PITA to register

Seevee · Dec 6, 2012, 11:51 AM

What's going on with forums now... registering and passwords are horribly difficult now. I've totally given up on a few... and that damn captcha rarely works easily.

Took me two days to re register for this, after it "lost" my original info.

theSeb · Dec 7, 2012, 04:33 AM

It's to stop spam bots and I don't think it's too difficult to a human.

justperry · Dec 7, 2012, 04:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by theSeb

It's to stop spam bots and I don't think it's too difficult to a human.

Dependable on the site Captcha's are horrible, there are sites, might be MR as well which takes me ages to register because they are soooo hard to read.
Sometimes I even give up after trying them too many times and are always wrong.

theSeb · Dec 7, 2012, 06:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by justperry

Dependable on the site Captcha's are horrible, there are sites, might be MR as well which takes me ages to register because they are soooo hard to read.
Sometimes I even give up after trying them too many times and are always wrong.

Actually I can't disagree with that. Captcha forms are usually ridiculously difficult to read.

Comeagain? · Dec 7, 2012, 09:28 AM

Maybe we need to switch to question and answer human verification.

justperry · Dec 7, 2012, 09:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Comeagain?

Maybe we need to switch to question and answer human verification.

Maybe we should all use something similar to this.

VulchR · Dec 9, 2012, 02:05 PM

Most sites using Captch's offer an alternative in case a given user is visually impaired. In addition to crappy vision I have dyslexia, and I usually have to ask somebody to decode Captcha's for me.

I can't remember if MR provides an alternative to Captcha's, but it should. Otherwise the procedure would be discriminatory, and I doubt anybody, MR least of all, wants that.

lewis82 · Dec 9, 2012, 02:15 PM

It might be a PITA but again you do it only once. I prefer this to having spambots post "online pharmacy" and incest porn ads everywhere (which have been posted on a forum I used to moderate, before CAPTCHAs were implemented in the signup process).

aarond12 · Dec 10, 2012, 04:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lewis82

...incest porn ads everywhere...

What sites do YOU visit!?

Ddyracer · Dec 10, 2012, 09:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by justperry

Dependable on the site Captcha's are horrible, there are sites, might be MR as well which takes me ages to register because they are soooo hard to read.
Sometimes I even give up after trying them too many times and are always wrong.

I got used to it since lots of sites use it. It's not too hard but it's most certainly not easy.

960design · Dec 11, 2012, 09:02 AM

<two cents>

captcha only reduces human enrollment.
Spam bots don't care and will hit a captcha 1000 times until they get through.
Spammers have beaten every captcha module created, if you create a custom module, you will be protected until a spammer finds you ( your site becomes popular ).

Here's what I do. I use CSS to hide random fields from humans input. Spam bots love to add stuff to input fields. I give them lovely descriptive names like first_name or user_name while the human readable fields will be id'd as something close, like login_username.

You can also through in a couple of javascript tricks to keep the bots on their toes.

I then test for the hidden, random fields created, if they have any input, guess what, it's a bot. I then just send the bot to the home page.

Does this prevent all spam bots, yes. Will it prevent a directed attack? No. But it will seriously slow it down.

Spammers just use a human to create the account and then use that account to spam content.

There is no win in the end. The best thing is not to harrass real people with unreadable captcha's.

</two cents>

lewis82 · Dec 11, 2012, 04:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aarond12

What sites do YOU visit!?

No sites with such content

Spambots do not care about the browser history of the moderator of the forum.

Now if you're wondering which forum it was, it was the defunct www.geocachingsaglac.com, a local Geocaching website and forum.

Mr. Retrofire · Dec 12, 2012, 06:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seevee

What's going on with forums now... registering and passwords are horribly difficult now. I've totally given up on a few... and that damn captcha rarely works easily.

Took me two days to re register for this, after it "lost" my original info.

1. MR is not responsible for your lost info.
2. MR has a little problem with fake registrations. I'm sure they solve(d) this problem.

----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by 960design

Spam bots don't care and will hit a captcha 1000 times until they get through.

They can't. They can test one captcha only one time.

Dec 6, 2012, 11:51 AM	#1
Seevee macrumors newbie Join Date: Dec 2012	PITA to register What's going on with forums now... registering and passwords are horribly difficult now. I've totally given up on a few... and that damn captcha rarely works easily. Took me two days to re register for this, after it "lost" my original info.
	0

Dec 7, 2012, 04:33 AM	#2
theSeb macrumors 603 Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: Poole, England	It's to stop spam bots and I don't think it's too difficult to a human. __________________ What is Other on my HDD? Upgrading to Mountain Lion? Check out my free iBook with video tutorials on iTunes 2012 iMac comparison chart
	3

Dec 7, 2012, 09:28 AM	#5
Comeagain? macrumors Demi-God Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: Spokane, WA	Maybe we need to switch to question and answer human verification. __________________ Questions? MRoogle it! I support the MacRumors Blood Drive! MR Scavenger Score: 1
	0

Dec 9, 2012, 02:05 PM	#7
VulchR macrumors 65816 Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Scotland	Most sites using Captch's offer an alternative in case a given user is visually impaired. In addition to crappy vision I have dyslexia, and I usually have to ask somebody to decode Captcha's for me. I can't remember if MR provides an alternative to Captcha's, but it should. Otherwise the procedure would be discriminatory, and I doubt anybody, MR least of all, wants that. __________________ My first was a Mac+. Now I own an iPhone with 3.5x the pixels, a colour display, WiFi, 512x the RAM, >1500x the data storage, and 100x the speed. And it fits in the palm of my hand.
	0

Dec 9, 2012, 02:15 PM	#8
lewis82 macrumors 68000 Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: Totalitarian Republic of Northlandia	It might be a PITA but again you do it only once. I prefer this to having spambots post "online pharmacy" and incest porn ads everywhere (which have been posted on a forum I used to moderate, before CAPTCHAs were implemented in the signup process). __________________ Master Procrastinator. If you see me posting, I should be doing homework. Downvoting is for sissies.
	1

Dec 11, 2012, 09:02 AM	#11
960design macrumors regular Join Date: Apr 2012 Location: Destin, FL	<two cents> captcha only reduces human enrollment. Spam bots don't care and will hit a captcha 1000 times until they get through. Spammers have beaten every captcha module created, if you create a custom module, you will be protected until a spammer finds you ( your site becomes popular ). Here's what I do. I use CSS to hide random fields from humans input. Spam bots love to add stuff to input fields. I give them lovely descriptive names like first_name or user_name while the human readable fields will be id'd as something close, like login_username. You can also through in a couple of javascript tricks to keep the bots on their toes. I then test for the hidden, random fields created, if they have any input, guess what, it's a bot. I then just send the bot to the home page. Does this prevent all spam bots, yes. Will it prevent a directed attack? No. But it will seriously slow it down. Spammers just use a human to create the account and then use that account to spam content. There is no win in the end. The best thing is not to harrass real people with unreadable captcha's. </two cents> __________________ TI-99/4A, tape cassette, 12" B&W Zenith
	3

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