Google's reCAPTCHAv2 is just labor exploitation, boffins say
www.theregister.com
Web puzzles don't protect against bots, but humans have spent 819 million unpaid hours solving them

Research Findings:

  • reCAPTCHA v2 is not effective in preventing bots and fraud, despite its intended purpose
  • reCAPTCHA v2 can be defeated by bots 70-100% of the time
  • reCAPTCHA v3, the latest version, is also vulnerable to attacks and has been beaten 97% of the time
  • reCAPTCHA interactions impose a significant cost on users, with an estimated 819 million hours of human time spent on reCAPTCHA over 13 years, which corresponds to at least $6.1 billion USD in wages
  • Google has potentially profited $888 billion from cookies [created by reCAPTCHA sessions] and $8.75–32.3 billion per each sale of their total labeled data set
  • Google should bear the cost of detecting bots, rather than shifting it to users

“The conclusion can be extended that the true purpose of reCAPTCHA v2 is a free image-labeling labor and tracking cookie farm for advertising and data profit masquerading as a security service,” the paper declares.

In a statement provided to The Register after this story was filed, a Google spokesperson said: “reCAPTCHA user data is not used for any other purpose than to improve the reCAPTCHA service, which the terms of service make clear. Further, a majority of our user base have moved to reCAPTCHA v3, which improves fraud detection with invisible scoring. Even if a site were still on the previous generation of the product, reCAPTCHA v2 visual challenge images are all pre-labeled and user input plays no role in image labeling.”

  • Churbleyimyam@lemm.eeEnglish
    1171·
    6 months ago

    Getting served a captcha often results in me closing the tab. I’m not doing stupid puzzles for you.

          • hddsx@lemmy.caEnglish
            18·
            6 months ago

            What do you mean? I am a fleshy human and do fleshy human things like being made of flesh.

            • xavier666@lemm.eeEnglish
              2·
              6 months ago

              Time to take a knife and check for sure

              Seriously /s Don’t harm yourself!

              • AlolanYoda@mander.xyzEnglish
                1·
                6 months ago

                Harm yourself?

                Take the knife and harm the people responsible for this travesty. The laws of robotics prevent robots from harming humans: if you manage to harm them, then that means either you’re human or they’re not!

              • hddsx@lemmy.caEnglish
                1·
                6 months ago

                I disassembled my tail using a knife and it reassembled itself. Based on new data, my name is Rafael Cruz.

    • snooggums@midwest.socialEnglish
      7·
      6 months ago

      I haven’t done an image one in years for the same reason.

      My general internet usage has plummeted between ads and captchas and all the other modern website bullshit, which is why I am here so much.