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Spammers Paying People To Answer CAPTCHAS

         

engine

11:45 am on Apr 26, 2010 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Administrator 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



Spammers Paying People To Answer CAPTCHAS [nytimes.com]
Faced with stricter Internet security measures, some spammers have begun borrowing a page from corporate America’s playbook: they are outsourcing.
Sophisticated spammers are paying people in India, Bangladesh, China and other developing countries to tackle the simple tests known as captchas, which ask Web users to type in a string of semiobscured characters to prove they are human beings and not spam-generating robots.

The going rate for the work ranges from 80 cents to $1.20 for each 1,000 deciphered boxes, according to online exchanges like Freelancer.com, where dozens of such projects are bid on every week.

rocknbil

5:50 pm on Apr 26, 2010 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



$1.20 per 1000? That's 0.0012 apiece! Wow.

caribguy

6:26 pm on Apr 26, 2010 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Isn't that what mechanical turk is mostly used for?

creeking

7:13 pm on Apr 26, 2010 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



a couple of years ago there was a story about people translating captchas in exchange for access to "adult content".

bill

2:39 am on Apr 27, 2010 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



This has been going on for a while apparently; ZDNet Sheds Light on CAPTCHA Solving in India [webmasterworld.com]