On January 2, 2004 at 16:00, Jeff Breidenbach wrote:
The image idea is nice since it is type of a Turing test, and the
image can be generated to give OCR systems trouble.
There is a research field devoted to exactly this topic. See
http://www.parc.xerox.com/research/istl/projects/captcha/ Simson
Garfinkle wrote a Technology Review article on the topic in June 2003,
suggesting this is the express train towards an increasingly sad and
dehumanizing future. I personally agree.
Interesting research. I did not see any source code that one
can download in order to try out the algorithms.
A lot of variables influence anti-spam choices, including:
effectiveness of a technique against harvesting, the relationship of
reducing harvesting vs reducing spam, cost and opportunity
cost. There's outside factors, for example the possibility that it's
all hopeless and email is generally doomed, and the possibility that
new laws might stop the big spammers on ROSKO and turn the tide.
And the factors of maintaining an open forum. I have received
a private response in favor of not hiding address since the user
has had useful benefits on their archives in not doing so.
--ewh
