Linearized computations - was OCR

[Trei, Peter]

> ----------
> From: 	Ray Dillinger[SMTP:bear at sonic.net]
> Sent: 	Friday, August 10, 2001 12:06 PM
> To: 	Dr. Evil
> Cc: 	cypherpunks at minder.net
> Subject: 	Linearized computations - was  OCR
> 
> 
> 
> On 10 Aug 2001, Dr. Evil wrote:
> 
> >blacked out.  Cool!  But I'm working on a different problem.
> >Basically, I have a web site that lets you reserve domain names before
> >you pay for them.  I want to make sure that no loser out there decides
> >to be cool and write a script which reserves every word in the
> >dictionary, or every sequence of eight characters, or some moronic
> >thing like that.  So I will have the page display three characters,
> >somewhat blurry, and say, "type these characters here!"  If they don't
> >match, you're not human!  (Why didn't they think of this simple method
> >in Terminator and Blade Runner?)  This same moron could sit there and
> >type domain names all day long, but that's enough punishment in
> >itself.
> 
I think text is the wrong approach. Put up some pictures,
and a question - 'Click on the white bunny' 'Click on the
chipmunk' 'Click on the Russian icon'. 'Click on the clowns nose'
'Click on the clown's right hand'

Taking text, which is explicitly designed to be readable, and
trying to find a degree of distortion which is human (but not machine)
readable is probably a bad approach. Try something a 6 year old
can do, but which is still a PhD thesis problem for computers.

Peter