On January 2, 2004 at 16:00, Jeff Breidenbach wrote: > >The image idea is nice since it is type of a Turing test, and the > >image can be generated to give OCR systems trouble. > > There is a research field devoted to exactly this topic. See > http://www.parc.xerox.com/research/istl/projects/captcha/ Simson > Garfinkle wrote a Technology Review article on the topic in June 2003, > suggesting this is the express train towards an increasingly sad and > dehumanizing future. I personally agree.
Interesting research. I did not see any source code that one can download in order to try out the algorithms. > A lot of variables influence anti-spam choices, including: > effectiveness of a technique against harvesting, the relationship of > reducing harvesting vs reducing spam, cost and opportunity > cost. There's outside factors, for example the possibility that it's > all hopeless and email is generally doomed, and the possibility that > new laws might stop the big spammers on ROSKO and turn the tide. And the factors of maintaining an open forum. I have received a private response in favor of not hiding address since the user has had useful benefits on their archives in not doing so. --ewh