Is This the Most Ridiculous ReCAPTCHA Image Ever?
I’m a big fan of reCAPTCHA, which is a popular anti-spam Web tool that Google acquired last year. Not only does the free service stop Web spam, but it also helps to digitize books and newspapers at the same time.
If you’ve spent any time online at all, then odds are you’ve attempted to decipher a reCAPTCHA image in order to register for a website or fill out a form. And if you’re anything like me, some of the “words” that the tool offers up can seem to be all but indecipherable.
This reCAPTCHA image that I was hit with today while creating a new hub on HubPages, however, really takes the cake. Check it out the screenshot (and no, I didn’t Photoshop or otherwise manipulate the image) :
The first word is “molocues,” and the second is . . . well, some sort of a mathematical formula, I think. How the heck is someone expected to type that out on a standard computer keyboard?
Thank goodness for the “refresh” button on the reCAPTCHA form, which I find myself using more often than not when it’s time to decipher one of these things. One of my coworkers swears that the answer to the formula is “1″, but I didn’t spend any time trying to calculate it.
What I did spend some time doing, though, is Photoshopping a few other suggestions for equally perplexing images that reCAPTCHA might want to use in future anti-spam efforts. Check it out:
If you can think of better ones, then roll with it . . . create a few funny reCAPTCHA images of your own and share them with your blog readers. In fact, if you drop me a note here on Contest Blogger, I’ll even put a link to your post right here for everyone else to check out.