this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2024
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Anyone who has been surfing the web for a while is probably used to clicking through a CAPTCHA grid of street images, identifying everyday objects to prove that they're a human and not an automated bot. Now, though, new research claims that locally run bots using specially trained image-recognition models can match human-level performance in this style of CAPTCHA, achieving a 100 percent success rate despite being decidedly not human.

ETH Zurich PhD student Andreas Plesner and his colleagues' new research, available as a pre-print paper, focuses on Google's ReCAPTCHA v2, which challenges users to identify which street images in a grid contain items like bicycles, crosswalks, mountains, stairs, or traffic lights. Google began phasing that system out years ago in favor of an "invisible" reCAPTCHA v3 that analyzes user interactions rather than offering an explicit challenge.

Despite this, the older reCAPTCHA v2 is still used by millions of websites. And even sites that use the updated reCAPTCHA v3 will sometimes use reCAPTCHA v2 as a fallback when the updated system gives a user a low "human" confidence rating.

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[–] PenisDuckCuck9001@lemmynsfw.com 31 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (2 children)

I fucking hate these. I've seen old people that don't know any better get stuck on these for at least 30 minutes.

[–] pyre@lemmy.world 17 points 8 hours ago (3 children)

it's super ableist. if someone has poor vision or colorblindness chances are they're going to miss things.

[–] daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

They offer a sound option right below.

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[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 33 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Aren't these Captchas designed to get training data for AI models anyway?

"System does what it was designed to do" doesn't feel that surprising...

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[–] rainman@lemmy.myserv.one 12 points 10 hours ago (5 children)

I fail more of those checks then these AI bots do. Surreal.

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[–] mosiacmango@lemm.ee 82 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (8 children)

This is actually a good sign for self driving. Google was using this data as a training set for Waymo. If AI is accurately identifying vehicles and traffic markings, it should be able to process interactions with them easier.

[–] iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works 63 points 1 day ago (5 children)

As I understand it, the point of those captchas was never really "bots can't identify these things" (though you're right on that it was used to train). They use cursor movement, clicks, and other behaviours while you're solving it to detect if you are a bot or not.

[–] Grimy@lemmy.world 31 points 1 day ago

The image choosing was always just to train their own bots

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[–] grue@lemmy.world 30 points 1 day ago

The annoying thing is that they held us hostage for our free labor, but the results are proprietary for Google's benefit only.

That training data ought to be forced to be made freely available to the public, since we're the ones who actually created it.

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[–] sirico@feddit.uk 34 points 1 day ago (4 children)

When it's asking for motorcycles but it's clearly a scooter

[–] ripcord@lemmy.world 24 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Or, like, "there's the bottom 10% of a traffic light in this one. Do I click that box? Ia that supposed to count?"

[–] toddestan@lemm.ee 7 points 19 hours ago (8 children)

What they are doing is comparing your answer and seeing if it is consistent with how it has been answered previously. They realize that not everyone is going to give the exact same answer, so as long as you answer it in a way that enough other people have answered it, it should let you in.

I'll usually go with the minimum number of clicks that I think will get me through, since I'm lazy and it'll also at times slow down how fast you can click which is annoying.

I'll also answer them wrong if I think it's a mistake that enough other people will make. "Yes... that RV over there is a bus..."

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[–] jayandp@sh.itjust.works 17 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

That tip of a handle bar that makes you wonder if that square counts or not.

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 2 points 10 hours ago

Does it count when the AI driving the car clips it?

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[–] dumbass@leminal.space 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I had one with one of those Motorcycles with the long handles, apparently they aren't part of the bike, but the dudes foot holding it up is.

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 2 points 10 hours ago

I think the reason AI are better than humans is that the AI is just as stupid as the image classifier.

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[–] superkret@feddit.org 26 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Wait, so if a visitor fails the v3 Captcha, v2 is used as a fallback?
That makes absolutely no sense.

[–] cygnus@lemmy.ca 27 points 1 day ago

V3 isn't necessarily more effective than V2, it's just less obtrusive.

[–] schizo@forum.uncomfortable.business 20 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Not quite: it'll drop a v2 captcha for you to solve when a v3 one can't clearly classify you one way or another.

So if v3 isn't entirely sure you're human, it'll make you do a v2.

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[–] the_post_of_tom_joad@sh.itjust.works 10 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Thank God this means i can stop wondering if i should click on the... the 13 pixels from the fucking bike in that one corner square or wondering if i should count the scooter as a motorcycle fuck i am so tired of that shit

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[–] communism@lemmy.ml 68 points 1 day ago (3 children)

And yet I can't beat the CAPTCHAs because reCAPTCHA doesn't like VPNs lol

I was going to say I’ve straight up just left whatever website I was trying to access because I was stuck in some endless loop of clicking on street crossings, buses, bikes, and street lights.

[–] Draconic_NEO@lemmy.world 22 points 18 hours ago

Captcha these days isn't even really a CAPTCHA in the traditional sense since most of the work it does is based on filtering of IP and browser fingerprinting, with a certain level of gamification because the goal is not just to keep out the people they fight against, but to waste their time, would work great if it didn't waste normal people's time, while real bad actors have easy ways to get around it.

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[–] samus12345@lemmy.world 50 points 1 day ago (2 children)

So can we stop using those damn things? They're super annoying!

[–] ohellidk@sh.itjust.works 16 points 1 day ago

I'm kind of hoping the AI permanently beats them. I hate them too.

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[–] pixxelkick@lemmy.world 41 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Well yeah, I'd hope so, that's the entire point.

Catcha's data collection always was with the intent for training ai on these skills. That's "the point" of them.

It's reasonable to expect that the older version of captchas can now be beaten by modern ai, because they're often literally trained on that exact data to beat it.

Captcha effectively is free to use on websites as a tool because the data collection is the "payment", they then license that data out to people like OpenAI to train with for stuff like image recognition.

It's why ai is progressing so fast, captchas are one of humanity's long term collected data silos that are very full now.

We are going to have to keep progressing the complexity of catches as it will be the only way to catch modern AIs, and in turn it will collect more data to improve it.

[–] UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 3 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) (4 children)

We are going to have to keep progressing the complexity of catches as it will be the only way to catch modern AIs, and in turn it will collect more data to improve it.

I wanted to use 4chan alot before I came here, but FUCK that slider capcha. I bailed after the first time I didn't pass.

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[–] tarius@lemmy.ml 26 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Buster is awesome to get past recaptcha. I use it with my own Speech to Text API key since its free from Google. Using Google to beat Google.

https://github.com/dessant/buster

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[–] JoMomma@lemm.ee 22 points 1 day ago (5 children)

But, I cannot pass those 50% of the time... what does that mean?

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[–] cheddar@programming.dev 17 points 1 day ago

My score is lower.

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 16 points 16 hours ago

Cool, so can Google shut it down now?

[–] GoofSchmoofer@lemmy.world 16 points 12 hours ago (5 children)

I can see a future where the Internet is completely run by bots and AI to the point where no human actually uses the Internet anymore.

It's like an island that gets overrun with rats - there are just too many to deal with so you leave.

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[–] TommySoda@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I mean, we literally train them by completing the CAPTCHAs. Why do you think you were picking things like bikes, traffic lights, cars, and busses? The only question now is what's next...

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