The
Editor, Sir:
“It’s
important to note that simply identifying the text in CAPTCHA puzzles correctly
doesn’t mean that reCAPTCHA
itself is broken or ineffective. On the contrary, these findings have helped us
build additional safeguards against bad actors in reCAPTCHA.”
Google Product Manager
Vinay Shet commenting on the company’s online security blog about their
algorithm that can beat CAPTCHA
Google
has cracked BOTH CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell
Computers and Humans Apart) and reCAPTCHA, the
system of Verification to see if you are a machine or a person as stated in “GOOGLE
CRACKS CAPTCHA WITH AN ALGORITHM THAT’S 99.8 PERCENT ACCURATE”, published
April 17, 2014 By Mike Epstein, DigitalTrends.
This was done using a series of Letters or
numbers that has to be repeated to verify if you are…well… a human This is not
Good, Google. This….is bad…..very…bad!
More
troubling, in their Research, the Google Street View Team also discovered, to
their surprise, that their algorithm can also crack reCAPTCHA and
offer answers that are 99.8% accurate!
That
suggests that both CAPTCHA and reCAPTCHA, which
is supposedly an improvement on CAPTCHA as it allegedly uses “advanced risk
analysis techniques”, are equally susceptible to hackers or Bot programs with
the right software algorithm and the right amount of processing Power to
manipulate photographic images.
The
Google Street View Team uses their algorithm to read Street signs and place
names gleaned from image data captured and are 90% accurate. The images are
captured when their Street View Vehicles roll through a city with their 360 degree
viewing angle cameras.
These
images are them taken back to Headquarters where in-house software creates 3D
renderings of Cities and Town that they drive through. This via using advanced
photo-stitching software, which contain the algorithm which can read human made
text, which were basically unreadable – until this announcement.
This
now means that Google’s LBS (Location Based Services) all benefit by having the
ability to glean more information from these 360 degree mappings made when they
roll through these cities or towns.
CAPTCHA and reCAPTCHA
are machine readable – Bots can take over in Days of Future Past
But
as it relates to CAPTCHA and reCAPTCHA, their
research suggests that at 99.8%, this algorithm must be very robust or the
words in the CAPTCHA and reCAPTCHA panel
presented on most websites is too clear, making them machine readable with a
Camera attached to a computer running this Text-reading Photo-analysis
algorithm!
Apparently
the “advanced risk analysis techniques” probably involves cookies that monitor
activity on the Website as well as the host computer to determine if there may
be a program running. This as by logic, if it is a real human being, both
before, during and after accessing a certain website, they may also be doing other
things on the computer.
If
the computer seems devoid of activity and appears to be running some
code-cracking programs that appears to be loading certain programs into memory
that have code instructions geared at reading Text combine with a camera to
detect images, then in all likelihood it may be a machine. Apparently the reCAPTCHA snooping
abilities aren’t so great, as Google’s Street View Team managed to defeat it
99.8% of the time!
The
discovery, made by Google Street View Team, means that with the right visual
recognition algorithm, similar to what Google has, it’s possible for any
computer or even potentially a Bot programming harnessing the processing power
of a Mainframe or basic Server to read any text or matter how it’s arranged.
This is a key pre-requisite for a truly sentient Artificial Intelligence System
to function in a world with Humans that don’t all write and form their letters
the same way.
This
is very bad, as it now means that if this algorithm leaks out to the public,
and it will eventually, it’ll mean that websites that previously were
inaccessible by Bot Programs could now be easily compromised. Bots and programs
already account for 61% of traffic on the Internet, according to Analyst
Incapsula as I’d reported in my Geezam blog
article entitled “61%
of all Traffic on the Internet is generated by bots”.
Now
that they can read as we humans can read, it’s only a matter of time before
they hack yet another fridge as described in my blog article
entitled “Proofpoint
says Refridgerator hacked and used to send Spam email - Internet of Things
Terminator 3 Rise of the Machines for hacker's DDOS and Spambots” and
launched another attack.
This
time, they have the advantage of disguising themselves as actual compromised
accounts which they can sign up to, now that CAPTCHA and reCAPTCHA are Machine
Readable in these X-Men: Days
of Future Past (2014)!
….soon
the AI Sentinel Refrigerators will attack…and I’ll be ready with my EMP
(Electro Magnetic Pulse) Weapon and my Jamaican Cutlass!!
Here’s
the link:
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