# Fuck ecaptcha
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-ecaptcha/1005764
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [August 16, 2024, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-ecaptcha/1005764 "2024-08-16T02:50:44Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Wolf333](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wolf333)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2024, 8:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-ecaptcha/1005764/21 "2024-08-16T08:51:06Z")
I just ran int this yesterday. It kept showing pictures full of scooters and asking me to click on the motorcycles.
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### Author:  [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2024, 8:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-ecaptcha/1005764/22 "2024-08-16T08:53:24Z")
> [@Spoons](#):
>
> Only thing is, telephone them.
Have you tried calling an American corporation and getting a human being on the line in the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Twenty-Four? You’d be better off flying to wherever their HQ is, barging into the lobby, and demanding to talk to the CEO.
For over a decade I’ve been paying Comcast for a cable TV + internet + landline package. I haven’t actually used the landline in years, and I realized earlier this year that I barely watch cable anymore since all the shows I’m interested in are on the streaming services, so I decided I wanted to drop the TV and phone parts of my plan and just keep the internet. When I called their customer service line to cancel, it told me I had to speak to an agent, but all their agents were busy (at 2 PM on a Tuesday?) and I needed to make the request online instead. When I tried to cancel online, it sent me to a “live chat” with a “customer service specialist”, but that specialist was just an AI chatbot, and when I told it I wanted to cancel, it told me I needed to call. I had to go to r/comcast\_xfinity and post an angry rant and threaten to cancel my debit card so they COULDN’T take my money in order to get a human to contact me and help me set up my new plan.
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### Author:  [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2024, 9:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-ecaptcha/1005764/23 "2024-08-16T09:02:39Z")
> [@wolfpup](#):
>
> the “X” on the browser tab (which should be known as the “fuck you, you’re not worth the hassle” option
And now we know why Musk renamed Twitter.
> [@Spoons](#):
>
> adopt the Canadian model, where your bank is a one stop shop for paying bills
Both banks I use have this option.
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### Author:  [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2024, 9:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-ecaptcha/1005764/24 "2024-08-16T09:05:50Z")
> [@Smapti](#):
>
> Have you tried calling an American corporation and getting a human being on the line in the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Twenty-Four? You’d be better off flying to wherever their HQ is, barging into the lobby, and demanding to talk to the CEO.
Here’s the thing I learned from experience. If you call a corporation, and get the “For English, press 1” runaround, then you need to wait for all the other choices, figure out the one that allows you to cancel your subscription, and hit the key for Cancel. You’ll get a human operator in less than a minute, in my experience.
You’ll get a real live human on the phone in less than a minute, trying to convince you to keep your subscription. Well, you can play along and reluctantly agree to keep your subscription, as long as you can speak with Customer Service, and hopefully adjust your bill payment date.
You’ll be connected to a real, live operator who can help you. Just my experience, yours may vary.
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### Author:  [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2024, 9:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-ecaptcha/1005764/25 "2024-08-16T09:10:02Z")
> [@Spoons](#):
>
> Here’s the thing I learned from experience. If you call a corporation, and get the “For English, press 1” runaround, then you need to wait for all the other choices, figure out the one that allows you to cancel your subscription, and hit the key for Cancel. You’ll get a human operator in less than a minute, in my experience.
Oh, that used to work. It doesn’t seem to anymore, especially since so many companies have switched to having you talk at the bot instead of pressing buttons, and no amount of “Agent!” or “I want to speak to a human!” seems to work. More often there isn’t even an explicit option to cancel and you have to try and guess what combination of responses will get you to account retention.
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### Author:  [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2024, 9:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-ecaptcha/1005764/26 "2024-08-16T09:11:36Z")
> [@Smapti](#):
>
> Oh, that used to work. It doesn’t seem to anymore, especially since so many companies have switched to having you talk at the bot instead of pressing buttons, and no amount of “Agent!” or “I want to speak to a human!” seems to work.
Just say, “Cancel.” Even if it’s not there, it’s there. That worked for me.
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### Author:  [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2024, 9:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-ecaptcha/1005764/27 "2024-08-16T09:30:22Z")
> [@Spoons](#):
>
> Just say, “Cancel.” Even if it’s not there, it’s there.
“Cancel” is what got it to tell me to use the online chatbot. Sometimes I think it’d be easier to fake my own death than to cancel an account.
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### Author:  [@Orville\_mogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orville_mogul)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2024, 10:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-ecaptcha/1005764/28 "2024-08-16T10:29:41Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#):
>
> It turns out that what you click isn’t half as important as how you click it.
Sorry, I know this is a Pit thread, but can I ask for an FQ explanation of this? What is the ‘how’ that the algorithm is looking for? That would be good to know.
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### Author:  [@Orville\_mogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orville_mogul)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2024, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-ecaptcha/1005764/29 "2024-08-16T10:31:23Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#):
>
> Hate-filled shitstain decides to fuck up your bill by paying…then stopping the payment. They have given an alternate number and the first you find out about it it may be too late.
and this too. I also would have thought that very minimal damage could be caused by hacking into a bill-paying portal. Can you tell more? thanks
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### Author:  [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2024, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-ecaptcha/1005764/30 "2024-08-16T10:42:23Z")
Have you seen the simple “I am not a robot” check boxes? Well, of course some bot could find that and click it, but the bot would do it in some really direct way, probably clicking in the middle of the box, straight line mouse movement. The browser actually knows how you typically move your mouse and will offer up the simple button.
Those same sites might require the more complicated matching exercise if you’re in an incognito window.
Anyway, the point is that the eCaptcha will try to determine if it’s a robot or a human clicking buttons, by the way the mouse moves, where it lands when the button is clicked, etc. Apparently, that’s as important as getting the right pictures. I’m sure AIs can find motorcycles easily now, but I guess they still move the mouse too mechanically.
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### Author:  [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2024, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-ecaptcha/1005764/31 "2024-08-16T12:11:12Z")
One could, if it were worth it, train a bot to move the mouse any desired way, including to get past any “I am not a robot” checkbox.
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### Author:  [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2024, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-ecaptcha/1005764/32 "2024-08-16T13:01:03Z")
> [@Orville\_mogul](#):
>
> Sorry, I know this is a Pit thread, but can I ask for an FQ explanation of this? What is the ‘how’ that the algorithm is looking for? That would be good to know.
One of the criteria it uses is how the mouse moves and the delay between clicks. If you’re really quick and precise with your selections, the system thinks automation is being used. Instead, take a bit of time between clicks and move the mouse around in a less deliberate manner. That helps make the system think it’s a person doing the clicking rather than a program.
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### Author:  [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2024, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-ecaptcha/1005764/33 "2024-08-16T13:53:31Z")
> [@Typo\_Negative](#):
>
> Click all the boxes that have a motorcycle. Do it again. Do it again. And again. Now click all that traffic lights. even though, technicall, almost ALL the boxes have some portion of that image in them, but allright. Do it again, and again…ooops try again later.
So, is just ONE pixel sufficient to qualify as a “motorcycle”? I always choose such a box, if it has say a tiny bit of the exhaust pipe in it, but the web site hardly ever agrees with me, for some strange reason…
> [@filmore](#):
>
> If you’re really quick and precise with your selections, the system thinks automation is being used. Instead, take a bit of time between clicks and move the mouse around in a less deliberate manner.
I keep running into this at a certain music site I frequent, which is chock-full of data, but said data is not presented in an easy to acquire manner, so you have to constantly click on a bunch of stuff and manually copy it down to get what you need. And they just released a huge new set of data to sift through, except if you actually try to do that, the bot will get angry at you.
An idiot admin once then chimed in after the bot got on my ass, trying to tell me that a _average_ of 1.25 seconds between clicks was the same as an actual constant interval of 1.25 seconds between clicks.
Greatly lessens my desire to go back when these false positives keep porking the enjoyment of actual human users. At the very least change things up a bit, give dinosaurs or pies or guitars or something.
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### Author:  [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2024, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-ecaptcha/1005764/34 "2024-08-16T14:13:43Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#):
>
> So, is just ONE pixel sufficient to qualify as a “motorcycle”? I always choose such a box, if it has say a tiny bit of the exhaust pipe in it, but the web site hardly ever agrees with me, for some strange reason…
My understanding is that they are trained by other users, so you should click on however many squares you think the average person would.
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### Author:  [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2024, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-ecaptcha/1005764/35 "2024-08-16T14:19:29Z")
> [@Spoons](#):
>
> I think it’s worth pointing out that here in Canada, we can pay pretty much all utility bills, taxes, membership fees to organizations, mortgages, credit card tabs, insurance premiums, and other things, through our banks.
We have that in the US. Some people, even in Canada, are… hesistant.
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### Author:  [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2024, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-ecaptcha/1005764/36 "2024-08-16T14:19:50Z")
OP, do you use Chrome? Because I just went to a CAPTCHA test page and it just has me click the I Am Not A Robot checkbox if I’m in a regular session. If I go to the same page in incognito mode, it makes me do the Find all the cars thing.
I don’t know if that would work the same way with other browsers.
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### Author:  [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2024, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-ecaptcha/1005764/37 "2024-08-16T23:17:45Z")
> [@robby](#):
>
> > [@John\_DiFool](#):
> >
> > So, is just ONE pixel sufficient to qualify as a “motorcycle”? I always choose such a box, if it has say a tiny bit of the exhaust pipe in it, but the web site hardly ever agrees with me, for some strange reason…
>
> My understanding is that they are trained by other users, so you should click on however many squares you think the average person would.
So it’s the _Family Feud_ method of determining what is correct?
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### Author:  [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2024, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-ecaptcha/1005764/38 "2024-08-16T23:28:05Z")
So it is testing ME to judge how OTHER hyoomon beungs did on the test, and if MY judgement therein is wrong **I** am the one which “fails” the idiot test. That’s just focking peachy. 🙄
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### Author:  [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2024, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-ecaptcha/1005764/39 "2024-08-17T02:58:02Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#):
>
> So, is just ONE pixel sufficient to qualify as a “motorcycle”?
Its always a portion. THAT box has a small piece of a handlebar. That box has a smidgeon of a tire. That box has what could be a sliver of a tailpipe.
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### Author:  [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2024, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-ecaptcha/1005764/40 "2024-08-17T03:04:11Z")
I’m a little worried about this one;
[ ](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EGVwvB-W4AEZ4NM.png)
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