It's a good thing they make it harder for bots, but they shouldn't make it harder for people. I sometimes get annoyed by these captchas because even I can't enter them correctly . A more efficient way of using captchas is to let people recognise objects or to select the right image. This technique has been used already, people have to select the photo with a cat out of 9 different images. A lot more easy and almost impossible to crack.

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It's basically like Windows Genuine Advantage. Meant to deter pirates, but makes life terrible for the legitimate consumer.

xboxrulz

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they also have it even for the yahoo email! its annoying really, every time i send an email i have to type in the code.

at least their image works! i cant signup to vbulletin forums for some reason cos the verification images dont load, its annoying.

yahoo did have a nice idea though, it stops spammers and spam bots from going round annoying people.

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The problem with image based systems is there are only a finite number of images to choose from. Let’s say I created the above example with nine images and I had to pick the cat. In order to break the code I would download every single image on the system, I will assume 1000 images in this case. I then make a MD5 hash of the images so I can accurately determine the image displayed. I take a long afternoon and enter what the image is into a lookup table.

To create an automatic system I then go to the CAPTCHA page and see what it wants, a cow for example. I then download the nine images presented to me and use the lookup table to find the cow. I submit the answer with the cow and the system is broken. Even if the system has a million images, the foundation for this hack is the same and can eventually be broken.

To me the most annoying part of requiring a CAPTCHA to get into chat is the implementation. When using the official Messenger client you have to click a hyperlink and an external web browser is opened with the link. This adds at least 5-10 seconds to get into a room. YahElite on the other hand has an image browser built in so it displays the code in a new window without having to open your web browser. I was extremely surprised to find that the latest beta of Messenger 9 still has to have a web browser. It looks like this would have been one of the first things they fixed.

 

 

 

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Yahoo chat rooms are, always have been, and always will be a complete waste of time with their lack of moderation capabilities. There will always be spammers and otherwise generally obnoxious people because there's no simple way to get rid of them. The best you can hope for is to change rooms, in which event you'll encounter new spammers.

The system is completely broken, so I avoid it like the plague. Never did have an intelligent conversation with anyone in one of those damn rooms.

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it aint workin
Captchas + Yahoo! Chat = No Bots (for Now)

What do you call the interruption of cam site transmissions ongoing in all the rooms?Those arent real people wanting to chat! it is robotic scrolling and not being manned by a live person;how is it that you allow that kind of crap,and why or do you get a piece of thier action? I am giving up on yahoo integrity-they have none as far as I have seen and they never answer inquiries with resolution! Bunch of bunk--and I Will Continue to harrass cammers as long as they harrass me!

-reply by norm

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Yahoo chat rooms still suck, still just as many if not more bots in the rooms than before. Now they are getting rid of most of the good rooms.

Only place I chat now is OohYa Chat Rooms, they have no bots and it's because they limit how many people can chat per IP.

Yahoo makes the case that limiting per IP would keep people from internet cafes or people on networks like at work or at school from getting in, but since internet cafes are a thing of the 90's and you probably shouldn't be chatting from work or school who really cares!?

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Since the CAPTCHAs have been introduced I haven’t visited the chat rooms very often but I did make a visit about a week ago. I have to say that the rooms are now completely broken and are basically unusable. You now have to enter a CAPTCHA for every room you visit which got really old really quick. At least before you had a valid CAPTCHA for around 5 minutes.

I am starting to think that Yahoo! should just open the system up to the users and let the SPAM flow. Yes there will be SPAM but at least the user/SPAM ratio would be better than it is today. When I visited last week you had 4 users and 15 SPAM bots. At the height of Yahoo! chat you still had 15 SPAM bots but you also had 30 users which created a better ratio. IRC has been around for much longer than Yahoo! chat rooms but they are still functional. In the beginning I was on the side of the CAPTCHAs but now I am starting to go the other way. Yahoo! is killing SPAM at the cost of content.

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I don't think the captchas are that bad. Some things need to be changed, though. The most annoying part of the captchas is that you have to open a web page in the browser to enter it. A built in GUI to enter the captcha would be very handy. The captchas should be limited to 1 per 2-3 hrs of room joining or so. Users often need to surf through rooms before they finally get in a room with real users and real conversations. Also, as you mentioned in a topic that the existing Yahoo captchas have been broken; so they need to be changed.

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They should make you enter a captcha on login, then send a session cookie, that way, you only have to enter it once each time you log in.
Although that would mean possibility of bots being logged in by the makers, then left to roam free, so there could be a detection system, which would check if a user was
- changing chat room a lot
- most of the things the user said contained a link
- they often link to the same website
- they say similar things a lot

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