The Curious Case of the Bizarre, Disappearing Captcha

And on the rare occasion that I am asked to complete some bot-deterring task, the experience almost always feels surreal. A colleague shared recent tests where they were presented with images of dogs and ducks wearing hats, from bowler caps to French berets. The security questions ignored the animal’s hats, rudely, asking them to select the photos that showed animals with four legs.

Other puzzles are hyper-specific to their audience. For example, the captcha for Sniffies, a gay hookup site, has users slide a jockstrap across their smartphone screen to find the matching pair of underwear.

So, where have all the captchas gone? And why are the few existing challenges so damn weird? I spoke with cybersecurity experts to better understand the current state of these vanishing challenges and why the future will probably look even more peculiar.

Bot Friction, Human Frustration

“When the captcha was first invented, the ...