Captchas are annoying, but at some point they were a necessary evil to maintain security. When botmasters figured out a way to break into the system, however, captchas didn't end up just irritating users; they also became useless since bots became intelligent enough to solve captchas on their own.
This is why Google is killing off the old captcha with a new system that simplifies the verification process for human users. It's called No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA and it works by simply asking users if they are human or not. If yes, they can simply click the checkbox that says "I'm not a robot" and Google waves them right in to the website they would like to enter.
"For most users, this dramatically simplifies the experience," says Google product manager for captcha team Vinay Shet. "They basically get a free pass. You can solve the captcha without having to solve it."
On the back end, it's not as simple as that, since bots can be easily programmed to click on the same checkbox. Google actually screens users using a risk analysis engine based on a number of signals that indicate whether they have blood running through their veins or electricity passing through their wires. These signals range from variables such as the IP addresses and cookies saved on the user's browser to even the tiniest mouse movements, Shet says. However, Google is not about to share its entire algorithm to avoid botmasters from trying to game the system.
The new approach is the result of new research conducted by Google which found out that modern artificial intelligence systems can easily read even the most difficult distorted captcha puzzles with an astounding 99.8 percent accuracy.
"This shows that the act of typing in the answer to a distorted image should not be the only factor when it comes to determining a human versus a machine," Shet said in a blog post at the time.
On mobile, the process takes more than a single click, but Google took pains to make it a little less irritating by incorporating some of the Internet's favorite things, such as kittens. Google is working on experimental methods that involve asking users to make certain distinctions that may be hard for a bot to decipher. For instance, Google will show a picture of a turkey or a kitten, and ask which among the options match that picture.
In a blog post announcing the new approach, Shet says the new captcha system can predict human users majority of the time. Early adopters such as Snapchat, WordPress and gaming website Humble Bundle report positive results with No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA. WordPress, for instance, says the system was able to predict 60 percent of human signups accurately, while Humble Bundle had a better result of 80 percent.
In cases where the system is unable to correctly identify human users, users will still be able to prove their humanity using the same distorted text. This means until Google or some other entity comes up with a better way to prevent spambots, the old captcha we know and hate will not be going away entirely anytime soon.
