The main purpose of ‘CAPTCHA’ technology, making people nervous every time

Today, every internet user undergoes a test that they must successfully complete while performing various operations on almost every site they visit, even when entering the site: CAPTCHA† This test was developed by the team at the Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science and is used to determine whether the visitor to the site is a real person.

CAPTCHA has come up with many different themes so far. Today, he either lets us choose traffic lights or asks us to choose photos that contain a particular object from several photos. Well, the one that makes us fail from time to time and have a nervous breakdown,”Am I a robot?CAPTCHA, which got us thinking for what purpose and how was it developed? and to date How did it evolve? Let’s get to know this test that we encounter every day.

• Remark: I recommend that you read the whole article as the technology is constantly improving. Otherwise You may be missing links to important points.

First of all, what is CAPTCHA?

CAPTCHA,”Call the way Aautomated ppublic thour test to tell Ccomputers and huhheap Apart (fully automated general Turing test to separate computers and humans). questioner, CAPTCHA’s algorithm it is itself. We have to prove to our interrogator that we are not computers in our answers to the CAPTCHA. However, if we answer correctly, we pass the Turing test and can access the content we want.

How did CAPTCHA come about?

CAPTCHA at Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science Luis van Ahn Developed by Manuel Blum, Nicholas J. Hopper and John Langford with accompanying directors. If the idea of ​​improving the system thanks to a giant company popped up. Luis von Ahn told the story of the development of the system with his own mouth.

In 2000, still in the first year of his PhD, Luis was one of the giant companies of the time. Speech by the chief engineer of Yahoo joined. The topic of the conversation is that Yahoo somehow 10 Problems He Couldn’t Solve† One of these issues led to Luis and his team’s idea of ​​CAPTCHA, which made us break a sweat today and open discussions about artificial intelligence over the years.

Yahoo at the time programmer to open millions of email addresses He tried to deal with his users and he couldn’t get past it. The programs that were written were able to create an email address on Yahoo by simply filling out the form, and could do this endlessly. The huge Yahoo couldn’t anticipate this.

Also for this Luis von Ahn and his team came up with a very logical solution: A test to distinguish between computers and humans. In short, this test is for all ages and all over the world. had to be solved by a human, but computers should not have passed this test. That was actually the hardest. But for this, the team appealed to human nature: we can manipulate characters and text with ease. We were able to recognize the language regardless of the form and environment they were in. But computers could only recognize these characters as they were shown. This was, of course, true for computers of the time. We will talk about this matter shortly.

This is how the first CAPTCHA system was born:

The first version of the tests shown to the user in the CAPTCHA, unchanged consisting of two words and displayed distorted it was a series. The computer got the correct answer to this question and the user was asked for that answer. While humans could recognize distorted characters, computers couldn’t recognize these characters automatically, so they couldn’t complete the test.

Yahoo started using this first version of CAPTCHA on its email composing page where it had issues. In the first weeks CAPTCHA was added, the system was used millions of times and indeed managed to separate people from computers. But with this system, a big problem started to arise: artificial intelligence evolves with the answers given, and even… CAPTCHA answers fell on the black market.

CAPTCHA made the computer smart and separated the computer from the human:

These answers, along with users’ answers to the CAPTCHA, were actually recorded somewhere. So when a computer encountered a CAPTCHA with a known answer, it passed the test by pasting that answer and was identified as “human” by the computer. In fact, this situation became so serious that ‘CAPTCHA farms’ were established and people who work with moneyby solving thousands of CAPTCHAs, these tests saved correct answers for bots† Thus, CAPTCHA was forced to upgrade to the second version.

Second version CAPTCHA: reCAPTCHA:

The next development of CAPTCHA took place in 2005. This time CAPTCHA,’reCAPTCHA‘ Was called. In this version, two words are no longer literal, of which someone has been made replaceable† One of the words was a word that the computer knew the answer to, and the other was a random word from books, articles, or other content with irregular characters. The computer didn’t know the answer to that word. So how did the computer know if the answer to that second word was correct?

reCAPTCHA is the same two words, one known to the computer and the other unknown, not to a single user, was shown to multiple users† So multiple users ask the same question the answer was perceived as correct because it gave the same answer† During this process, thousands of articles and books with bad spelling were scanned manually and the second word was formed.

Google’s acquisition of reCAPTCHA made the system even smarter:

In 2009, Google acquired reCAPTCHA. One of the first things the company did was create the second word. what was needed was to automate the scan† The words with the gray background, which looked like they came from that old book we saw, were indeed from old books. The company’s method allowed the computer that scanned the texts to recognize corrupt word forms. Computers no longer had problems recognizing an unreadable word when it was displayed. Computers have learned to read illegible texts.

Google’s 2014 machine learning test also showed how smart computers are. According to the results of this test, people cannot miss misspelled words. 33% accurate could read. Artificial intelligence, which was once unable to detect even extended characters, was excluded from this test. 99.8% got the correct result. So, in the CAPTCHA method, towards a revolutionary change away.

The second version of the second version: reCAPTCHA V2 and No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA

After testing in the same year reCAPTCHA V2 version has been upgraded. In this version, users will no longer encounter texts like today. with pictures have met. To users select images with a specified object it was said. However, GoogleNo CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA (ReCAPTCHA Non-CAPTCHA)” has also introduced a system called .

The first names to use the system back then were Snapchat, WordPress, and HumbleBundle. The new system allows users to “I am not a robot‘ began to see the control box. As for the way the system works, it actually managed to separate users from computers to a great extent before it was put to the test.

An always-behind system called “Advanced Risk Analysis” monitored user interaction with the site. Yes, we are constantly monitored on the internet. It even records how we navigate the page, improving technologies. If the user’s behavior matches the behavior expected of a real human, you can click I’m not a robot. you don’t get a testYou were confirmed to be human. but interaction does not match the interactionthat is, if the computer thinks that a computer has entered the site, they will It showed CAPTCHA† These CAPTCHAs were also the image CAPTCHAs that came with reCAPTCHA V2.

Image verification of reCAPTCHA V2 was of course also improving artificial intelligence. But this time your answers are usually not from pirates, used by google† Even today, Google uses our responses to CAPTCHAs to distinguish objects in an image. For example, a self-driving car can cross a tree, a fire hydrant, a traffic light or a zebra crossing. can detect† As you can see, this system, with which we use the internet safely, allows Google to develop further. Win win situation.

Today’s reCAPTCHA: reCAPTCHA V3

Google has completely discontinued the first version of reCAPTCHA that showed messages on April 4, 2018. Nowadays many websites are still able to continue using reCAPTCHA V2† However, in addition to this physically available test, reCAPTCHA V3, which was released on October 29, 2018, is also used. reCAPTCHA V3, with reCAPTCHA V2 become more advanced has brought.

Websites using V3 instead of reCAPTCHA V2 since 2018, requires no user interaction† These sites do not show the CAPTCHA test. On the contrary, informs the owners of the websites in case of risky traffic. The user experience is in no way degraded by CAPTCHA. Eliminating risk is left entirely to website owners.

It’s helpful to explain this work logic using Google’s example. You have a shopping site and have recently seen a lot of traffic to your site. But this traffic is not converted into conversions in any way. So you think they’re not real customers. At this point, all you know is that your site is getting a lot of traffic. However, this traffic You don’t know what it’s targeting, what it’s doing on your site.

That’s exactly what reCAPTCHA V3 lets you know. The reCAPTCHA V3 system, which you add to each page individually, tracks every entry on the site. For example, the system you add to your product reviews page shows that bots have entered this page to comment. Every transaction is scored by reCAPTCHA and the site owner can distinguish between real comments and bot comments. Distinctive bots are the site interaction used in No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA. compared to real human interaction. is being done.

All this development shows how much the technology, which emerged as a solution to the problem Yahoo is experiencing, can grow today and How can you contribute to artificial intelligence? it turned out to. At the same time, it helped develop new technologies to track our fingerprints on the Internet. We look forward to your comments on reCAPTCHA, where you share your thoughts and how this could be in the future.

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