[HN Gopher] EU CAPTCHA, an Open Source solution for all Web serv...
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       EU CAPTCHA, an Open Source solution for all Web services
        
       Author : raybb
       Score  : 33 points
       Date   : 2023-09-23 15:46 UTC (7 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (joinup.ec.europa.eu)
 (TXT) w3m dump (joinup.ec.europa.eu)
        
       | kevincox wrote:
       | Wow, these are pretty bad.
       | 
       | The "Sliding CAPTCHA" is simple but tedious to slide the slider
       | to the exact right number.
       | 
       | The "Image rotation CAPTCHA" can be very difficult for some
       | images. (for example I got a wind turbine where the shaft wasn't
       | perfectly vertical in the image, so I had to guess if it should
       | be slightly left or right leaning. I did get it right but I had
       | low confidence)
       | 
       | The "Alphanumeric CAPTCHA" was ok but some of the numbers were
       | fairly obscured. For the one I got (the line ran right though the
       | string, this seems rare, usually it only interacts a few
       | characters).
       | 
       | But not only are these awful for humans it seems like they would
       | be pretty easy to solve for robots. The image one maybe a bit
       | hard, but that was also the least confident for myself.
        
       | redder23 wrote:
       | Java as the only implementation ... well no.
       | 
       | Also found a bug within my first try. The slider asked me to put
       | it BETWEEN 167 and 168 and then putting in on the lower number
       | failed and there was no was to put it between two numbers.
        
       | victorbjorklund wrote:
       | Cringe.
        
       | jokethrowaway wrote:
       | Technically terrible.
       | 
       | It's also an outdated solution, AI does captcha better than
       | humans.
       | 
       | It looks like the EU enjoy so much ruining the web experience of
       | people for no reason, that they feel the need to own a crucial
       | piece of annoyance like a captcha. Weren't GDPR and cookie
       | banners enough damage to the world?
       | 
       | Also, after the Cyber Resiliance Act (aka the biggest threat to
       | the existence of OSS software in eu - all in the name of BS
       | security) the EU are the last people that should talk about open
       | source.
        
         | pomstazlesa wrote:
         | Said jokethrowaway
        
       | noodlesUK wrote:
       | This seems like a laudable project, but when compared with
       | hCaptcha or ReCaptcha, it feels very clunky.
       | 
       | I worry that it will be possible to automate solving it,
       | particularly for the slider ones, which I think could be
       | automated in a straightforward way.
       | 
       | I think with further refinement, it would be possible to build a
       | captcha that respected privacy that was as secure as the leading
       | alternatives. I am just not certain that a captcha is necessarily
       | going to be a workable solution at all as time goes on
       | (especially in light of advances in computer vision and AI more
       | generally).
       | 
       | I think that the crux of the problem is that bots are going to
       | get better and better at solving these kinds of challenges, and
       | humans are pretty much going to stay where they are. I suspect
       | the bots have already caught up.
        
       | VanTheBrand wrote:
       | I was hoping this would be a combination captcha/EU cookie
       | notification. Kill 2 birds with one stone.
        
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       (page generated 2023-09-23 23:02 UTC)