Solving Captchas With MIT’s $100 Computer?
Charles Arthur has written a somewhat ridiculous concept article at the Guardian UK, The price of humans who’ll spam blogs is falling to zero. It’s full of completely wrong statements, like:
If the captcha was filled in, it must have been done by a person; if it had been done by a machine, the spammers would have cracked the problem of solving captchas and would be busily spamming every blog they could find.
Actually, cracking captchas has been done reliably and cheaply. I would be comfortable saying that it’s a solved field that a script-kiddy could learn enough about online to write his own captcha-breaking spam bot.
The point of his article revolves around the idea that supplying computers to impoverished nations will result in large-arrays of manual spammers:
Elsewhere this week, deliveries began of the hand-powered laptop, Nicholas Negroponte’s computing gift to the developing world. I’ve no doubt it will radically alter the life of many in the developing world for the better. I also expect that once a few have got into the hands of people aching to make a dollar, with time on their hands and an internet connection provided one way or another, we’ll see a significant rise in captcha-solved spam.
Sorry Charles, but the human spam attack is always more expensive than the machine technique. I can buy a few machines and send out thousands of spam comments a minute–how many humans would you have to pay to do the same, 24/7?
This entry was posted on Saturday, November 25th, 2006 at 5:58 pm and is tagged with script kiddy, nicholas negroponte, guardian uk, charles arthur, captcha, spam attack, developing world, no doubt, arrays, spammers, deliveries, internet connection, captchas, laptop, blogs, blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback.
16 Responses to 'Solving Captchas With MIT’s $100 Computer?'
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- Solving Captchas With MIT’s $100 Computer?
If the captcha was filled in, it must have been done by a person; if it had been done by a machine, the spammers would have cracked the problem of solving captchas and would be busily spamming every blog they could find. ...
on November 27th, 2006 at 8:02 am
As I said in the article, if captchas had been solved as a machine problem, then we would be seeing an astronomical explosion in the amount, because certainly many of the blogs I look at have captcha protection (eg blogger, various Wordpress ones who have taken the trouble).
There’s a difference between sending out the attempted comment spams, and their appearing. If you get people to do it for you, you’re sure of success. What success rate do you get with comment spam? (And you don’t need a “few machines”. One will do. Haven’t you heard of open proxies?) The price will reflect that difference, sure.
Lastly, my point - in the article, had you taken the time - was focussed by reading a New Yorker article about life in Lagos, which is the world’s sixth-biggest city, and where a lot of people spend their lives looking for just anyway to get an edge. In some ways, if they could make an *honest* living from filling in captchas, that would be a lot better than doing 419s on people, don’t you think?
on November 28th, 2006 at 9:01 am
Charles: More poor people with cheap latops = more captchas + less 419s…? Somehow I don’t think so; Between scamming a few grand from some dumb, rich western schmuck or two and scratching together a “basic wage” from tedious manual work that can be automated I see the restless natives going for the higher $ income. Or have I completely overestimated the lu[c]re of capitalism?
on February 2nd, 2008 at 2:23 am
Dear Sir,
I am Sadhan Kumar from Dhaka, Bangladesh. My email id # sadhan.kum@gmail.com. I am ready for working with your program. I have more experienced in this field. You can also see this like for my running work (www.qlinkgroup.com). I can entry captchas about 3000-5000 within 5 hours in a day if your site is fast. So according to your requirment. If work is big quanity then price is $4 per 1000 captchas. I can agree with your Captchas and Program. So, I am waiting for your kind help.
Thanks all
Sadhan Kumar,
Dhaka, Bagladesh
on February 16th, 2008 at 7:18 am
I am Balaji from Tamil Nadu(India). I am having experience in captcha entry. I can type min 70 words per minute. I am having 10 seats with experienced team of people. Kindly give me further details.
on March 11th, 2008 at 6:04 am
Hi i live in Bangladesh. I have enough experience in captcha entry work.I can entry captchas about 4000-5000 within 6 hours in a day if your site is fast. So according to your requirment. If work is big quanity then price is $3 per 1000 captchas. I can agree with you do your own work.If you desire to contact me email id: work_in_house@yahoo.com. My phone +883792009216. Please contact me if you interested to me then i will give you my best work. I have lot of worker like computer entry related work.
Waiting for your reply
work in house
on March 11th, 2008 at 6:07 am
Hi I am mehedi. I live in Bangladesh. I have enough experience in captcha entry work.I can entry captchas about 4000-5000 within 5 hours in a day if your site is fast. So according to your requirment. If work is big quanity then price is $3 per 1000 captchas. I can agree with you do your own work.If you desire to contact me email id: mehedi_imran@yahoo.com. Please contact me if you interested to me then i will give you my best work. I have lot of worker like computer entry related work.
Waiting for your reply
mehedi
on March 17th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
Hello i am Faizan From pakistan i have little team i m happy to work with you
faizankhuhro@gmail.com
Thanx
on March 18th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
have u any work ?
we are reliable. if your are isterest about captcha work then contact with me
on March 22nd, 2008 at 8:39 pm
Hello,
Sir,
I am from Bangladesh. I have experience in captcha entry work. Would you please provide me some work. I will accept any reasonable rate.
My email address is chanchal17@gmail.com
Thanks,
Salahuddin Khan
on March 31st, 2008 at 11:02 am
hello sir,
I am from Tamilnadu. i am looking for captcha entry work. We have the excelent team. could you please provide work. I am reliable…
Thanks
Gopinath.R
on April 6th, 2008 at 10:13 am
noor a alam khan said:
on April 06, 2008
Hello,
Sir,
I am from Bangladesh. I have experience in captcha entry work. Would you please provide me some work. I will accept any reasonable rate. I have a computer with high speed internet conection . so i am ready to captchas work .So, I am waiting for your kind help.
My email address is iamnoo@gmail.com
Thanks,
Noor a alam khan
on April 9th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
Sir,
I am from Bangladesh. I have experience in captcha entry work. Would you please provide me some work. I will accept any reasonable rate. I have a computer with high speed internet conection . so i am ready to captchas work .So, I am waiting for your kind help.
‘i am waiting’
on April 9th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
www.qlinkgroup.com/qlink (Captcha Entry Project
on April 25th, 2008 at 9:44 am
plese give me www.qlinkgroup.com/qlink (Captcha Entry Project)
i need my #login id
# password
on May 8th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
shkilur rahaman shohel Says:
Hi!!! Hope you are doing well. We the leading Data processing company in Bangladesh. Presently we are processing 100000+ captcha per day by our 30 operators. We have a well set up and We can give the law rate for the captcha solving.
Our rate $2 per 1000 captcha.yahoo,hotmail,mayspace,gmail, facebook etc.
We just wanna make the relationship for long terms. can we go forward? Thank you.
Best Regards
shakilur rahaman shohe
se.dhrubotara@yahoo .com
se.dhrubotara@gmail.com
on May 16th, 2008 at 3:08 am
hi
We have team of member we are looking for captcha project we are already doing this project for qlink , magic and hotmail . my rate is 1000 = 1$ if any one like give us the job we will me thank full and we are looking for long term relationship
thanking you
with regards
kingsley.s
kingsleyraja@gmail.com