I really dislike when all the media outlets print statements like "..indicating current CAPTCHA technology has reached the end its usefulness."

That is absolutely false. The problem is not the "current CAPTCHA technology", the problem is the implementation of inexpensive POOR CAPTCHA design.

Despite suggesting for over 3 years to Yahoo, Microsoft, Craigslist and others, that their CAPTCHAS use diversion techniques and a dynamic graphic rather than a static one, not one of them yet has been willing to spend the money to implement one.

It's NOT that difficult to do!

Further, by incorporating some social engineering, even the spammers that use low-cost human labor to do their dirty work could be substantially impeded.

Click to read the article this is in response to.