reCaptcha. Here is the link to the video:

http://www.ted.com/talks/luis_von_ahn_massive_scale_online_collaboration.html

For those who won't bother to watch the video (although I recommend you do, it's very interesting) reCaptcha takes the time you use to enter those so-called annoying words and puts it to practical use. In addition to a challenge word, one word is from a scanned book that a computer text recognition program can't decipher, and uses the most common answer as the transcription for that word. So now in addition to providing security for a website, reCaptcha users are participating in digitizing old printed works. As much as we thought it was cool, we didn't know if we'd go ahead and change our websites over to using reCaptcha.

There are some annoying aspects of running a website, and automated robots for the purpose of spamming is definitely up there on this list of annoyances. Automated programs crawl to sites and try to sign up with accounts so they can post comments linking to all kinds of inappropriate content. Although we strictly control where content can be added and what gets posted publicly on findAtutor.ca, this doesn't stop these automated malicious robots from flooding our websites with bogus accounts. Clearly they've found a way around the Captcha software we're currently using, and it came to the point that it's time for a change.

James tried using reCaptcha on one of his websites, and after a couple of weeks he had NO spam accounts created. Success! (At least for now.) The added bonus is that the audio reCaptcha is... well about as annoying as the visual one, but definitely feels do-able.

I know that completing a Captcha is annoying, but it's a necessary annoyance to protect from spambots, and now you can feel better knowing that you are contributing to digitizing books for future use, and now I can feel better that I finally have a Captcha with an auditory option in addition to the visual one.