Back in the 1950's there was a research scientist by the name of Alan Turing. I mentioned that because his name plays a part of what CAPTCHA stands for, which is Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart.
Over a period of time computer software improved to the point where it was getting easier to get around the captchas. As a result it has always been necessary to make the captchas more difficult. But in the process of making them more difficult for automated programs it has also become more difficult for people.
Researchers are working on ideas that would make it more difficult for computers and more friendly for people. There are several different ideas being considered.
One of the more interesting ones is ASIRRA (Animal Species Image Recognition for Restricting Access). It involves photographs and questions about animals and has more than two million images.
It is sad that it is even necessary to do this, but there are a lot of people in this world with bad intentions.
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