> For example, Steam has a system where if you enter too many invalid passwords, it will present you with a captcha which you can never actually solve.
I call this "login gaslighting" and it's evil. Pioneered by the "do no evil" company.
ReCaptcha does a similar tactic but rather than unsolvable it's a stream of the most annoying captcha -- "select all of image until none are left". Fail one and you're back at the start. You do have the option to cycle captcha, but 9/10 times it'll be this one. Eventually you'll get locked out of captcha entirely. Anyone who has used Tor on Google has probably experienced this.
> ReCaptcha does a similar tactic but rather than unsolvable it's a stream of the most annoying captcha -- "select all of image until none are left".
In such a situation, I often think: isn't the fact that one makes "stupid mistakes" when attempting to solve a ReCaptcha rather a sign that the entity that is attempting to solve it is a human?
The worst cpatcha has got to be Rockstar games support. You have to click all the images of rolled dice that sum up to 13, 5 times in a row. Then another 5 for some reason. If you make one mistake, you go back to 0.
So that's what that was... Was trying to do something legit, MS gave me a puzzle to solve, it was unsolvable in the time given, it wasted maybe 20 mins. Can't remember what it was, I think create an account for visual studio (you had to sign in to an MS account to keep using free VS, the wankers).
I call this "login gaslighting" and it's evil. Pioneered by the "do no evil" company.