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Schneier on Security

2022-12-05 12:10:48


CAPTCHA


CAPTCHA


This is an actual CAPTCHA I was shown when trying to log into PayPal.

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As an actual human and not a bot, I had no idea how to answer. Is this a joke? (Seems not.) Is it a Magritte-like existential question? (It’s not a bicycle. It’s a drawing of a bicycle. Actually, it’s a photograph of a drawing of a bicycle. No, it’s really a computer image of a photograph of a drawing of a bicycle.) Am I overthinking this? (Definitely.) I stared at the screen, paralyzed, for way too long.

It’s probably the best CAPTCHA I have ever encountered; a computer would have just answered.

(In the end, I I treated the drawing as a real bicycle and selected the appropriate squares…and it seemed to like that.)

Tags: authentication, captchas

Posted on December 5, 2022 at 7:10 AM • 11 Comments

Retrieved 2022-12-05: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2022/12/captcha.html

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