Spammers Hurt The Blind
There’s an interesting link talking about the lawsuit that Rite Aid just settled regarding their accessibility issues. In part it was in regards to their in-store issues, but it was also about their online accessibility, specifically around CAPTCHAs. So I spent a little time doing some more research into other issues around CAPTCHAs and the blind and in fact there are even concerns around the audio CAPTCHAs for the deaf-blind users.
One thing that was interesting is that many of the sites that have been targeted for law suits and angst have been either online retailers or websites that are heavy text based websites (Typepad, Livejournal, etc…). I guess that makes perfect sense, I just hadn’t thought about it before. I would expect there to be a lot more of this in the future, so if you use CAPTCHAs I’d consider at least getting an audio version, as I’ve discussed countless times. An interesting thought though: spammers have made it harder on the blind. Yet another reason to hate spammers, I guess.
May 5th, 2008 at 12:57 am
But at the end of the day, how much harder have they made it?
http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;758253922
May 5th, 2008 at 9:04 am
Yet another reason to break CAPTCHAs
May 5th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
I had a blind programmer on my team in my job doing r&d for anti-spam appliances.
So, in a small way, blind people hurt spammers too.
May 6th, 2008 at 6:44 am
@Stephen - hahah! I love it.
May 6th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Honestly I hate CAPTCHAs. They used to be simple to read, but as text recognition got better, they became harder and harder to read. Even as a “sight abled” person I sometimes have to go through 2 or 3 before I can get one I can read.
May 6th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
@Angel one, I think you’ve got to the heart of the matter - by definition those aren’t CAPTCHAS because they aren’t valid Turing tests. A Turing test is supposed to be able to tell a human and a computer apart. What you are describing clearly cannot.
May 7th, 2008 at 6:08 am
I have to second Angel One on this, just last Saturday I had to help my youngest brother figure out a supposed CAPTCHA because it was that difficult to make out. The blurring, extra lines, and other techniques that mess with the text have gotten out of hand sacrificing people to try and stay one step ahead of spammers, not that they actually succeed at staying ahead of them given the state of my inbox on any day.