CAPTCHA tests are those funny, distorted letters that accompany many online forms. Users must type in the letters shown to prove they're human. Web programmers include these tests to block automated spam bots from dumping unwanted content into websites.
But as spammers get more creative, so too must CAPTCHA tests. A recent XBIZ article looked at some of the latest advancements in CAPTCHA technology, including visual tests that used two- and three-dimensional images.
Unfortunately, as effective as these new tests are, spammers will most likely find ways to beat them, and they're mainly used to police applications. How can simple bloggers protect their online diaries from spam?
A new kind of CAPTCHA may hold the answer. An anonymous web developer is calling this new CAPTCHA test CATTA, which stands for "comment annoyance trapping by testing aptitude." CATTA shares its basic intention with other CAPTCHA tests – stop spammers – but this one is specifically designed to keep blog comments free of spam.
How does it work? By making sure anyone who comments on a blog has actually read the blog.
For example, one CATTA test would present the user with three sentences, one of which would be chosen from the blog entry. The user would have to choose the sentence from the blog entry to be able to comment.
Another CATTA test would test a user's comprehension of the relevant blog entry. The user would have to choose the correct thesis statement from an array of sentences.
The third CATTA test would also present the user with three sentences, one of which would only make sense to a longtime reader of the site. In effect, the user must identify an inside joke in order to be able to post a comment.
Online guru Brandon "Fight the Patent" told XBIZ he thought the idea had merit, but added that the constant word-based tests might be too cumbersome – even for regular readers of a blog.
"I believe the solution is good old-fashion customer service," he said. "When someone posts, it has to be validated and a human being determines if its spam or if it's relevant. The big push these days is Web 2.0, which is human-generated content, but there still needs to be human validation to weed out the garbage posts. Most will say its too much work. They're just lazy. If you want to truly have community and involvement, it's a two-way street."
In the event that CATTA doesn't catch on, there are always other possibilities. One innovation that has sprung out of Google's corps of developers is the Negative Turing Test, which prompts users to delete a word from a sentence based on an onscreen request.