Do you get around the blogosphere much? Outside of AOL, I mean. If you have, you've no doubt come across the requirement to copy a "verification word" into a text box in order to post a comment on someone's blog.
The verification word is a common security feature used to prevent comment spam in the comment threads of weblogs, or online journals. The reasoning is that a computer program designed to automatically post comments in hundreds, or thousands of blogs per day would be unable to read the verification word because it is not created by text generation utilities, but is an image. Reading it requires real eyes.
As a spam reduction technique, I believe it works fairly well, so far. Perhaps someone who employs it on their blog could leave a comment here with their experience.
(10:00PM - edited to add) Emily comments, "why do the letters have to be distorted as long as they're presented as an image?"
Emily, I believe it is to defeat OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software that is commonly used to convert scanned copy or faxes to electronic text documents.
I have a question, though. Do these verification words have to be that many letters long? I mean seriously, if a web bot can't read it because it's an image file instead of a block of text, does it matter if it's four letters or fourteen?
Between the skewed shaping of the letters, and the textured background, some of these things can be a mite difficult to read. Who hasn't had the following experience?
"Please enter verification word in text box"I'm just sayin'.
OK, lessee...eks, bee, kyoo, is that a vee or a you? Jay, zee, ess, tee, jay, ell, em, ee...I think...pee, ell, kyoo, eks, Enter.
"You have entered an incorrect verification word. Please try again."
Damn! OK, what is it this time? Uh...bee, cee, em, aitch, or is that a kay? Double-you, why, dee, vee, zee, eks, why, oh, ess, kyoo, where was I? Kay, I think, jay, aitch, em. Enter.
"You have entered an incorrect verification word. Please try again."
God damn it, I did not! I typed it right, damn you! OK, one more time. Aitch, kay, oh, ell, gee, kyoo, ee, are, ess, ess, en, jay, eks, bee...um...pee, jay, tee, ell, are, gee, kyoo. Enter.
"You have attempted to post a comment more than two times within one minute. As an anti-spam security feature, you will now be prevented from commenting for thirty minutes. Please try again later."
As if. Screw you, blog boy. You weren't going to like what I had to say, anyway. See ya.
tags:Blogging
7 comments:
You sample made me think of the word, "Frust."
Which, according to the book, The Meaning of Liff, is defined as that line of dust that never ever gets picked up by the broom and dustpan when you sweep the floor.
Now THAT is a damned funny read.
Simon
http://simianfarmer.com
I haven't had one spam comment since I started using the verification word. But I've sure botched a few attempts at posting comments on others' blogs. Shortening the words sounds reasonable to me. And, if it's all about using an image as opposed to text, why do the letters have to be distorted as long as they're presented as an image?
http://saveasecretaryfrominsanity.blogspot.com
I am right with you, Paul. Drives me nuts.
What bothers me more is that I have to have an account at blogger, etc., just to post a comment.
Charley
http://journals.aol.com/cdittric77/courage
Charley,
Many of my friends (who are not AOL members) make the same complaint about my journal.
-Paul
Yes, there are times when the software thinks I didn't get the alphabet salad right. But it's totally worth it to me. I don't think I've ever failed on the second try. Yes, though, I rejoice at the five letter ones, and groan at the eight or nine letter ones. Fewer than five, and OCR wiuld probably have a fair chance at defeating it.
On the members-only issue: having a Blogger account just to comment is an annoying extra step, but it's just a one-time thing, and it's free. Think of it as a way to store your online persona to Blogger, to save you time and trouble later. Disallowing anonymous comments is another way to try to defeat comment spam - and I had to do it on my fiction blog for that very reason. I haven'tchecked it on the regular blog, though--yet!
Karen
http://outmavarin.blogspot.com
I have an aol journal and i mirror it to blogspot. (this due to having heard how aol lost someones 18mo. journal).. anyway I hate those letters so I didn't use them.. low and behold i got a spammer.. once a day.. i delt with it.. then twice a day.. i used the mode where i had to post or reject the comments... the spammer didn't stop.. it got up to 8 times a day with the same "comment".. i kept rejecting them but tired quickly of spending so much of my day opening that email and then having to reject it.. so now i am using "those letters".. first day and no spam.. if it works i guess i can't complain... but it does put a damper on leaving comments in others when I am the one using those dang letters!!
Ya funnyfunny! lol! I like the part where the computer says "we already have a natalie..so you are incorrect... You don't exist! lol
going in anonymously sometimes helps..lol
natalie
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