Randomly generated numbered stick figures (of random size and orientation) that exhibit simple emotions, where the user must answer simple questions like: Which three figures are sad? or Which figure is jealous?

I chose stick figures over photos in the idea because I assume that a bot could categorize and “remember” actual photos as they relate to the emotional questions.

Also, for the speech recognition able bots who are cracking the captchas for the blind: recordings of several people exhibiting emotions in their inflections, then the user is given a question as above.
-- frosto, May 10 2008

Captcha: For [MaxwellBuchanan] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captcha
A description of those unreadable codes we're expected to read. [Amos Kito, May 10 2008]

Google's Captcha Hacked: For [MaxwellBuchanan] http://securitylabs...ent/Blogs/2919.aspx
There's been a spate of high-profile captcha hacks in the last year. [frosto, May 10 2008]

xkcd - A webcomic of romance, http://www.xkcd.com/
Stick figures showing emotion. [baconbrain, May 10 2008]

Hmmm, a definition... http://www.urbandic...?term=choppin+it+up
[frosto, May 13 2008]

Automated crack of MSN captchas http://www.theregis...n_captcha_breaking/
[hippo, May 13 2008]

Example: Aniticipation CAPTCHA http://i246.photobu...icipate_captcha.jpg
A who's gonna fall example with guys rather than anvils [frosto, May 17 2008]

This I don't understand. The closest I can get is that you want people to rate stick- figures for emotional content, as a means of training a computer to identify emotion from images?

Or not? And if so, where? And by what, for whom?
-- MaxwellBuchanan, May 10 2008


Ah. I am indebted to Amos Kito - all is now clear.

I don't see, though, why this has any advantage over the distorted letter captchas. Don't forget that the captcha has to be computer-generable.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, May 10 2008


Unless you can make more than 46 distinct emotion sticks (since Captcha has at least upper/lowercase letters and 10 digits), there's not much of an advantage. But you can include activities and poses in your stickmen.

//Which figure is longing?//
This could be an interesting twist: language. To make it tough for foreign hackers to crack (English not being their first language), you could use slang or regional terms. Click the guy that's "fly", "Choppin' it up", etc. Then have misleading images of a figure "chopping" and another "flying", mixed in with the real ones.

This may baffle honest users, but if you don't mind email support for them, it might work. It's especially useful when you note that [Link 2] refers to hackers buying codes that have been read by humans.
-- Amos Kito, May 11 2008


English is my first language, and I have no idea what "choppin' it up" would mean.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, May 11 2008


But it wouldn't make captchas any harder to interpret than they are now (usually captchas are subverted by rooms full of people in China paid to look at and type out captcha text all day).
-- hippo, May 11 2008


[hippo] I agree that that's a potential problem, and I've read before [link 2] about the Russian serfs being paid $3 a day to type captchas, but really I'm not buying it. Spammers don't seem like the type to acquire overhead, and the numbers really don't add up for me (how many, a million emails before someone sends their account info to the rich nigerian cialis farmer?). Also, say Google or whomever, just changes the process slightly every day or minute, or drastically , with their own algorithm. Someone signing up once would never notice, but the serfs would be flummoxed and quit. I could be totally wrong about the numbers aspect, regardless, I think the real future challenge is the recognition bots.

[Amos Kito] You're totally right about the emotion sticks. I was imagining a random stick-figure drawing mechanism (different leg, arm lengths, different lines more or less wobbly and so on). The situational ideas are awesome.

[MaxwellBuchanan], I too have no idea what 'choppin' it up' means, but given a picture of a bunch of stick-figures doing random body motions, I bet we could figure it out.
-- frosto, May 13 2008


[frosto] You may be right - in any case the future of captcha-cracking has to be automated methods (see link).
-- hippo, May 13 2008


I don't know if it would work any better than current CAPTCHAs but I would really enjoy seeing emotional stick people. :)
-- napoleonbag, May 13 2008


[manicdictator] that's a great and very true comment, and here's the change in idea to accommodate it: Anticipation Captchas.

The essence of the captcha is determining what is human and what is machine (and, I guess ironically[?], this spam-war process is accelerating us towards the turing test winner [and/or terminator future, depending on your outlook]). So the real question is what is the simplest and fastest (for convenience) way to figure out who's bot and who's not.

Humans have a particular skill in seeing a visual situation and predicting the next step or outcome.

A captcha example would be a picture of seven anvils in a square (all numbered randomly), one with wings, one resting on a ledge, one tied by rope to an unseen above structure, one with two small weights on top of it, one tied by rope to a weight below it, and the remaining two just anvils. And the question would be: which anvils will fall? The answer being (depending on the random numbers) something like: 45, 2, 369, 8.... or clicks in that order.
-- frosto, May 17 2008


I must be a computer. I can't for the life of me figure out the answer to, "Which anvils will fall?"
-- 4whom, May 17 2008


Sounds like the Voit-Kampf test (Bladerunner):

"You’ve got a little boy. He shows you his butterfly collection plus the killing jar."
-- TerranFury, May 17 2008


[4whom] See if you can get it with the link example. If you're still unsure, I think Dr. Baltar has a blood test ready for you.
-- frosto, May 17 2008


Nope, still don't get it. Although I think I may have isolated the problem.
-- 4whom, May 17 2008



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