image verification php

[Steve]

seems like this is becomming more and more popular because of abusing code etc, but what i was wondering is why some sites have a combiniation of letters and numbers and why are they all so mashed up and difficult to read sometimes. is this necessary?

recently i was at a site who had this type of system. but the thing was so weird that it even had a button next to it that said "i cannot read the code please generate a new one". isn't it taking it too far?

sry i'm not exactly sure how it works or what it is tryi1ng to prevent - it's not just automated scripts using the php script to send mail? or is there somone physically sending emails from a said site?

[IcIshoot]

I think the main reason for it is to make sure that it isn't an automated system registering for the site.

If you have a system smart enough to register for the site, it could then have access to hidden pages, and maybe even start posting advertisements in the forums.


As to it being all fuzzy weird, I wonder if that would be to keep the system from some how figure out the word in the image using graphic libraries or some way to determine the letters.


IcI

[Capers]

The reason the images are so messed up is that characters can still be recognised on images by these bots. So as the bots were written to try and read the codes on the images webmasters/programmers had to try and avoid this by making the images even harder to read.

As it becomes harder for a human to read, it becomes much harder for humans to program the bot to read them. All in basic terms of course

[Steve]

COOLIO, THANKS FOR THE INFOS GUYS


sry caps

[SilentTrigger]

It kinda fails when humans cant read it either, kinda lose the point heh But some sites have now started using voice generated codes too, so if you cant read it you will be able to listen in on it

[IcIshoot]

If I can't read it, I'll just refresh the page a few times until a more readable code comes up


IcI

[JonM]

It's not really needed on all sites, mainly sites with lots of traffic or where the problems start to occur. I wouldn't implement a hard to read one until these problems arose...