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The simplicity of it is logic defying. It used to be that you had to find crosswalks or move puzzle pieces or type blurred letters and numbers, but NOW all the sudden I can just click a box and HEY!, I'm human?

That's hardly the Turing Test I'd expected.

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[-] platypode@sh.itjust.works 188 points 2 years ago

It tests whether your mouse movement looks human--we're really bad at things like moving in straight lines, so it's pretty evident from a mouse movement log whether you're a human or a simple bot. It also takes a bunch of auxiliary browser/environment data into account. It's not perfect, but it's complicated enough to defeat to provide fine protection against cheap spam.

[-] random_character_a@lemmy.world 49 points 2 years ago

Shitty situation if you are used to using hotkeys and only use mouse cursor when no other means are available by moving it using numpad.

[-] Thorry84@feddit.nl 44 points 2 years ago

If it's in doubt it just gives you extra challenges. So in the end everybody will get there, or not and then fuck you I guess.

[-] savedbythezsh@sh.itjust.works 14 points 2 years ago

Yeah, never thought about this before, but how do blind users deal with captchas?

[-] TheBat@lemmy.world 29 points 2 years ago

There are audio captchas.

[-] s3p5r@lemm.ee 6 points 2 years ago

Some provide screen-reader instructions, but most places barely remember blind people exist. It's another example of people with disabilities being ignored and marginalised.

And then even if they do remember blind people exist, they probably forget there are people who aren't blind who can't do their tests for other reasons, like dyslexia or dexterity impairments.

And then you have hCaptcha who makes disabled people to sign up to their database to use their cookie.

[-] bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 6 points 2 years ago

Normally there are audio captchas

[-] Jimmycrackcrack@lemmy.ml 18 points 2 years ago

I've learned from these that I must definitely move my mouse like a robot since it always asks me to do more puzzles afterwards. This is even if I try jiggling it around after clicking just to try and convince it.

[-] ICastFist@programming.dev 24 points 2 years ago

Could also be browser settings. I often get infinite captcha'd on private Firefox tabs

[-] spankinspinach@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 years ago

Yeah this is my experience as well. I don't have much technical knowledge about it, but Firefox with ublock seems to be the enemy of captcha and CloudFlare

[-] Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 years ago

This is really interesting... Can you elaborate? I've never one had a follow up to the check mark.

I use a high dpi mouse, what do you use?

Spoiler: I think resolution matters here. The top comment is wrong, if anyone cares enough to take notice...

[-] Jimmycrackcrack@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago

Cheapest Logitech mouse I could find in the supermarket about 6-7 years ago.

As others have said, it might be more to do with my browser choice, browser settings and extensions. That said I remember when I first started seeing these years ago that sometimes it'd think I was a robot and sometimes it wouldn't and maybe it was a placebo effect, but I felt fairly confident then that me jiggling the mouse really helped. Now it doesn't matter what I do. My natural movement, a deliberately wonky but still single and continuous movement or a totally artificial mouse wiggle after the clock, I'll always have to do captchas.

[-] Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 2 years ago

Interesting that my mouse movement is available to anyone who wants it.

It seems like a small step from that to accessing my keyboard.

[-] sbv@sh.itjust.works 43 points 2 years ago

Your mouse movement and keyboard events are available to webpages that you've loaded, when the browser window is focused.

This isn't nefarious - it allows websites to build nice UIs that most people enjoy using, most of the time.

There's lots of shady stuff going on in browsers, this isn't really one of them.

[-] Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 2 years ago

Hmm, I can think of some ways to misuse this. And I'm not very smart at all.

[-] Takumidesh@lemmy.world 7 points 2 years ago

I mean, how do you think websites work? Of course your mouse and keyboard events are available, otherwise you wouldn't be able to interact with a website at all.

[-] Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

This was the slap on the head I needed. I now get what you mean by interact with my keyboard. In other words = can tell what I'm typing. Like perfectly normal function of websites.

I didn't understand the "focus" part and how it helped. I think I said earlier, I'm not particularly smart.

[-] naticus@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago
[-] Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 years ago

Like those sites that ask me to sign in using Google (or other options) and then Google asks me for the password?

Pretty easy to grab passwords I think.

[-] howrar@lemmy.ca 12 points 2 years ago

Those websites send you directly to Google, so they no longer have control of the web page when you're entering your password.

[-] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 9 points 2 years ago

This is why Google sign-in can’t be embedded and uses the password input type for the password type. Most SSOs do this as well.

[-] naticus@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago

To clarify, websites can't capture keyboard events that were typed into a different website like you're thinking. Think of going to a web game that let's you use WASD for controlling your character. It's able to capture those events on that page because its in focus. When a site goes out of focus (such as switching tabs or switching to another window that's not the browser), it loses that ability. Overall, it's very secure.

I was more wondering how you thought capturing the mouse movements would lead to security issues.

[-] MoonManKipper@lemmy.world 15 points 2 years ago

If you’re using a webpage JavaScript can see your mouse cursor and anything you type. But only if the browser has focus. So if you’re typing in another window it can’t

[-] Shadow@lemmy.ca 13 points 2 years ago

Your mouse movement on that page is. Just like if you typed into the page.

It's not tracking you in other windows and apps.

[-] linearchaos@lemmy.world 10 points 2 years ago

They can only access it while you're focused on their webpage. CORS is all about that.

If you click off to another web page and enter information or type of password into a secondary app they can't gather that. As soon as they lose focus they lose the ability to capture your data.

[-] Septimaeus@infosec.pub 3 points 2 years ago

Nbd, but it sounds like you’re talking about encapsulation of event capture (viewport stops receiving events after losing focus).

CORS is a protocol for client-side enforcement of a server-side security policy. It ensures that a resource request (e.g. “my-totally-safe-resource.wasm”) only loads from a location your server permits (e.g. “my-valid-origin.biz”, “friends-valid-origin.org”, etc).

[-] kionite231@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 years ago

There is a lot of other data available to sites you visit unless you are using some kind of fingerprint protection

[-] boatswain@infosec.pub 2 points 2 years ago

If loaded with pages didn't have access to keyboard events, you wouldn't be able to write comments on Lemmy posts. I'm not a front-end guy, but that should be limited to just white the browser is focused.

[-] user224@lemmy.sdf.org 7 points 2 years ago

But it also works with touchscreen taps, and randomizing tap position, duration, and delay is fairly simple.

[-] Phil_in_here@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 years ago

My question is how is it not trivial to add a noise wave or some shit to the bot path? Obviously, I have zero technical knowledge of how bots, pathing, or anti-bot analysis works

[-] nick@campfyre.nickwebster.dev 13 points 2 years ago

It uses other signals too, like what other sites you've visited with that checkbox on it, what CloudFlare has seen your IP address doing in the past, etc.

The google one is able to see if you're logged into a google account and take that into account.

There's even a new variant of the Google captcha that is invisible and doesn't even bother to show a checkbox.

[-] Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 years ago

This feels only partially accurate. I'm a web developer, and I know websites don't track all of what you suggest. Can you clarify, or come clean on what actually takes place?

Honestly, I doubt it... I'm sorry. I don't mean to be abrasive.

[-] Vince@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

Couldn't I just record my mouse movements clicking on it a couple dozen times and randomly replay one of those recordings?

[-] Catsrules@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 years ago

It could store the mouse movements to compare later.

this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2024
377 points (100.0% liked)

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