Subscribe to my space and sci-fi newsletter

When you sign up for my newsletter, you'll get a free sci-fi short story: Starfarer, monthly updates on space science and sci-fi, and updates on my writing projects!

    I won't send you spam or share your email with anyone. Unsubscribe at any time.


    Popular blog posts

  • Total Share: Personal Computer Market Share 1975-2010
  • Monarch Thing-A-Day Challenge!
  • Celebration
  • I love Korean Starcraft
  • Why HTML 5 sucks!
  • Recent forum posts

  • Jeremyreimer.com is live on a new server!
  • My Non-Fiction
  • How is Facebook's Metaverse doing? Worse than buggy, it's lonely, boring, and bleak
  • The History of the ARM chip: Part 3
  • Revisiting Apple's failed Lisa computer, 40 years on
  • Discussion Forum

    Discussion forum

    Kitten Captcha now online!


    Post #: 114
    Post type: Blog post
    Date: 2012-03-05 14:08:25.000
    Author: Jeremy Reimer
    Tags: Software, Monarch

    I was going to do this when I first released Monarch, but it seemed hard so I didn’t actually get around to doing it.

    Until now.

    To prevent spammers that can read even the most twisted words and phrases, I’ve implemented my own version of Kitten Captcha, something I wrote about on Ars way back in 2006 here:
    http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2006/04/6554.ars

    Well, I’ve finally done it. The system displays a bunch of random pictures and a new user has to select all the pictures that are in fact cats. The file names are all randomized so that a spambot can’t just guess what they are, and you have to pick only three out of the ten images so you can’t just select everything.

    I deleted all the spam accounts that OSY 3.0 had accumulated (about 30 of them!) and so we’ll see how this new system works. I hope it both discourages bots and encourages new users due to its being cute and cuddly.

    Here’s a screenshot of the page in action:


    Blendo on 2012-03-06 17:53:45.000

    Seems to work, how about entomological references between different classes, that would keep the slow and clumsy from climbing on board Admiral.

    B

    Jeremy Reimer on 2012-03-07 11:50:37.000

    I can always tweak it later with different types of pictures if I want. For now all I care about is keeping spambots out. If the kittens can Hold The Line against the robots, that's all I ask of them.

    AllYorBaseRBelong2Us on 2012-03-19 19:21:40.000

    This is indubitably a cat:



    :cheesy: HA! HA! HA!

    :sailormoon:

    View this post in the forums

    Views: 7307