Oh dear oh dear
Domainz, like many websites, has a little program to deter spammers and automated registration bots. They display a captcha which is a graphic of some letters, which generally only a human can read and type in (mind you I find a lot of spammers are getting good enough to get past them.
Stuart Parker has blogged the below screenshot from the Domainz site, which he got when trying to renew a domain name.
What are the odds?
No TweetBacks yet. (Be the first to Tweet this post)
No tag for this post.
January 16th, 2008 at 4:13 am
Happens all the time, David.
http://bzp.blogspot.com/2008/01/get-this-in-your-email.html
January 16th, 2008 at 7:04 am
I mean, I could understand it if it was The Very Double Standard….They want to call me that everytime I’ve made a remark.
January 16th, 2008 at 7:20 am
Some of our regulars could use it as a screensaver?
January 16th, 2008 at 7:48 am
Fancy that. The name of a certain Prime Minister!
January 16th, 2008 at 8:23 am
umm 1 in 456976 if there are always only 4 letters. If they also include 0 to 10 its 1 in 1874161.
January 16th, 2008 at 9:11 am
The Odds Are: (1 / 26) * (1 / 26) * (1 / 26) * (1 / 26) = 2.18829873 × 10-6
If you are only limited to four characters and only lowecase letters.
January 16th, 2008 at 9:14 am
Domainz wasn’t the only site:
http://bzp.blogspot.com/2008/01/get-this-in-your-email.html
January 16th, 2008 at 9:19 am
If you expand it to allow for characters a-z, A-Z, 0-9, and anywhere from 1 – 6 characters in the length of the string the odds become much harder:
(1 / 62) * (1 / 63) * (1 / 63) * (1 / 63) * (1 / 63) * (1 / 63) = 1.62519532 × 10-11
January 16th, 2008 at 9:24 am
Had a friend who used to work for the Commercial Union (CU) insurance company in Australia.
hey had a branch office in Darwin, in the NT…
January 16th, 2008 at 10:40 am
Especially with “the name you can trust” floating up on the right.
January 16th, 2008 at 10:59 am
1/456976
January 16th, 2008 at 11:27 am
That’s 10 demerits isn’t it?
January 16th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Reminds me of the time George W Bush was standing in from of the word COUNT, which was shown in large letters. The trouble was, he was standing in front of the letter O when a photo of him was taken.
January 16th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
if they only ever use 4 letter words, use letters randomly and also include numbers there is a about a 1 in 60 million chance of this happening. Clearly more evidence that, no matter how much liberal atheists scientist propagandise , god has to be involved in the Creations of captcha words.
January 16th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
The odds are:
If 26 characters (a-z) – 26 * 26 * 26 *26 or 1 in 456976
If 36 characters (a-z and 0-9) – 36 * 36 * 36 * 36 or 1 in 1679616
January 16th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
1 in 456,976, although I bet somebody else already said that.
January 16th, 2008 at 11:17 pm
That’s some good cunt.
January 16th, 2008 at 11:26 pm
It’s just as likely as getting ‘burt’!
As likely as any other 4 letter scramble.
January 17th, 2008 at 5:13 am
Actually some humans do have a problem reading these CAPTCHAs.
I’m totally blind and use screen reading software, and many of these sites simply shut out Internet users who can’t see. The NZ Herald is one example of this. While they’ve promised the remedy the issue, so far, the “Your Views” section is actually “Your Views unless you’re blind”.
I think a lot of CAPTCHA is overzealously applied, for example why do CAPTCHA when someone’s registering a domain and needs to supply a credit card number.
However in those cases where it is a legitimate tool to fight spam, an audio equivalent should be included.