[perfume]

Dear Friends,
Captcha (Completely Automated Public Turing [test to tell] Computers and Humans Apart) tests, as you all are aware are distorted numbers and letters mixed up together and the website asks us to correctly copy them down, so that the site knows what's happening at our end and it's basically intended for our own safety.

Captcha tests are usually used on sites that allow you to do your shopping online. Even sites like MySpace and Ticketmaster, among others, use them a lot too.

Sometimes hackers use what are called bots to attack users. The bots are generated by computers and in reality, computers are unable to solve the Captcha tests. Only humans can type in the right code and continue on, so that really helps in keeping you safe. Or are we really safe? That's the question that's bothering me because i have not seen even VERIZON using it (correct me if i am wrong) ! That's the query i am asking you as to the efficacy of Captcha tests in really protecting us.

Your responses are highly valued and really welcome! Thank you.

[Gizzy]

I never really thought of them protecting the user,

I thought they protect the site more in a way, by having captchas they prevent bots from spamming websites, or bots creating multiple accounts for sites.

I suppose it could be said that entering a captcha when you log into a website could protect a user so that a bot can't try to get into a user account but the better and more used method is to not allow anymore than a certain amount of attempts to log in.

I think that's a better way since depending on the bot and the strength of the captcha they can some times be bypassed by bots, captchas can be made stronger but then they get to the point where they're hard for humans to read.

Or am I misunderstanding your post and you were referring to something other than what I just posted?

[perfume]

Dear Gizzy,
You're right on target!