[IMC-Tech] Preventing HTTP based spam by Captchas and content filters

[alex]

hi

i apologize in advance, because i, again, have some critique on proposed
measures and maybe i begin to seem like i'd rather have spam than
narrowing user freedoms, which is, of course, not the case.
this discussion has stirred up some interesting suggestions of dealing
with this annoying matter.

i personally again must state that i think image captchas are sufficient.
i have yet to see a single site protected by captchas that has been
breached by bots.

On Sat, Jan 28, 2006 at 01:46:31PM +0100, Kenneth Peiruza wrote:
>     If images can be defeated, why don't use audio? some systems (MSN,
> I.E.) support it as well.

i fear that audio is a legitimate substitute for visually impaired
users, but it shouldn't be used by default. my guess is more pcs have no
audio output than blind people try to post at indy.
also, how would this work? with a player plugin in my browser? heck no!

a third argument against that, which must also be considered with
questionaires, is not native speakers of whatever language the posting
site is in, will definitely have a hard time if the questions contain
too hard words, or if the pronounciation of an audio captcha is weird,
which i can very much picture with computer generated words.

>     It should be good to register users

now this is the point that struck me to write this mail at all. register
users? does any imc do this?
i find this terrible. to me, this attacks the indymedia principle of
"open posting." even if security is not the point (which it is, it'd
have to use cookies), this would really put of some people new to the
indymedia idea. when i want to post something at a site out in the big
intarweb and i need to register first, chances are very high i won't do
it and just move on. i assume, other people think like me, which would
be a shame for indy. also, it creates a closed atmosphere. not like
"everyone can do it", but "only registered users please". this makes me
feel uncomfortable.

for the record, i really like johns solution or your quiz game. above
all, i still think image captchas are suffient since i have never seen
them breached myself. and, as i already stated, people who know how to
break them, will easily get past an empty input field or the like.

-- alex
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