Comments on: Newegg, CAPTCHA, browsers = reCAPTCHA http://www.hrgeeks.com/2008/03/25/newegg-captcha-browsers-recaptcha/ Hampton Roads Geek community Sun, 15 Aug 2010 04:00:09 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Darrell Shandrow http://www.hrgeeks.com/2008/03/25/newegg-captcha-browsers-recaptcha/comment-page-1/#comment-341 Darrell Shandrow Wed, 24 Jun 2009 04:53:29 +0000 http://www.hrgeeks.com/2008/03/25/newegg-captcha-browsers-recaptcha/#comment-341 Hello Adam and others, It is important to understand that CAPTCHA, when no accessible alternatives are provided, inherently discriminates against blind and visually impaired people based on their physical inability to see. Instead of testing for the presence of a human, inaccessible CAPTCHAs test only for a sighted human, serving to dehumanize, insult and lock out blind people. With the existence of services like reCAPTCHA, there's absolutely no excuse for there to be any completely inaccessible CAPTCHA on any web site anywhere on the net. If you use another solution or roll your own, you had better be sure it is accessible. If you can't or won't do that, then go with reCAPTCHA. I can promise that we in the connected online blind community will not continue to stand for the lockouts caused by inaccessible CAPTCHA. Continuing this practice will surely expose web sites, and the companies with which they are associated, to suffer bad public relations, lawsuits and other similarly nasty surprises. It is long past time for everyone to get with the program when it comes to equal accessibility! Regards, Darrell Shandrow Accessibility Evangelist BlindAccessJournal.com Hello Adam and others,

It is important to understand that CAPTCHA, when no accessible alternatives are provided, inherently discriminates against blind and visually impaired people based on their physical inability to see. Instead of testing for the presence of a human, inaccessible CAPTCHAs test only for a sighted human, serving to dehumanize, insult and lock out blind people.

With the existence of services like reCAPTCHA, there’s absolutely no excuse for there to be any completely inaccessible CAPTCHA on any web site anywhere on the net. If you use another solution or roll your own, you had better be sure it is accessible. If you can’t or won’t do that, then go with reCAPTCHA. I can promise that we in the connected online blind community will not continue to stand for the lockouts caused by inaccessible CAPTCHA. Continuing this practice will surely expose web sites, and the companies with which they are associated, to suffer bad public relations, lawsuits and other similarly nasty surprises.

It is long past time for everyone to get with the program when it comes to equal accessibility!

Regards,

Darrell Shandrow
Accessibility Evangelist
BlindAccessJournal.com

]]> By: adam http://www.hrgeeks.com/2008/03/25/newegg-captcha-browsers-recaptcha/comment-page-1/#comment-52 adam Wed, 26 Mar 2008 16:14:51 +0000 http://www.hrgeeks.com/2008/03/25/newegg-captcha-browsers-recaptcha/#comment-52 Ben, I knew the service was being used by a number of big names - I didn't realize they were using 'the standard' service, I figured they would have done something like I suggested in my previous post. I do think the project is pretty cool, and a very ingenious way to accomplish it's goals. It's nice to see that there is a decent engineering effort behind it as well - is this detailed anywhere? I wasn't able to find anything about it the last time I looked - just a description of how to use the site. Thanks for the response! Ben,
I knew the service was being used by a number of big names – I didn’t realize they were using ‘the standard’ service, I figured they would have done something like I suggested in my previous post.
I do think the project is pretty cool, and a very ingenious way to accomplish it’s goals. It’s nice to see that there is a decent engineering effort behind it as well – is this detailed anywhere? I wasn’t able to find anything about it the last time I looked – just a description of how to use the site.
Thanks for the response!

]]> By: Ben Maurer http://www.hrgeeks.com/2008/03/25/newegg-captcha-browsers-recaptcha/comment-page-1/#comment-51 Ben Maurer Wed, 26 Mar 2008 16:01:22 +0000 http://www.hrgeeks.com/2008/03/25/newegg-captcha-browsers-recaptcha/#comment-51 Hi Adam, I'm one of the engineers on the reCAPTCHA team. I want to assure you that reCAPTCHA is a serious project and that we realize our users are trusting us with a critical piece of their website. One of the first things we realized (long before the project launched) is that "this needs to be reliable". Therefore, from the start we've designed a redundant, distributed system. We host our service in multiple datacenters so that the failure of a single ISP will not affect us. We have redundant monitoring that pages the team if there ever was an issue. Finally, our software is designed to handle various types of failure without human intervention. reCAPTCHA is currently used by a number of large sites including Facebook, Ticketmaster, Bebo, and Imeem. We've earned the trust of these users by providing enterprise class uptime. Hi Adam,

I’m one of the engineers on the reCAPTCHA team. I want to assure you that reCAPTCHA is a serious project and that we realize our users are trusting us with a critical piece of their website.

One of the first things we realized (long before the project launched) is that “this needs to be reliable”. Therefore, from the start we’ve designed a redundant, distributed system. We host our service in multiple datacenters so that the failure of a single ISP will not affect us. We have redundant monitoring that pages the team if there ever was an issue. Finally, our software is designed to handle various types of failure without human intervention.

reCAPTCHA is currently used by a number of large sites including Facebook, Ticketmaster, Bebo, and Imeem. We’ve earned the trust of these users by providing enterprise class uptime.

]]> By: adam http://www.hrgeeks.com/2008/03/25/newegg-captcha-browsers-recaptcha/comment-page-1/#comment-46 adam Wed, 26 Mar 2008 13:46:24 +0000 http://www.hrgeeks.com/2008/03/25/newegg-captcha-browsers-recaptcha/#comment-46 I had looked at using reCAPTCHA for a web project I'm working on, but it's hard to be comfortable outsourcing such a critical piece of the puzzle to a third party (non-profit at that!). It'd be neat if you could download a bulk 'work piece' of the words, like SETI@Home or the protein folding stuff, so that your web servers had a decent chunk of authentication capability should the reCAPTCHA service go offline for whatever reason. I had looked at using reCAPTCHA for a web project I’m working on, but it’s hard to be comfortable outsourcing such a critical piece of the puzzle to a third party (non-profit at that!). It’d be neat if you could download a bulk ‘work piece’ of the words, like SETI@Home or the protein folding stuff, so that your web servers had a decent chunk of authentication capability should the reCAPTCHA service go offline for whatever reason.

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