Skip to content

Related Work

Marvin edited this page Nov 8, 2016 · 1 revision

CAPTCHA Papers

Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart

reCAPTCHA: Human-Based Character Recognition via Web Security Measures

—> Based on OCR

  • 2 different OCR algorithms for digitising old books.
  • Words, for which both OCR’s fail, are one component used by recaptcha
  • Recaptcha’s challenges consist of one word that both OCR’s failed to resolve and one word that was successfully recognized
  • Each unknown word is sent to multiple users and their respective answers are compared to each other
  • When they all agree by a minimum of 3 humans these words are solved and are used as control words for future captchas
  • In case the answers differ desperately, this words get discarded as unreadable

CAPTCHA: Using Hard AI Problems for Security

—> Based on AI problems

  • AI problems that could be solved by a fraction of people are not feasible for use as a captcha system - they should be solvable within a short amount of time
  • “We do not allow captchas to base their security in the secrecy of a database or a piece of code”
  • TL;DR - It is basically introducing AI problems that fits to the captcha requirement (instantly solvable by humans - hard for bots), e.g. image recognition

Usability of CAPTCHAs or usability issues in CAPTCHA design

—> Focus on usability aspect while designing CAPTCHAS

  • Three main types of CAPTCHA’s:

    1. Text-based schemes(rely on distorted text images)
      • rely on distorted text images(still recognisable by humans but hard for OCR)
    2. Sound-based schemes
      • speech recognition
    3. Image-based schemes
      • image recognition tasks
  • Text-based Captcha’s are the most popular ones

Usability criteria

  • Main usability criteria:
    • Learnability: How easy is it for users to accomplish basic tasks the first time they encounter the design?
    • Efficiency: Once users have learned the design, how quickly can they perform tasks?
    • Memorability: When users return to the design after a period of not using it, how easily can they re-establish proficiency?
    • Errors: How many errors do users make, how severe are these errors, and how easily can they recover from the errors?
    • Satisfaction: How pleasant is it to use the design?
  • Captcha usability Criteria(quantitatively)
    • Accuracy: how accurately can a user pass a CAPTCHA challenge? For example, how many times she has to try in order to pass a test?
    • Response time: how long does it take for a user to pass the test?
    • Perceived difficulty/satisfaction of using a scheme. How difficult to use do people perceive a CAPTCHA is? Are users subjectively satisfied and would they be willing to use such a scheme?
  • Captcha usability dimensions —> How to improve accuracy, response time or perceived difficulty/satisfaction?
    • Distortion. This dimension examines the form of distortions employed by a CAPTCHA and their impact on usability.
    • Content. This dimension examines contents embedded in CAPTCHA challenges (or tests) and their impact on usability. For example, how should the content be organised, and is the content appropriate?
    • Presentation. This dimension examines the way that CAPTCHA challenges are presented and its impact on usability
Category Usability issue
Distortion Distortion method and level, confusing characters, friendly to foreigners?
Content Character set, string length(How long? predictable or not?), random string or dictionary word?, offensive word?
Presentation Font type and size, image size, use of colour, integration with web pages

Conclusions

  • Contrary to the common belief, text-based CAPTCHAs can be difficult for foreigners.
  • Whether the length of strings used in a scheme is predictable or not can have interesting implications for both its security and usability.
  • The use of colour in a CAPTCHA can have an impact on its usability, security or both.
  • Overall, the design of CAPTCHA is still an art, rather than a science. It requires considerable study to evolve the design of secure and usable CAPTCHAs into a science.

Clone this wiki locally