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.
Beats me. I have a script that clicks all those boxes for me.
Yo based
I always fail Cloudflare captchas because I’m clicking it with Vimium-C lol. I hate captchas for making me reach for my mouse. It also seems like a genuine accessibility issue if people who cannot use a mouse can’t pass a captcha.
I’ve found that Google’s reCAPTCHA has also started rejecting me no matter what I do. I think it might be because my IP address is a VPN, but that’s pretty stupid; if I can pass the test by clicking the squares why not let me in?
I’ve recently noticed the same thing with cloudflare and Google captchas while using a VPN. I just use Bing instead while on the VPN because I never get past the Google captchas, or at least I give up after 2 or 3.
It also seems like the resolution of the browser has some impact with cloudflare. If I open a browser window in the corner of the screen, I’m basically guaranteed to get more cloudflare captchas, but if I open it full screen I only get one, maybe two.
The EXACT same thing has been happening with me and google captchas. I just switched to Proton VPn, and while I like it, the amount of capctchas I’ve had to poke through is ridiculous.
I’ve found that when Google decides to throw me a captcha, literally no amount of solving them will ever persuade them to let me in. I went through 10 in a row before I gave up.
Just seems like spite to me.
reCAPTCHA is a failed project. It was initially designed to lock out bots while being trivial for a human to solve but, over the years, captchas became more unintuitive and bots more sophisticated. Bots are now way better at solving captchas than humans and it’s just a useless time sink.
I think it might be because my IP address is a VPN, but that’s pretty stupid; if I can pass the test by clicking the squares why not let me in?
They want your tasty IP data
That’s when I just use another search engine.
Reddit blocks VPN and won’t let me in. OK bye reddit too lazy to turn off VPN ffs
I’ve had a few burner reddit accounts using a randomly generated yopmail email for the rare moments that I just want to read an answer for something I can only find on reddit lol
Use redlib, e.g. the instance I use: https://redlib.ducks.party/
This is helpful, thanks
No worries. You can also use LibRedirect to automatically redirect any reddit links to a redlib instance of your choice
A side to this is that certain techniques will be deliberately obfuscated or simply omitted as a security measure in the hopes of slowing a bad actor’s eventual bypassing of the measure. It’s an arms race and if the intruder doesn’t know what all the locks even are, it takes longer to break or pick them.
The timing of the click captcha loading is randomized and it probably is looking for human-ish cursor movement? (Like you’re probably moving your hand in imperceptibly small ways that are difficult to replicate). Clicking before it loads and doing it repeatedly probably triggers detection.
This is correct. Those captchas are tracking everything they can and comparing it to other results to try and figure this out. Mouse movement, delay before you click, everything.
I used to think it was timing based, but now leaning on the idea that it just performs more fingerprinting in the background: user agent per ip pool, canvas or puppeteer checks.
It’s actually detecting you using emotion and aging. That’s the real test…
If I was walking in a desert and saw a tortoise on its back, struggling to get up, and I was not helping it
Listening to me talk about that birding hat I want to buy, checking thru Amazon to see if it’s on my wishlist.
Proof of work, which becomes computationally expensive to scale, along with other heuristics based on your browser and page interaction. I believe it’s less about clicking the box and what happens after you’ve clicked the box.
This is correct. I work in bot detections. There are baseline checks for various browser automation used as bot frameworks like Puppeteer or Playwright. Then there is basic analysis of server side and client side fingerprints; meaning, do the fingerprints you claim make sense. There are other heuristics too and I imagine Cloudflare is monitoring movements that point to automation. All of this happens after you click. I personally prefer this over Google’s captcha which frequently doesn’t recognize me as a human but is easily bypassed by bots.
I believe it’s less about clicking the box and what happens after you’ve clicked the box.
I think it’s before, not after.
I kinda think your browser makes sure you at least click before websites are allowed tracking things like your cursor.
I think the clicking is rather the part where you agree to allow your history to be checked, essentially.
Sorry for linking Reddit, but… https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/s/Ws3Mr45qFV
Here, I got you: https://redlib.northboot.xyz/r/askscience/s/Ws3Mr45qFV
Interesting that it works so well for Tor Browser, given that there’s not much information to collect. Just the proof of work might be enough there.
some of them are also less bot detection and more spam limiting and mitigation. cloudflare’s has more stuff built in I’m sure, but things like mCapcha are just proof of work, so if you’re trying to make a bunch of accounts or whatever, it’s really computationally expensive.
https://blog.cloudflare.com/turnstile-private-captcha-alternative/
TL:DR cloudflare made a new recaptcha which does some complex math and other stuff on your browser, which done once has no noticable effect but if someone were to scrape websites at an absurd speed it slows everything down significantly.
this is not only cool because you don’t have to manually solve the captcha, but also because it allows for low-speed scraping to be feasible, with tools like flaresolverr
That’s actually kinda cool. Punish the scrapers, but allow regular people to not waste time.
Meanwhile, Google is having you find the zebra crossing for the 400th time…
*training their ai using humans
Oh, so it’s Hashcash; cool to see that idea getting real use.
Thanks for being the only person in this thread who doesn’t joke or talk out of their ass
Quite interesting really and a genius solution (it they don’t lie about not stealing your data)
Didn’t the Soviets see geniuses and other intellectuals as a danger to society during the time this award was given out? Or are there incidents where this was given to scientists as well? I know you’re probably joking, but when I suddenly encounter Lenin’s head being used in a positive manner I have to look twice.
Didn’t the Soviets see geniuses and other intellectuals as a danger to society
Cloudflare has a bot score. Depending on how sus your bot score is you can use several different levels of verification. The checkbox you refer to is kind of in the middle. There is also a more complicated intrusive captcha and a totally transparent javascript. It’s a pretty slick system.
I like that when I’m on tor browser with VPN behind it they’re like “Yeah, cool, go on through”
Don’t mix tor plus VPN.
If you’re using tor browser without tor for some reason, carry on.
Why?
So, turn off my VPN that’s always running before I use the tor browser?
There are two ways to layer a VPN and tor:
- Tor over VPN; or
- VPN over Tor.
In the first option, you gain little. Tor already encrypts your traffic, so your ISP can’t see inside them. Technically, Tor over a VPN hides the fact that you’re using Tor from your ISP, but Tor’s snowflake does something similar if you need that.
In the second option, you’re revealing your VPN account information, which could theoretically be associated back to you. Tor adds nothing over just a VPN in this case.
So really, “no value in mixing,” which is distinct from “don’t mix.”
The latter implies a security risk could be created.
A security risk is created, you’re creating a permanent guard node by using your VPN with TOR. A lot of people downplay how serious this can be against a dedicated attacker. Sure, it may not matter for most, but for those with the right threat model, it will.
The risk of mis-ordering your layers is a security issue.
VPN behind it. So tor is under the VPN.
Clicking the button doesn’t proof that you are a human. All the checks happen way before you even click the button (or sometimes even before visiting the website). Google also offers a similar button for their users and since cloudflare is also used on almost any website, they have a lot of data about you. They check your cookies, browser agent, device, settings, your IP address, if you use a VPN or proxy, etc. If you visited other cloudflare websites in the past with the same device or IP, and so on. So they know you and your device way before you even click the button. This is also the reason why you sometimes see a robot arm (made of Lego) clicking the button, and is still recognized as human. But as soon as you use a different IP address or a VPN (or even use a shared IP address, like in your company’s network) you have to solve CAPTCHAs. Of course they also check mouse movement, but this is only one part of many checks.
This all humans will be good for in the future, until they atrophy and become a mere appendage of machinegod.
I saw the movie. Unhappy ending.
Which movie is that ? While waiting your reply I asked chatgpt
Please write movie script where humans continue to evolve in an environment where their reproduction and evolution is mediated entirely by the solvibg of captchas. They have become one with machinegod, just a vestigial appendage so scratch an itch that the machine cannot satisfy any other way.
https://chatgpt.com/share/fae8c7fc-df78-462e-9922-9d976a182bd8
I think it’s monitoring your mouse inputs somehow to determine if you’re a person
The best is when it fails to verify, offers no backup option, and you’re simply blocked from accessing your own bank account or government website. Fuck cloudflare
Yeah at least Google will let you in after you solve 5 puzzles. It’s shit but it’s possible. With CloudFlare you are at the mercy of whatever hidden criteria they’re using.
If you change your user agent from Firefox to Chrome for instance, CloudFlare will never let you through.
Bank and government website behind Cloudflare???
Fuck, I just checked, my bank is also behind Cloudflare, what the fuck…
I kind of assumed a bank wouldn’t put another company with ability to view all transferred data between customers and themselves.How much of the internet is not behind CF?
I should probably try blocking their IPs and see what will still work.I’ve tried this and you essentially break resolving of most of the internet on your device by doing this. Almost the entire internet relies on both Amazon Web Services and Cloudflare.
It redirects, it doesn’t proxy. The workflow is: user navigates to URL->DNS sends it to cloudflare->cloudflare ensures request is allowed based on selected rules (human check, geo check, DDOS check, etc) and remembers->request is redirected to non-cloudflare address->server response goes direct from server to user browser->subsequent requests are redirected without the test as long as the cookie remembers. I don’t like cloudflare, every time I have an issue pop up out of nowhere, it’s usually cloudflare and some over eager netsec engineer that broke CORS, or decided css wasn’t important, or that machine to machine traffic was a DOS attack. But it’s not reading your statements or anything else the server sends back. It could conceivably read your username and password and any other data you send in your request, but it doesn’t have the TLS certificate. So even though it doesn’t even try, if CF decided to be nefarious, as long as your banks engineers are at least somewhat competent CF is only getting encrypted data that it can’t do anything with. Hate on CF all you want, but hate it for the right reasons.
Think you mean to respond to the other comment fyi
as long as your banks engineers are at least somewhat competent
Let’s be realistic here lol
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.
What if you’re on a phone or tablet?
It’s also checking your other traffic. (Since Cloudflare handles traffic for so many companies.) Are you visiting other sites in a realistic fashion, or are you doing 99% of your traffic trying to do one thing over and over.
Clicking percision and reaction time are still measurable and the checkbox can fall back to other captcha tactics if it has low faith in the user.
But it also works with touchscreen taps, and randomizing tap position, duration, and delay is fairly simple.
Interesting that my mouse movement is available to anyone who wants it.
It seems like a small step from that to accessing my keyboard.
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.
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
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.
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).
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.
There is a lot of other data available to sites you visit unless you are using some kind of fingerprint protection
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.
Hmm, I can think of some ways to misuse this. And I’m not very smart at all.
Say more
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.
Those websites send you directly to Google, so they no longer have control of the web page when you’re entering your password.
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.
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.
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.
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” party and how it helped. I think I said earlier, I’m not particularly smart.
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.
Yeah, never thought about this before, but how do blind users deal with captchas?
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.
There are audio captchas.
Normally there are audio captchas
Nah that’s different as well. What they are filtering out is
- a mouse teleporting to the exact center of the checkbox
- a mouse smoothly gliding in a straight line to the center if the checkbook
- a mouse traveling in a straight line to the center of the checkbook with some momentary stutters to add noise
Et cetera. Humans are much noiser than anything a python script will spit out. Of course there are ways to get around this, like recording and reenacting a human mouse movement, but the point of any capcha system is to make it significantly more difficult to bot, not impossible.
No OP was right. If the reCaptcha is on the same page as a login, and I use my password manager to fill the fields, I fail the reCaptcha almost every time. I have to manually paste in the user name and password separately to slow things down to act more human…
This never happens to me, I always instantly autofill with my password manager.
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.
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.
Could also be browser settings. I often get infinite captcha’d on private Firefox tabs
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
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…
Couldn’t I just record my mouse movements clicking on it a couple dozen times and randomly replay one of those recordings?
It could store the mouse movements to compare later.
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
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.
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.
I’m pretty sure I’m a robot since they often force me to select the motorcycle from a picture that is just one motor cycle. If I select every part of it I fail every time. Same thing with street lights and fire plugs.
I often wonder if that’s a fail or just some tech sitting in a room saying “Now do THIS!” and pressing refresh over and over.
