How a Bot: To Bot, or Not to Bot

I've been noticing something weird when pulling up Permies.com on my Android devices. When first logging in, or pulling up a tab that hasn't been used in a while, I briefly see a 'captcha' thing asking to check off a box to show you are human. In a split second, this is cleared out and I'm let into the site.

I've heard Paul frequently mentioning how it seems that large corporate entities that don't like what gets done at Permies have been messing things up with bot attacks in recent years. As I've been investing a great deal of my own time adding content to the site and endeavoring to build a mutual aid network here, I'm interested in long term prospects of keeping things groovy under the hood. Using bots pretending to be human to protect it from attacking bots pretending to be human seems like it might present a larger problem down the line.

I'm guessing if there were anything 'crowd sourceable' besides straight donations that could help the situation it would be presented in the periodical emails. But, just thought I'd check to see if there was anything that could be clarified or offered in a discussion here...

My tablet browser has the option to do captcha for me now.  It got turned on automatically.  Apparently the computer is better at providing I am a real human than I am.  

On most captcha, it flashes onnscreen, then sends me into the site.

Perhaps I should mention that I am using a Firefox variant browser with LineageOS on my phone. And that the concern is browsers can easily defeat basic 'humanity checks'.

I know one specific problem mentioned was bot accounts on YouTube being used to defeat the (un)popularity algo and tank some of the videos?

But I think some of the need for site upgrades here was due to aggressive bot activity? Or has it just been to cope with increasing traffic? I'd be curious to know how estimates of real vs. bot traffic to this site are derived...

Coydon Wallham wrote:When first logging in, or pulling up a tab that hasn't been used in a while, I briefly see a 'captcha' thing asking to check off a box to show you are human. In a split second, this is cleared out and I'm let into the site.

Does this happen only when you click a link from an email?

Devaka Cooray wrote:Does this happen only when you click a link from an email?

I will make a note of this next time I experience it.

I have noticed this with other sites a few times since then, so it would appear to be an issue between the captcha module and my browser.

We DO use a 'captcha' think that works exactly like how you described it, but only for links originating from emails. It's not really a captcha - just something to prevent your email service provider from ruining certain confirmation links for you.

Was that like a white button in the middle of a light brown background, and the button suddenly turns blue?

Devaka Cooray wrote:We DO use a 'captcha' think that works exactly like how you described it, but only for links originating from emails. It's not really a captcha - just something to prevent your email service provider from ruining certain confirmation links for you.

Was that like a white button in the middle of a light brown background, and the button suddenly turns blue?

Is the Captcha module intended to require manual intervention from the user to check the box?

It only appears for a split second, so no recollection of details beyond the appearance of the box.

Coydon Wallham wrote:Is the Captcha module intended to require manual intervention from the user to check the box?

It's not a real captcha. It's a simple script that checks whether your browser is.... real. If it figures that out, it would immediately 'solve' itself. If not, you would just have to press that button.

Devaka Cooray wrote:It's not a real captcha. It's a simple script that checks whether your browser is.... real. If it figures that out, it would immediately 'solve' itself. If not, you would just have to press that button.

Okay. I do think it appeared also when I reactivated a tab that was weeks old after the browser put it in 'hibernation' or something, but again this is just an odd non-sequitur I noticed a few times as it briefly flitted by...