What is Digg?82 Comments
- djkool14, on 12/01/2008, -9/+72This would never hold up in practice.
"plugs into Web sites and invisibly analyzes users' online behavior to determine who's a human and who's a bot." Obviously violates any notion of privacy and would never be adopted by any internet community. - jfdolier, on 12/01/2008, -1/+44How will people know I'm human if I don't squint?
- NewsFeed, on 12/01/2008, -0/+28Here is the company's site by the way - http://www.pramana.com/
- Asrrin29, on 12/02/2008, -0/+26so what about people who use auto-complete software?
- sockpuppets, on 12/02/2008, -0/+19I think we should all copy and paste an email question to them. Imagine, hundreds of emails from real people doing and saying the same exact thing.
info@pramana.com
------------------
Interesting article about Pramana, tell me more!
Hi,
I read about your company on Forbes and was intrigued, could you tell me how this works and how you're able to tell I'm human?
Thank you,
A Human - saranagati, on 12/02/2008, -0/+18tivo'ing? really? i mean come on... couldn't you have just said recording?
- patrickchee, on 12/01/2008, -2/+19It's not that typing in 2 stupid words is hard, but it is annoying as hell. That's great, I hate those things anyway!
- DragonForce4, on 12/02/2008, -0/+11you don't tivo your computer
also when the ***** did tivo become a genericized trademark - Wade, on 12/02/2008, -1/+11Leela: Didn't you have ads in the 20th century?
Fry: Well, sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio. And in magazines and movies and at ball games and on buses and milk cartons and T-shirts and written in the sky. But not in dreams. No, sir-ee! - BrettFromTibet, on 12/01/2008, -4/+13This would be killer if they could pull it off seamlessly... CAPTCHAs really suck!
- Michaelabehsera, on 12/01/2008, -0/+9I hate them
- NewsFeed, on 12/01/2008, -2/+11Actually it would work and there are rumors that some big sites that are in conversations to use it..
- inactive, on 12/02/2008, -1/+10"We simply watch them and decide for ourselves."
Hmm. Creepy. Sounds bureaucratic. I think I'll squint for now. - Myztry, on 12/02/2008, -0/+9Wouldn't work. No human spends as much time on single sites like Digg as many of us do...
- ohnoerino, on 12/01/2008, -1/+9Screw you Captcha!
- daedalous, on 12/02/2008, -0/+8Think about what you just said, and get back to us.
- adidos, on 12/01/2008, -2/+10Security through obscurity...awesome.
- Junior612, on 12/02/2008, -2/+10Yes please track my internet habits to see if I'm human so you can allow me to make a crappy post on some crappy website without having to enter a crappy captcha.
- AmyVernon, on 12/01/2008, -1/+8It says in the article that it's in beta on some sites already...
- tomis, on 12/02/2008, -2/+9How is it a privacy violation to watch your mouse movement when the page is frontmost? You're already on their site, they already know your IP...
- Devilboy666, on 12/02/2008, -0/+7They won't explain how their system works because once this information is available the bot-writers will mimic the required behavior and that will be the end of their magical system.
This product will not last long. - zerhynn, on 12/02/2008, -0/+6At least Forbes isn't trying to hide that their advertising is top priority. They put advertisements in the middle of the page replacing where normal sites put their articles.
- npdcrazypyro, on 12/02/2008, -0/+6What about serious keyboard addicts like me, who have all my normal registration info saved in an auto-fill? I just use a keyboard shortcut and it fills in (almost) all my data.
- lolwaffle, on 12/02/2008, -0/+6Are spam bot creators really dumb enough to use something other than Firefox or IE as a user agent?
- RoboDonut, on 12/02/2008, -0/+6I hate CAPTCHAs as much as any internet user, but this seems about fifty times worse.
First of all, it sounds intrusive. I don't want crap watching me, no matter how benign they assert that it is.
Secondly, any piece of software that tracks your mouse pointer is going to require Java, Javascript, Flash, ActiveX, or something else. Don't have Java/Flash/ActiveX available for your platform? Too bad. Don't like having scripts running in the background doing who-knows-what? Too bad. Use a browser with an abnormal ECMAScript implementation and end up getting your account deleted? Too bad.
Finally, heuristics are prone to false positives. Being right 99% of the time isn't good enough if it means that 2000 people can no longer access their accounts. Imagine suddenly losing access to your email account because you move the mouse too abruptly while browsing the internet. That would suck, wouldn't it? - walkable, on 12/02/2008, -0/+6I don't see how this would be possible. Humans are more unpredictable than bots. If bots started becoming more unpredictable, then case closed. As far as mouse movements, you don't need to use a mouse to surf the web. On my computer, I often use the tab key. On my mobile phone, I don't have a mouse or a touch screen. And my surfing with my Wii isn't exactly the same as a mouse. I'd like to see them detect just me.
- adidos, on 12/02/2008, -0/+5ROBOTS!!! ALL OF THEM!!!
- SEJeff, on 12/02/2008, -0/+5Hate to break it to you diggers, but Akamai has been doing this for a looooooooooooooong time. If you use Akamai as your CDN, you can have them send you a "score" for each ip address. It is a number using a bayesian algorithm just like spam. It is pretty unlikely that a bot shops on ebay or visits a bunch of sites that have doubleclick ad banners. Akamai knows about all of these.
This isn't new that you are being tracked people. You should have put your tinfoil hats on years ago. - Valyn, on 12/02/2008, -0/+5I agree, no matter what they do, bots will at worst, just type things slower and at erratic speeds.
- inactive, on 12/02/2008, -0/+5This would mean we'd be unable to do things just because in someone's opinion we're a robot? They can go ***** themselves! I'll keep typing in the ***** captcha if it's that big of a deal!
- DrankyDrank, on 12/02/2008, -1/+5It really aint the words so much as the "T3FGdj4Gj7fsn5KI"
- neonpulse, on 12/02/2008, -0/+4Just e-mailed them ;D
- xptoast, on 12/02/2008, -1/+5What tomis said is true. You are already on their website so why does it matter if they monitor your actions. They already do that with captcha to see if your typing it correctly. You already are monitored on their website so who cares. No violation of privacy. That's like someone getting mad at being seen through a peep hole in a door designed to see who is trying to get in through the door. Tomis is dead on and you guys are making this seem like they watch you traverse websites other than the one you are using their advanced captcha on.
- gmuslera, on 12/02/2008, -0/+4Mi 1st tought exactly. Real security still works even if the bad guys know how it works. Adding an action randomizer to a browser could be a bit easier than perform OCR on very obfuscated text (a problem solved already by spammers) and could eventually be enough to defeat this protection.
- tomis, on 12/02/2008, -1/+5Watching mouse movement is all well and good. But what about those keyboard addicts who simply tab through all the fields. I hope they're watching keyboard input too. This sounds like a good idea overall. Especially in combination with a recaptcha. Help scan some books and slow down the automated registrations. It's win win!
And to those people crying about privacy; sites don't receive keyboard/mouse events from outside the browser window anyway. So please don't ruin a good thing coming. Just STFU and be happy. - RoboDonut, on 12/02/2008, -0/+4"Personally, rather than the stupid letters to type, I like the little math problems. But I'm sure those are broken just as easy."
I think little geometry problems would make good CAPTCHAs. Computers should have no problem solving something like "2+4", but it's a whole lot tougher to parse a little diagram of two congruent triangles and find the length of one of the sides. - NoNamesLeft, on 12/02/2008, -0/+4Tracking users like that, apart from the obvious privacy concerns, sounds like it could be CPU intensive, and therefore expensive to implement (unless all the work is done clientside, which would be easy for BOTS to hack). There are already many techniques to minimise spam which, though not foolproof, can minimise spam in an unobtrusive way (which I will not detail for fear of alerting the 'Bot Masters'). Also, the system must use Javascript (how else since it needs to be clientside?) and bots do not, as far as is known, deal with javascript, isn't this just a sophisticated way of saying "we detect bots by seeing if clients have javascript turned on?".
The fact that they do not want to reveal any technical details makes me suspicious that this is just an investment fraud. - BlaenkDenum, on 12/02/2008, -0/+4In the mean time, reCAPTCHA is the best bet guys. It gives you a reason to fill out the CAPTCHA, and it's invulnerable to spam bots ;)
- socokoolaid, on 12/02/2008, -0/+4Mouse movement is easily faked
- saejinn, on 12/02/2008, -2/+5Why don't websites just ask "Are you a robot or human?". Problem solved.
- inactive, on 12/02/2008, -3/+6Invasion of privacy?
- phpld, on 12/02/2008, -0/+3ior and allow your bot to similate human becouldn't you study typical human behaviors?
leaving comment as is above
i think some sort of bot interfered with my posting making me look somewhat robotic making me look somewhat robotic. - Valyn, on 12/02/2008, -0/+3I agree completely that CAPTCHA'a are preferable for all you reasons, but i still dont think they will track mouse movements, too many people never use their mouse. It might to be something with the way the bots navigate or type at a steady pace.
- dafragsta, on 12/02/2008, -0/+3Dagon. Nice name.
- socokoolaid, on 12/02/2008, -0/+3Hindi vapor-ware
- dacheetah, on 12/02/2008, -0/+3True Random does not exist.
Computers cannot generate a genuinely random number, but they can generate things that are random enough to fool even the most advanced computer that does not know its formula and/or seed.
Humans cannot generate anything truly random either. Tossing a dice is predictable, given enough information regarding how the dice was thrown and the surface it lands on, it just require more information and processing power than is even close to feasible.
The only thing that appears to be genuinely random is sub-atomic, and for all we know, those random events are triggered by some unknown, and may one day be predictable.
But long story short, a bot, well enough programmed, can appear just as random as a human. - socokoolaid, on 12/02/2008, -0/+3...or maybe its just Hindi vapor-ware.
- Myztry, on 12/02/2008, -0/+3"but it's a whole lot tougher to parse a little diagram of two congruent triangles and find the length of one of the sides."
Have you ever wondered why "Are you smarter than a fifth grader" is so popular?
Because it's amazing how much adults DON'T know the answer to... - castletech, on 12/02/2008, -0/+3Why not use letters with a bunch of crap and distortion around them that only people can read and then you have them type that in. errr.... oh wait... hmm... still seems much cheaper to implement than robot detection software running on your webserver.
- grumpyrain, on 12/02/2008, -0/+3> Pramana, which means "proof of reality" in Hindi, is currently in "stealth" mode, and won't reveal much about
> its customers or just how it works. The company isn't just media-shy--it also wants to prevent bot creators from
> figuring out how to evade its analysis.
Well at least they are using the tried and true method of security by obscurity. What could possibly go wrong? -
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