anandk
Distinguished Member
ever wondered what those wierd-looking numbers and letters r, that some sites want u 2 enter 4 security reasons; and how do they actually help security?
well i just "yahoo'd" around and came up with this : these alpha-numbers r there to prevent spambots or other malicious users from flooding the form page with bogus data. they r presented as an image, rather than plain text, in order to prevent a simple script from copying and pasting the numbers on the form. and they r distorted to prevent optical-character recognition software from reading the numbers in the image and doing the same thing. the idea is that only humans will be able to decipher the images of the numbers and correctly retype them on the form; thus ensuring that the form only gets used for legitimate purposes.
(PS : this has to be in the Tutotial Section imo. If mods feel otherwise, they will shift it. so lets not worry about that
)
well i just "yahoo'd" around and came up with this : these alpha-numbers r there to prevent spambots or other malicious users from flooding the form page with bogus data. they r presented as an image, rather than plain text, in order to prevent a simple script from copying and pasting the numbers on the form. and they r distorted to prevent optical-character recognition software from reading the numbers in the image and doing the same thing. the idea is that only humans will be able to decipher the images of the numbers and correctly retype them on the form; thus ensuring that the form only gets used for legitimate purposes.
(PS : this has to be in the Tutotial Section imo. If mods feel otherwise, they will shift it. so lets not worry about that
)
