http://www.fastforwardblog.com/2009/02/10/who-is-the-smartest-or-dumbest-generation-follow-on-to-tapscott-at-fast-forward-09/ Fri, 28 Oct 2011 01:28:22 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 http://www.fastforwardblog.com/2009/02/10/who-is-the-smartest-or-dumbest-generation-follow-on-to-tapscott-at-fast-forward-09/comment-page-1/#comment-213354 L GIlbert Sun, 22 Feb 2009 14:27:36 +0000 http://www.fastforwardblog.com/?p=1917#comment-213354 How about this then. The CAPTCHA (Turing Test) images which are so common across the internet now, contain - usually unlabelled - images which the human is asked to type in to verify that they are not a "bot", but a human. But CAPTCHA has been inaccessible to blind people from the beginning. This was campaigned about by many people, and even tackled - a labelled alternative audio link was placed alongside the graphic, so that blind people could get the audio version in order to submit the CAPTCHA answer and continue on (see <a href="http://www.recaptcha.net)." target="_blank">www.recaptcha.net).</a> However (believe it or not), in the same way that the letters in a graphic CAPTCHA are obscured so that they are difficult to see, if you listen to one of these audio CAPTCHA's you will find that the SOUND is similary obscured. Hiss, distortion and/or echo are added to the recording so that once again, a "bot" cannot download the audio file and process its contents as text, which would represent a new security risk brought about by the forementioned attempt at accessibility. Therefore blind people find them incredibly difficult to solve by ear, which practically renders the darn things useless (true story). How about this then. The CAPTCHA (Turing Test) images which are so common across the internet now, contain – usually unlabelled – images which the human is asked to type in to verify that they are not a "bot", but a human. But CAPTCHA has been inaccessible to blind people from the beginning. This was campaigned about by many people, and even tackled – a labelled alternative audio link was placed alongside the graphic, so that blind people could get the audio version in order to submit the CAPTCHA answer and continue on (see http://www.recaptcha.net). However (believe it or not), in the same way that the letters in a graphic CAPTCHA are obscured so that they are difficult to see, if you listen to one of these audio CAPTCHA's you will find that the SOUND is similary obscured. Hiss, distortion and/or echo are added to the recording so that once again, a "bot" cannot download the audio file and process its contents as text, which would represent a new security risk brought about by the forementioned attempt at accessibility. Therefore blind people find them incredibly difficult to solve by ear, which practically renders the darn things useless (true story).

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