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ReCAPTCHA

This article is about a specific implementation of a CAPTCHA. For the original test, see CAPTCHA.

reCAPTCHA Inc.
Original author(s)
Developer(s)Google
Initial releaseMay 27, 2007 (2007-05-27)
TypeClassic version: CAPTCHA
New version: Behavioral analysis
Websitegoogle.com/recaptcha

reCAPTCHA Inc.[1] is a CAPTCHA system owned by Google. It enables web hosts to distinguish between human and automated access to websites. The original version asked users to decipher hard-to-read text or match images. Version 2 also asked users to decipher text or match images if the analysis of cookies and canvas rendering suggested the page was being downloaded automatically.[2] Since version 3, reCAPTCHA will never interrupt users and is intended to run automatically when users load pages or click buttons.[3]

The original iteration of the service was a mass collaboration platform designed for the digitization of books, particularly those that were too illegible to be scanned by computers. The verification prompts utilized pairs of words from scanned pages, with one known word used as a control for verification, and the second used to crowdsource the reading of an uncertain word.[4] reCAPTCHA was originally developed by Luis von Ahn, David Abraham, Manuel Blum, Michael Crawford, Ben Maurer, Colin McMillen, and Edison Tan at Carnegie Mellon University's main Pittsburgh campus.[5] It was acquired by Google in September 2009.[6] The system helped to digitize the archives of The New York Times, and was subsequently used by Google Books for similar purposes.[7]

The system was reported as displaying over 100 million CAPTCHAs every day,[8] on sites such as Facebook, TicketMaster, Twitter, 4chan, CNN.com, StumbleUpon,[9] Craigslist (since June 2008),[10] and the U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration's digital TV converter box coupon program website (as part of the US DTV transition).[11]

In 2014, Google pivoted the service away from its original concept, with a focus on reducing the amount of user interaction needed to verify a user, and only presenting human recognition challenges (such as identifying images in a set that satisfy a specific prompt) if behavioral analysis suspects that the user may be a bot.

In October 2023, it was found that OpenAI's GPT-4 chatbot could solve CAPTCHAs.[12]

  1. ^ "Recaptcha Inc". OpenCorporates. August 28, 2007. Archived from the original on August 20, 2023. Retrieved August 20, 2023.
  2. ^ Shet, Vinay (December 3, 2014). "Are you a robot? Introducing 'CAPTCHA the ReCAPTCHA PREDATORS". Archived from the original on September 3, 2020. Retrieved February 24, 2021.
  3. ^ "reCAPTCHA v3". Archived from the original on September 25, 2020. Retrieved September 8, 2020.
  4. ^ Ahn, Luis von (December 6, 2011), Massive-scale online collaboration, archived from the original on July 15, 2020, retrieved April 14, 2020
  5. ^ "reCAPTCHA: About Us". Archived from the original on June 11, 2010. Retrieved August 14, 2018.
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference AutoK4-1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ "Deciphering Old Texts, One Woozy, Curvy Word at a Time". The New York Times. March 28, 2011. Archived from the original on November 17, 2017. Retrieved November 20, 2017.
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference AutoK4-2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ Cite error: The named reference BBCreport was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference craig was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ Cite error: The named reference AutoK4-5 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  12. ^ Edwards, Benj (October 2, 2023). "Dead grandma locket request tricks Bing Chat's AI into solving security puzzle". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on October 10, 2023. Retrieved October 25, 2023.

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