
Ask HN: Are you seeing an increase in reCaptcha challenges? - aosaigh
I seem to be constantly having to pick out traffic lights, shop fronts and cars when logging into services these days.<p>I was previously using a VPN and that seemed to increase my exposure to reCaptcha but I&#x27;ve noticed that even without the VPN enabled there seems to be far more services using these as validation when logging users in.<p>Has you noticed an increase in these reCaptcha challenges and if so, is there a particular reason for this?
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nhkssol
Yes.

My instinct is that it was a result of running Linux as it is likely the
majority of spam requests come from Linux servers whereas the majority of
legitimate requests come from Windows computers. It makes sense that anti-spam
systems would take this into account. To fix this I changed my browser
fingerprint to tell websites I was running Windows. I have no data to prove
it, but I feel as though this has reduced the number of CAPTCHAs I've had to
complete.

Also, it is possible websites are increasing their anti-spam measures as a
result of the alleged Russian interference in the politics of western
countries using bot/spam accounts.

My final theory is that someone is paying them a lot of money for the data
they collect for use in training their self-driving vehicle AI. In this case
they would want to show you CAPTCHAs more frequently to collect more data to
sell for more profit.

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aosaigh
> My final theory is that someone is paying them a lot of money for the data
> they collect for use in training their self-driving vehicle AI. In this case
> they would want to show you CAPTCHAs more frequently to collect more data to
> sell for more profit.

That's an interesting thought. I hadn't really thought about it being a
training set for self-driving AI but that would make sense given that all
examples are from Google Street View nowadays.

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Kaveren
I have nothing to add, other than that yes, recently I noticed an increase in
challenges. I do use a VPN. I'm not entirely sure I'm not just imagining it,
but it certainly seems to be the case.

It used to be bearable. Now I have to go through multiple series of challenges
often, sometimes many times.

I'd take a computational challenge over spending a minute selecting images any
day.

 _Edit: Sometimes it 's so bad that I get the impression that a site is a scam
attempting to get me to fill out reCAPTCHAs so bots can use them._

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drewg123
I've assumed that it is due to ublock origin and blocking enough cross domain
stuff that I'm not being fingerprinted adequately, so I fall into the "must be
a bot" bucket.

I've actually found myself switching loyalty and booking Marriot properties
rather than Hilton for business travel because the reCaptcha makes it such a
PITA to book anything on Hilton's site.

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kuratkull
There have lately been cases where I spend 15 seconds clicking cars or shop
fronts. Also the super slow unload-load animation is frustrating. I guess
Google is using the data to power their computer vision, or sells it. So it
would be reasonable to assume they have raised the number of captchas they
show and the images you have to click.

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sarah123ed
I've noticed it. Very much so. I've thought it might be because I use
TrackMeNot but, I've been using that for a long time so, even given that, I've
seen a lot more reCaptcha. Yes.

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NicoJuicy
Try logging in with ea origin ...

