So, is it too much of a bother? Should I report it to the admins?

Couldn't hurt to bring it up. I think capatchas required for users with <25 posts is a good idea and would cut back a lot on the types of spammers we've been having lately. But I don't think it should be required for senior members at all. I'm sure if they stick around long enough to post >25 times, they're not spammers

Matt

 

here's a < 6kb png file

on edit ... there was no captcha screen ....

 

My guess is that the "suspiciousness" of the image is determined by looking for very short posts coupled with small image attachments since those are one of the common trademarks of spammers (not the only one, to be sure).

We've seen spammers get their 25 posts in during their first session. Perhaps reaching "senior member" status at 100 posts is more reasonable. But I also imagine that most spammers aren't coming back and logging in repeatedly but, rather, trying to upload most of their crap during their initial visit. It might be worthwhile to limit a new user to a low number of posts on each of their first N visits. A few queries of the database should reveal if a small number, say 5 or 10, is sufficiently high so that the overwhelming majority of new users will never even notice a limit but that spammers and bots will at least be throttled.

Then there's the question of how effective captchas are to begin with. We've certainly seen a lot of what appear to be bots (and I'm sure a whole lot more that we normal users did NOT see because the mods caught them quick) despite the registration requirements (and I'm assuming that process still requires a captcha).

 

We've seen spammers get their 25 posts in during their first session. Perhaps reaching "senior member" status at 100 posts is more reasonable.

I wouldn't say that. I see your point, but let's look at it a different way:

Imagine you're a spammer, and you want to attach a spammy image file, like the smiley faces we've been getting. You plan on going on a big long spree, but you go to post the first one and you see you have to enter a capatcha. You do it and you go try it again. Still have to enter a capatcha. I think most spammers won't be willing to fill out 25 capatchas to upload 25 images. They'll probably even stop after the first three, if they made it that far.

Just my opinion
Matt

 

The problem is that captchas aren't effective against serious spammers. I have no idea if the smiley spammers of late are serious or not -- I can't figure out what the hell they think they are accomplishing. But spammers have tools now that can evaluate captchas using a variety of techniques ranging from dictionary construction to relay attacks in which the captcha is relayed to a company in some third world country that get's paid about a tenth of cent for each one they solve. They just have it pop up on a human's screen to be solved. As soon as the person hits Enter, a new one pops up. It's simply a job, just like telemarketing. If you figure that, with practice, a human can solve them about as fast as they can type then you are looking at many people being able to solve upwards of fifty a minute or on the order of 3000 an hour earning them around $3/hr, which can be a good income in those countries.

Then the captcha folks themselves have made it much easier for the bots. You used to simply have to do your best at the image you were presented. But now you can choose to get a new image or have it spoken to you, so all the bots due is apply OCR and speech recognition to the one that is presented and if the results don't raise above a certain confidence level they just keep requesting a new captcha until they get one that does.

 

I wouldn't say that. I see your point, but let's look at it a different way:

Justt a humorous side note -- my vision is getting bad enough (which makes captchas a real annoyance for me) that when I first read your response I didn't see the period, so I thought you were saying, "I wouldn't say that I see your point, ...."

It sucks going blind.

 

Hello,

I have notified jrap about the issue.
He replied to me, that he has made some changes in the software, so the captcha should not appear anymore.
He will also monitor this thread, if the problems persist.

Bertus