I hate these things
Why do internet sites continue to use these scrambled, crazy, whimsical letter/number combinations for security purposes? Why does the ability to change my password have to rely on my ability to decode letters that belong in a Dr. Seuss book? This one isn’t particularly difficult, but I’ve encountered some that are harder to see than those magic eye posters that were big in the 90’s. I have literally never “seen” one of those.
Dr. Seuss, Magic Eye, Security
October 25th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
It’s a dinosaur…
andyforman.blogspot.com
…and don’t you forget it.
October 25th, 2007 at 2:19 pm
My parents gave me one of those “magic eye” posters when i was a child. The caption was “Lady Liberty”…all i saw was a scrambled, multi-color mess that kind of looked like the HBO channel at my home growing up. I was sad.
Those data verification things aren’t great at all.
October 25th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
Zack, I need your answer for whether the scrambled letters serve a purpose…???
October 25th, 2007 at 6:45 pm
They are a security measure that seeks to foil automated programs. They are especially useful for companies like Ticketmaster because they keep programs from repeatedly hitting the system and buying up all of the tickets. Since the security measure is a picture and not a text it requires a human response to read and enter. If I’m wrong, please correct me.
October 26th, 2007 at 7:53 am
What Chris said is correct. They don’t always work that well though, because programs can be written to decipher what an image is, etc with a certain margin for error. I suppose they serve a useful purpose, but I tend to think they are more annoying than anything else. It’s called CAPTCHA - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captcha
October 26th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
I knew it was a dinosaur, too, without even clicking the link… just saw that it linked to “dino.jpeg”…. lol.
October 27th, 2007 at 10:24 pm
My favorite magic eye picture is the one that is made up of all the faces of children from a particular school. The one at my school is an American flag from a distance but when you get close it’s really 800 little faces. FREAKS me out everytime!!!