# Random Funky Numbers

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/random-funky-numbers/325100>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 6, 2005, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/random-funky-numbers/325100 "2005-10-06T21:35:43Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![hendee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/df705f/32.png) [@hendee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hendee)\
**Post date:** [October 6, 2005, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/random-funky-numbers/325100/1 "2005-10-06T21:35:43Z")

</div>

What do you call the pictures on webpages that have those random numbers that are all different shapes and sizes. They are used when you login to somethin so a computer can’t just keep randomly guessing passwords without entering that number… i think. Anyways does anybody know the name of this and where I could find a tutorial for it?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\
**Post date:** [October 6, 2005, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/random-funky-numbers/325100/2 "2005-10-06T21:42:05Z")

</div>

[CAPTCHA](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captcha). It stands for "Completely Automated Public Turing-test to tell Computers and Humans Apart.

Of course, it’s not really a Turing-test _per se_, but they wanted the acronym to sound all cool. “We CAPTCHA’d him!” It’s not even a very good acronym to begin with.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![TJdude825](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dec6dc/32.png) [@TJdude825](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TJdude825)\
**Post date:** [October 6, 2005, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/random-funky-numbers/325100/3 "2005-10-06T23:11:29Z")

</div>

I love those. I always imagine that there’s a machine at the gate, scanning my retinas (like in Minority Report) or maybe checking my “bio-stats” like those handheld Star Trek thingies did.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![MsRobyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90ced4/32.png) [@MsRobyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsRobyn)\
**Post date:** [October 7, 2005, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/random-funky-numbers/325100/4 "2005-10-07T00:20:39Z")

</div>

Those CAPTCHA things are so a system knows you’re human. Spambots can’t read those sequences… yet.

But they will… someday. :eek:

Robin

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\
**Post date:** [October 7, 2005, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/random-funky-numbers/325100/5 "2005-10-07T02:31:21Z")

</div>

Actually, the bots are able to read a few of them already with basic OCR technology, so they’re not infallible.