Re: New verification word files on craigslist.com

  • From: "Yardbird" <yardbird@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2008 15:17:45 -0700

Bruce,

thanks. As I see you've figured out, that's what I was trying to discern. 
Now that makes me curious to go to CL and go through the motions of posting 
an ad just to see what comes up and how bad it is. Well, maybe I won't 
actually. Kind of busy. But now I really do wonder what it sounds like. If 
it's really incomprehensible, I'll have to go back to my old workaround of 
sending text for the headline and the post along with instructions to a good 
friend with good vision with whom I share my User ID and pass, and have him 
post the thing so that all I have to do is receive the email with the last 
step and finish publishing it. Which works, of course, but it was awfully 
nice to be able to do that on my own for a while after they finally 
introduced the audio option. Actually, it was a lot nicer than that before 
they started using a CAPTCHA in the first place.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bruce Toews" <KetchupBoy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, June 22, 2008 2:26 PM
Subject: Re: New verification word files on craigslist.com


What people have been trying to say, Joel, is that the audio captcha used
there has changed and is more difficult to understand than it used to be.

Bruce

-- 
An accessible captcha solution that does not take into account the needs
of the deaf-blind is no acceptable solution at all.

Bruce Toews
Skype ID: o.canada
E-mail and MSN/Windows Messenger: KetchupBoy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
LiveJournal: http://masterofmusings.livejournal.com
Web Site (including info on my weekly commentaries): http://www.ogts.net
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On Sun, 22 Jun 2008, Yardbird wrote:

> Cal,
>
> I guess you've never before encountered a CAPTCHA of any kind? If so, 
> sorry.
> The topic is discussed on the blind tech support lists frequently, so I
> didn't imagine this was a new and unpleasant surprise for you. The Audio
> Challenge? I don't remember it being called that on CL, but maybe they've
> labeled the audio CAPTCHA like that recently or I never noticed.
>
> Anyway, what I'm trying to figure out is if you're experienced with this
> sort of thing but you're complaining that the CL one just got weirder, or
> it's just the first time you're encountering one of these and it just is 
> too
> hard for you to make sense of. Which is it? I'm not being unsympathetic,
> please understand. I just want to figure out where you're coming from.
>
> As far as making the characters Jaws friendly, I tried to explain in my
> recent post that the reason the characters are *not* HTML text that 
> anyone,
> sighted or screen reader user, can recognize, is specifically because the
> misshapen characters are meant to defeat automated programs using optical
> character recognition (like what Open Book and other OCR program use) to
> read them. As I said, the audio version is supposed to be a helpful
> *alternative* to the visual one. When they call it a challenge, I don't
> think they mean it to be challenging anyone but automated bots trying to
> break into their system. They aren't intending to challenge you, too!
>
> Sorry.
> From: "Cal" <yesitscal@xxxxxxxxx>
> To: <jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Sunday, June 22, 2008 1:32 PM
> Subject: Re: New verification word files on craigslist.com
>
>
> The audio challenge is too garbled for me to understand.  I just went to
> EBay.com and they have the same thing.  E-mailed CL, but don't expect a
> response...
>
> So, if they make the text readable with a screen-reading program, that 
> would
> also make it easy for spammers to pick up with their automated programs?
> Just trying to understand this concept.
>
> --
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