It looks like the spammers and scammers have found a way around CAPTCHA, that system used to authenticate a human by requesting them to enter text that they see in an image. Both Microsoft and Yahoo! are reporting that thousands of email accounts have been created and then used to send out spam, even though each uses CAPTCHA to create an account. If this is indeed true, it may spell the end of the reCAPTCHA project.
Image CAPTCHAs ("click on three images of a kitten") require significantly more bandwidth, but may be the next step. CAPTCHA systems have all ready included audio for the vision impaired. Visit The Official CAPTCHA Site.
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