Well, if they ignore customers who need help, I may as well steer clear. Thanks. <Grrr!>
-- Carol----- Original Message ----- From: "Vanja Sudar" <vanja@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2008 4:14 PM Subject: [access-uk] Re: CAPTCHAs - was Myspace
I agree with you that there are valid reasons why captas need to be implemented for all the reasons you stated in your message. It sure help reduce spam and bots automatically singing up for services. But there are ways around it. Like you mentioned, audio alternatives and in case of facebook emailing support who gets back to you and sets up an account for you. What OI don't is company like MySpace who totally ignore the issue and just don't provide any solution at all. Even if they emailed people back and said that they are sorry and that they will create an account like facebook or even if they just say that they're sorry that they can't do anything at the moment would be a lot better than just total ignorance like they and some other companies display. As much as I can see a need for visual verification, there's no excuse for totally ignoring the issue either.Vanja http://www.sudar.co.uk http://mashupradio.net MSN/windows live messenger: sudar23@xxxxxxxxxxx AIM: vanja121 Skype: vanja121----- Original Message ----- From: "Tristram Llewellyn" <tristram.llewellyn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>To: <access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2008 3:29 PM Subject: [access-uk] CAPTCHAs - was Myspace I don't want anyone to get the idea I am defending faceless corporations like MySpace, Google etc. but the issues that lie behind the use of CAPTCHA technology is a very real one and not some random or not so random attempt at excluding the visually impaired population. On the one hand these online services are under very serious attack from botnets trying to harvest information which if successful can hurt all of us. On the other hand it is really very difficult to find a text only method of telling a human apart from a computer or bot or otherwise automated information gathering mechanism. So far as I know nobody has been able to come up with a purely textual method for telling a human apart from a computer (sort of a Turing test but from the point of view of the computer doing the sorting out). For now different organisations have found different ways around eg. using audio CAPTCHA or in some cases some other intevention that can catch these difficult cases. I think sometimes when people are confronted with this difficulty or similer end up throwing around terms like DDA and "discrimination" quite liberally without realising that there is another side to the equation. Whilst the frustration at not being able to do what is important is very real, the issues that lie behind the CAPTCHA are also too and this is behind what people perceive as inertia to do something. I speak from personal experience of having difficulty with the visual CAPTCHAs with my level of sight and it is not as if I am unaware of the difficulty from a user perspective either. There are also some really stupidly implemented CAPTCHAS which are so easy that an OCR program as part of a determined attempt would break the system (and indeed have). Audio CAPTCHAs are only a partial solution and again speech recognition being as advanced as it is can also be used in order to break the CAPTCHA system as well. Regards. Tristram Llewellyn tristram.llewellyn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Technical Support Sight and Sound Technology ** To leave the list, click on the immediately-following link:- ** [mailto:access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=unsubscribe] ** If this link doesn't work then send a message to: ** access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx ** and in the Subject line type ** unsubscribe ** For other list commands such as vacation mode, click on the ** immediately-following link:- ** [mailto:access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=faq] ** or send a message, to ** access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the Subject:- faq ** To leave the list, click on the immediately-following link:- ** [mailto:access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=unsubscribe] ** If this link doesn't work then send a message to: ** access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx ** and in the Subject line type ** unsubscribe ** For other list commands such as vacation mode, click on the ** immediately-following link:- ** [mailto:access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=faq] ** or send a message, to ** access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the Subject:- faq
** To leave the list, click on the immediately-following link:- ** [mailto:access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=unsubscribe] ** If this link doesn't work then send a message to: ** access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx ** and in the Subject line type ** unsubscribe ** For other list commands such as vacation mode, click on the ** immediately-following link:- ** [mailto:access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=faq] ** or send a message, to ** access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the Subject:- faq
