Comment on Update: Invitation requests remain disabled for the time being

  1. Aauron Tue 31 Oct 2017 05:36AM UTC

    If these are largely bots, then there are ways of detecting those. Like the "are you a robot" captcha stuff. If its people, then I know that there is also spam detecting auto mod software that can be used.

    Disqus has their own methods for this: https://help.disqus.com/customer/portal/articles/466244-dealing-with-spam

    Its ok to post a link right?

    Comment Actions

    1. Foxglove87B Tue 31 Oct 2017 12:03PM UTC

      The "are you are a robot" captchas are called ReCaptcha and made by Google: among other things, they are used to track people, get free mechanical turk work, and softban IP adresses with the "you're doing too much" reply.

      They are one of the worst solution for users, just see how people still prefer the legacy captcha over at 4chan: barely readable text is still better than having to click through 20+ images for an arbitrary amount of times.

      Comment Actions

      1. liseraptorknight Wed 01 Nov 2017 05:34AM UTC

        At this point, a captcha system might be the last resort the site has. ReCaptcha does stink though.

        Comment Actions

        1. Foxglove87B Wed 01 Nov 2017 10:26AM UTC

          There is at least one malicious site that bypasses captcha all the time, don't remember the name but it was founded somewhere on 8chan furry boards to scam patreons

          Comment Actions

          1. liseraptorknight Thu 02 Nov 2017 02:51AM UTC

            I must be really out of the loop.

            Comment Actions

      3. Aauron Wed 01 Nov 2017 04:18PM UTC

        Not all image selectors for detecting bots are the same. There are some that just give you an option of 4 - 5 images to choose, and you have to choose the two correct images that it identifies. Only once per time.

        Comment Actions

        1. Foxglove87B Thu 02 Nov 2017 11:33AM UTC

          Choosing two images out of five can be done in (5*4*3/2) = 30 ways, which is too low and can be brute forced by bots.

          Image selection captchas are fundamentally inefficient at separating bots from humans, most of the time they are a thinly veiled excuse to get free work out of the users, and they have significantly higher bandwidth costs than other methods.

          Comment Actions

      5. neobionic Thu 02 Nov 2017 09:13AM UTC

        dreamwidth just use a bunch of simple questions as captcha. maybe that could work?

        Comment Actions

        1. Foxglove87B Thu 02 Nov 2017 11:28AM UTC

          It might take some effort for it to work well in other languages and in audio form but your idea is the best I've seen so far

          Comment Actions

    3. sarken (AO3_ADT) (Official) Wed 01 Nov 2017 08:11PM UTC

      Stede Bonnet, a blond white man in blue 18th century clothes, with a wistful expression.

      Hi, Aauron!

      Thanks for the suggestion and the link -- I'll make sure the rest of the development team sees it!

      Sarken
      Archive development team

      Comment Actions