Those crazy letter and number codes are called CAPTCHA, and they are essentially a human response test. The word is an acronym for: Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart.
Why Websites Use CAPTCHA
The reasoning behind why websites implement CAPTCHA codes in their registration processes is because of spam. Those crazy characters are a way to check if the person registering or trying to comment is a live human being as opposed to a computer program attempting to spam the site. Yes, it’s the same reason most of us have some form of spam blocker on our email. Spam is the modern-day equivalent of junk mail. If the spammers were in charge, the junk mail wouldn’t just be in your mailbox or tied to your doorknob. It would litter your yard, bury the car parked in your driveway, plaster every side of your house, and cover your roof. While it is frustrating to continually be asked to enter tangled letters from an image, it’s well worth it in the long run. Anyone who has ever set up their own website or blog will get a taste of what spam is like up close and personal just weeks after going online—even if that website or blog has next to no traffic. Spammers find little websites and blogs fast and target them because they often don’t have much security to protect them.
CAPTCHA Security Protects Websites
If site or blog owners didn’t use some type of protection like CAPTCHA, they would get dozens of spam registrants or comments a day and that’s just for small websites and personal blogs that aren’t very popular. You can only imagine what the most popular websites would get. So, next time you run up against one of those images and get a little frustrated trying to tell a Q from an O, just remember not to vent your frustration at the website. Focus it on the spammers, because they are the reason we have to squint at our screen almost every time we want to register at a new website.
