Dear Escapist: Can you please restrict captchas to account registration?

[McMullen]

Just takes one spam bot getting through to have a forum full of pen15es all over the place, sorry guys. I'll see what else, if anything, we can do though...

Even so, why continue giving challenges to members with hundreds of posts? If it really is because of a concern over old members getting hacked, then why do pubclub members not get them? They can be hacked just as easily as free members. That's probably where the suspicion about captchas being a tool to push people to pubclub comes from, because your reasoning there is inconsistent.

What prompted the switch to Solvemedia? I can see here that not everyone liked recaptchas, but they at least loaded, did so quickly, and could be refreshed if they were unreadable.

Also, as another poster said, the solvemedia captchas don't seem too picky about the response given, which would seem to mean that they are ineffective as spambot protection.

I'm not nerd raging here, I just see a flaw with the site that need not be there, and I'm trying to find out if there actually is good reasoning behind it. So far I see none, so I'm asking questions.

 

[McMullen]

Just takes one spam bot getting through to have a forum full of pen15es all over the place, sorry guys. I'll see what else, if anything, we can do though...

Even so, why continue giving challenges to members with hundreds of posts? If it really is because of a concern over old members getting hacked, then why do pubclub members not get them? They can be hacked just as easily as free members. That's probably where the suspicion about captchas being a tool to push people to pubclub comes from, because your reasoning there is inconsistent.

What prompted the switch to Solvemedia? I can see here that not everyone liked recaptchas, but they at least loaded, did so quickly, and could be refreshed if they were unreadable.

Also, as another poster said, the solvemedia captchas don't seem too picky about the response given, which would seem to mean that they are ineffective as spambot protection.

I'm not nerd raging here, I just see a flaw with the site that need not be there, and I'm trying to find out if there actually is good reasoning behind it. So far I see none, so I'm asking questions.

Long standing users are not immune to rage-spamming the site. It's not often, but it tends to be much, much worse, content-wise. If you've not seen one, you're lucky, and also, you're welcome

Captchas are like barbed wire around a base; it slows spam/flood attempts so our Mods and Staff can respond to the particular tactic (and yes, spammers adapt - it's done by humans actively running and modifying the software these days; mostly scams run by crime syndicates as side income) and clean it up with minimal damage. That streaming TV site spam attack a short while back? Relatively large attack, hitting from multiple countries and including compromised data networks in the US and UK. That you guys saw maybe 30 posts make it through was partly because they ran into Captcha #1, altered their bot program but ran into Captcha #2, but by then the Mods recognized it as a big attack and picked up the Batphone to summon the Tech Team on the weekend.

As for why the PubClub don't see captchas? It's not the only reason, but generally people are less likely to treat something badly that they paid for themselves.

Regarding the switch, all I can say is we do track the captcha failure rates, and the reports about the chinese characters, math equations, and other strange symbols. We're also watching for problems with the protective aspect as well.

 

[requisitename]

I prefer the SolveMedia. I had hell reading the previous ones (my brain doesn't parse squished text on ink blots well for some reason).

I've never had to reload either kind more than once.. and I only had to do that roughly twice with the other ones. It just takes maybe five extra seconds for me to post.

I'm cool with them.

 

[Brandon237]

accounts get hacked
hacked account spam
profit

sorry no dice.

BUT i agree they should do them less. Had to do it every second post earlier, which wasn't great.

The chance of having your account hacked on a small site like the Escapist unless you are a monumental moron with how you give out your password is so slim that seeing the occasional spam would be a lot less inconvenient than having to do captcha every 3 posts >.<

Seriously, after 500 posts, kill the bastard.

I'm probably going off topic here but, we're a small site? I'd probably agree a couple years ago, but I kinda feel like it's gotten sorta big a little while ago. Might just be me though.

We are not small per se, but we are definitely not a large target. There are many forums and sites that allow posting of comments that are larger than the Escapist, if someone wanted to turn a poster into a spam bot, The Escapist certainly would not be high on their list. We are, for a professionally run site with news, forums, videos and the works, quite small and low-priority for teh spammmerz.

 

[McMullen]

quite small and low-priority for teh spammmerz.

Except for 4chan and Lulzsec, ha...

 

[Daft Ghosty]

I've run into a few people that are having problems with the captcha showing up for them too. Can you look into what may be the problem? Maybe browser, or a java problem?

 

[Brandon237]

quite small and low-priority for teh spammmerz.

Except for 4chan and Lulzsec, ha...

They basically just tried to screw us around for a few days, then lost interest and the rate of spam, account hacks and other crap that the captcha aims to prevent the effects of went back down to levels that make the captcha unnecessary. While I can understand having it when there is a storm brewing (like when Lulzsec pulled their nonsense), most days the captcha just wastes time and makes many reloads necessary. And the solve-media ones are gradually becoming less and less legible too...

 

[McMullen]

They basically just tried to screw us around for a few days, then lost interest and the rate of spam, account hacks and other crap that the captcha aims to prevent the effects of went back down to levels that make the captcha unnecessary. While I can understand having it when there is a storm brewing (like when Lulzsec pulled their nonsense), most days the captcha just wastes time and makes many reloads necessary. And the solve-media ones are gradually becoming less and less legible too...

We're sorry if it's inconvenient, really we are. I hope that no company would gratuitously make things less convenient for their users. It's just a necessary measure at the end of the day.

 

[Brandon237]

They basically just tried to screw us around for a few days, then lost interest and the rate of spam, account hacks and other crap that the captcha aims to prevent the effects of went back down to levels that make the captcha unnecessary. While I can understand having it when there is a storm brewing (like when Lulzsec pulled their nonsense), most days the captcha just wastes time and makes many reloads necessary. And the solve-media ones are gradually becoming less and less legible too...

We're sorry if it's inconvenient, really we are. I hope that no company would gratuitously make things less convenient for their users. It's just a necessary measure at the end of the day.

Hmm... I suppose you would have seen more to say if it was worth the inconvenience, and I suppose what may seem like a small problem for posters with spam and crap could be a lot worse if you are trying to RUN the site, I shall put up with them for now then, although I hope they stop devolving into the recaptcha like text that they have been mercifully free of so far.

Spoiler: Yes, a person just admitted they may be wrong on the internet :P

 

[McMullen]

Spoiler: Yes, a person just admitted they may be wrong on the internet :P

 

[Brandon237]

Spoiler: Yes, a person just admitted they may be wrong on the internet :P

I Lol'd

Maybe the Need for Speed Nostalgia has put me in a good mood... yes, I shall attribute my unnatural behaviour (and possibly the cats too) to that.