Well, I'm still somewhat confused ... What stops me, once I've used my "capture" successfully, from then looking up all these codes? OK, I may only be permitted so many at a time ... but where does the capture code come into play here? I just somehow can't connect the two processes of signing up with your details and then using the capture. (Sorry to be so dim about this ...)
-- Carol carol.pearson29@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxOn Wednesday, April 15, 2009 11:46 AM (UK time), George Bell at george@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx said:
They are there to prevent web-bots (Web based robots) signing up automatically. For example, let's take Royal Mail's Post Code Finder. You are an unscrupulous marketing company, and have found a good buyer at number 205 Gigglesprocket Street in Upmarket Town. Stands to reason that there might be other potential buyers in the same street, and you want to send them all a mail shot. However, first you need a valid Post Code, since your reduced price, bulk mail, Royal Mail postal contract demands this. And second, you want to make sure that you don't waste postage sending to non-existent numbers, since it is highly possible that a developer has demolished a number of houses, and built a whacking great shopping centre in the middle somewhere. So, you get your (illegal) software to go to Royal Mail's web site, and one by one automatically look up the Post Codes for say numbers 1 to 500 Gigglesprocket Street, and list all the valid addresses. But while Royal Mail don't mind you and I looking up the occasional Post Code, they sure as heck don't want commercial companies looking up hundreds a day for free, especially when they sell the service on a profit making basis. So in steps the Captcha, designed in such a way as to make it a difficult as possible for even an OCR process to identify, but hopefully clear enough for a sighted human being to read and copy. Of course one can potentially add a speech option for people, but then speech recognition software potentially means you have to distort the sound in some way, yet still make it identifiable by the human ear. Hope this gives you some idea of why this process is used. George. -----Original Message----- From: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carol Pearson Sent: 15 April 2009 11:17 To: Access UK Mailing List Subject: [access-uk] WEB CAPTURES Hi all, From Jill's recent post, it's obvious to me these captures are getting really common in lots of signing up processes. However, I absolutely fail to see the relevance of having this step since, all it seems to prove is that you can add the capture (somehow) to the signing up process. How does this really prove you're who you say you are etc? I'd be interested to learn just why they're used and obviously appear to beeffective and useful.
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