Released: May 01, 2008

Digital deception

Source: Peter Whoriskey, Washington Post (Free Registration)

Are you a human or a computer?

Over the Internet, it’s getting harder and harder to tell.

Some of the common tests used by Web sites to distinguish between legitimate flesh-and-blood visitors and malicious human-mimicking computers recently appear to have been outwitted.

Last month, the human verification tests, which typically require users to identify deformed letters set against a cluttered backdrop, were broken by a computer. The computer then repeatedly created free Hotmail e-mail accounts and sent spam from them, according to Websense, the security firm that detected the hacking.

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