Visual Verification

Kevin Gearing has released an outstanding CAPTCHA (visual verification) solution for protecting .NET based web sites against abuse, while permitting access to blind and visually impaired users. FormShield is donationware that provides both an audio and visual CAPTCHA, including correct audio playback of CAPTCHA strings containing mixed case characters. We thank Kevin Gearing for including the audio playback functionality in his CAPTCHA solution, and put this up as one more example of a solution that should be implemented immediately on all web sites that currently do not provide an acceptable alternative to their visual only CAPTCHA schemes.

We ask all of you to review and sign the Yahoo’s Accessibility Improvement petition asking the company to make an audio alternative to its CAPTCHA available so that the blind and visually impaired will be permitted timely access to the same services as those already granted the sighted. The use of a telephone callback scheme is totally insufficient as it does not grant the same level of instant access as the sighted and Yahoo personnel
do not consistently make contact in a timely manner. It is our ongoing contention that visual only CAPTCHA schemes without at least an accessible audio alternative represent “No Blind People Allowed” signs in much the same way as African-Americans were deliberately denied entry to restaurants and other similar public accomodations in the era of segregation. We ask Yahoo to simply fix their grievous error by promptly adding an audio CAPTCHA to all its properties as soon as possible as part of the company’s ongoing accessibility initiatives.

It sure would have been nice if the Carnegie Mellon University folks
would've thought about accessibility when they invented CAPTCHA in the first
place, or, at least, those who probably placed Federal and other funds into
the work leading to the invention. I'm just glad that audio CAPTCHA is
going to be a part of this new project. Of course, as we know, audio is
ultimately insufficient and a better way to secure resources must be
devised.

CCN Magazine, Canada
Sunday, May 27, 2007

ReCAPTCHA System Improves Internet Security and Book Searchability

2007-05-27 13:04:35

A Carnegie Mellon University computer scientist is enlisting the unwitting
help of thousands, if not millions, of Web users each day to eliminate a
technical bottleneck that has slowed efforts to transform books, newspapers
and other printed materials into digitized text that is computer searchable.
Luis von Ahn, an assistant professor of computer science and recipient of a
MacArthur Foundation "genius grant," says the project will also improve Web
security systems used to reduce spam and make it possible for individuals to
safeguard their own email addresses from spammers.

Key to the new project is assigning a new, dual use to existing technology:
CAPTCHAs, the distorted-letter tests found at the bottom of registration
forms on Yahoo, Hotmail, PayPal, Wikipedia and hundreds of other sites
worldwide. CAPTCHAs, an acronym for Completely Automated Public Turing Test
to Tell Computers and Humans Apart, distinguish between legitimate human
users and malevolent computer programs designed by spammers to harvest
thousands of free email accounts. The tests require users to type the
distorted letters they see inside a box – a task that is difficult for
computers, but easy for humans.

Working with a team that includes computer science professor Manuel Blum,
undergraduate student Ben Maurer and research programmer Mike Crawford, von
Ahn invented a new version of the tests, called reCAPTCHAs, that will help
convert printed text into computer-readable letters on behalf of the
Internet Archive. The San Francisco-based non-profit group administers the
Open Content Alliance and is one of several large initiatives working to
digitize books and other printed materials under open principles, making the
text searchable by computer and capable of being reformatted for new uses.

Optical character recognition (OCR) systems that automatically perform this
conversion are often stumped by underlined text, scribbles and fuzzy or
otherwise poorly printed letters. ReCAPTCHAs will use words from these
troublesome passages to replace the artificially distorted letters and
numbers typically used in CAPTCHAs.

The new tests continue to distinguish between humans and machines because
they use text that OCR systems have already failed to read. And because
people must decipher these words to pass the reCAPTCHA test, they will help
complete the expensive digitization process.

"I think it's a brilliant idea – using the Internet to correct OCR
mistakes," said Brewster Kahle, director of the Internet Archive. ReCAPTCHAs
will speed the digitization process while also helping to improve OCR
methods and perhaps extend them to additional languages, he said. "This is
an example of why having open collections in the public domain is
important," he added. "People are working together to build a good, open
system." Von Ahn hopes to substitute his reCAPTCHAs for as many conventional
CAPTCHAs as possible. "It is estimated that 60 million or more CAPTCHAs are
solved each day, with each test taking about 10 seconds," he said. "That's
more than 150,000 precious hours of human work that are lost each day, but
that we can put to good use with reCAPTCHAs."

With support from Intel Corp., von Ahn's team has devised a free, Web-based
service that allows individual webmasters to install reCAPTCHAs to protect
their sites. Individuals can also use the service to protect their own email
addresses, or lists of addresses they post on personal Web pages. In the
case of some commercial Web sites with heavy traffic, reCAPTCHA may charge a
fee to pay for additional bandwidth.

To make certain that people are correctly deciphering the printed text, the
reCAPTCHA system will require Web site visitors to type two words, one of
which the system already knows. Each unknown word will be submitted to
multiple visitors. If the visitor types the known word correctly, the system
has greater confidence that the unknown word is being typed correctly. If
several visitors type the same answer for the unknown word, that answer will
be assumed to be correct.

An audio version of reCAPTCHA, which will transcribe portions of radio
programs that have defied speech recognition programs, will also be
available for blind Web users.

http://www.ccnmag.com/news.php?id=5301

Please read this testimonial evidence from a blind person discussing the
negative impact caused by the "no blind people allowed" sign on a popular
social networking site. It is important for us all to realize that this
discrimination is quickly moving beyond the registration process and into
day-to-day use of some web based resources. We must insist that CAPTCHA be
made accessible by way of audio or other reasonable accomodations in all
cases where it is used.

My name is David Harvey from New Zealand. I just signed up with
www.facebook.comm and asked my flatmate to help me out with the visual
verification
process during registration. All went well.

Four days later as I write this today, they've put VV on the features that
mean a lot to me – adding friends, posting messages, writing on
walls, etc. You can stop the VV if you verify your account. You do this by
enterying your cell phone number and a text message will be sent with
a code you must enter into the box.

This has made me angry since using social networking sites like Facebook as
a communication tool is that you don't have to give out your email address,
and I wish to be able to use those sites the same as everybody else. I
don't want to have to deactivate my account with them, since
I've made a lot of friends this year, most of whom live abroad and are
leaving at the end of June, and they prefer Facebook over Bebo or Myspace.

As a result of this increasing inaccessibility, David has written an e-mail to Facebook’s support team:

Yes I did contact them. I’ll let you and Jeff know my response once I receive it. Here’s the email I sent regarding this very serious and discriminating issue:

Subject: CAPTCHA PROBLEM

Hello,

My name is David Harvey from New Zealand. I signed up for Facebook on 23rd of may NZ time. Since I’m blind my flatmate help me out with the visual verification at registration. Within the last six hours captcha has been implemented site-wide, which is preventing me from interacting with my friends, as well as adding new ones. I also discovered there’s an option to verify my account, but I don’t yet have a mobile phone to verify with and won’t have one for at least three months. I know blind and visually impaired people who work in the technology field. Some sites like PayPal, LiveJournal and Google have implemented audio captcha, which reads the text out using synthesized speech. This is a very serious issue not just for Facebook but for all sites who wish to use captcha.

Please let me know if you are interested in working with me to resolve this issue. I love your services and I’d hate to cancel because of a visual graphic which my screen-reader is unable to read get in the way
of using such a fine service.

Another quote on the Facebook login page says “Everyone can join”. Well that’s not the case. Did you know that companies can be find for misleading users?

Thanks

David Harvey

There are a number of blind and visually impaired people who have written to me privately and to various e-mail discussion groups concerning the current accessibility challenges with the popular MySpace blogging and social networking web site. The most critical and immediate issue is a CAPTCHA (visual verification) appearing as part of the signup process. This CAPTCHA does not feature audio or any other method of gaining access if you are not able to see the characters you must enter into the edit box in order to register. Many blind and visually impaired people, including myself, have contacted MySpace over the past year. All such attempts at contact have been completely ignored.

It is clear that the staff of MySpace do not see fit to show even an ounce of professional courtesy toward blind and visually impaired people by responding to media queries and other attempts at contact. We must all put MySpace on notice that CAPTCHA (visual verification) without audio or some other alternative way for blind people to complete the signup process locks out the blind and visually impaired in a manner similar to the “no blacks allowed” signs during the era of segregation. While it may be clearly understood that this visual only CAPTCHA was initially put in place out of ignorance of the accessibility issue, continued disregard of our needs despite our goodfaith attempts at contact represents clear and deliberate discrimination against us.

It is certainly not too late for the MySpace people to make the conscious decision to simply do the right thing in this case. Implement an audio playback of the CAPTCHA and supply an e-mail address or other contact information where people with disabilities may receive human assistance when it does not work as expected, the user happens to be deaf-blind, etc. I urge all of you whom have not already done so to contact MySpace to register your accessibility concerns and ask the company to do the right thing.