New Captcha vs Old

Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 5:26 am

The new captcha characters on the mixed background are difficult to read and duplicate for a lot of older folks as well as the visual impaired to some degree. Why is this? If the user has to manually type in the characters then why make it difficult?

How do I bring back the old captcha such as the one when logging in on this RN site?

Running latest RN 2.30.0.1

Cheers

Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 5:59 am

It is possible to adjust the settings of the captcha, which I believe has been discussed in the forums here before.

The reason for making it 'difficult' is to try and prevent it being read by OCR software and thereby preventing automated spammers getting into your site. Of course this can have a downside for those who may be visually impaired etc.

Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 6:15 am

On one site I have numbers instead of letters and a larger font. However, be that as it may, there are still some minor complaints that a 3 looks like an unclosed 8 and a 1 looks like a 7 and vice-versa. If I could return to the old digits-only captcha like here on RN that would be a winner.

I understand the OCR software attempts but even still, a valid username/password would still have to be entered would it not? I guess that's why I don't understand the complexity of captcha.

Cheers, thanks for the response.

Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 6:46 am

you can also change the background image of the captcha to make it easier to read.

Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 7:21 am

Well aware of that and have done that but unless there is a clear distinction between numbers/letters (not slanted or sideways, etc.) it can still be hard to read/duplicate. Clear, straight numbers like the ones here on RN is what I am after if it can be done in RN 2.x

Thanks

Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 10:24 am

Once the spammers have registered they can log in and out of the site automatically using the OCR software if it can read the captcha.

You could roll back to the old captcha, but it would be wiped out by an upgrade to a newer version.

I would like to think you could reach a nice compromise using the settings available in the new captcha and protecting your site.

Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 10:35 am

I understand completely, but my concern is centered around a load of, lets say, "older" clients that have problems with most any captcha image, letters, numbers, etc. Large font numbers is working for the most part and spammers are turned away when attempting to register, easily spotted and denied with "admin approval" enabled. Wink

Cheers

Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 1:04 pm

If your clients have an issue with most any captcha, why no disable it for most all areas except admin login? An easy to read captcha will not stop bots and spammers, only people that type it in wrong.

Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 1:31 pm

True but I've pretty much taken care of the spammers, not a problem. I may disable it nonetheless if the griping escalates any. Users, reg'd, can only post to the forums, nowhere else can data, etc. be entered, so spamming and bots are no problem. I've had spamlinkers register and post a link in their post but is quickly removed as well as the spamlinker removed. I absolutely adore RNYA for it's features and functionality in that respect.

Cheers

Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 4:01 pm

You could try using a single font like arial black (remove all but one from the includes/font directory.

Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 4:54 pm

Guardian: Am one step ahead of you on that one, been doing that .. Smile

Users will gripe at most anything but we have it mostly under control.

Cheers