You must have seen this word a few times while working on internet. You might have ignored it unknowingly but without this you cannot enter into any web site that you are trying to access. Ever wondered why this extra information needs to fill in, when we have provided the necessary information already. In that case, let’s unpack this word and become familiar about it.
While working with internet, we have seen these random texts, where we have to fill these in correct order apart from other mandatory information. In similar cases when we are logging to any web site then it asks to fill texts from the given image apart from your username and password. This additional text is called CAPTCHA that we are discussing here.
It’s a new innovation in the field of web security to ensure that a site is being handled by a human only and not by any hacking tool or application. CAPTCHA stands for Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart. You can also refer this feature as HIP (Human Interaction Proof). Nowadays it’s mostly seen on most of the websites. It’s most common form is an image of several distorted letters, which generally human brain can catch. This image keeps changing with every attempt, hence it cannot be avoided. You have to put the information carefully in every attempt. Once you enter the correct CAPTCHA along with other required information only then you can proceed further as an authenticated user.
CAPTCHA is a healthy practice to save your organization from bombarding of multiple requests. This way you can also clarify whether a request is being made by human or a program is approaching by its design. Sometime it seems time consuming and irritates while filling out the information when it stays you on the same page unless you fill the correct CAPTCHA. But one should understand that it’s doing double duty. It not only saving the website from the hacking attack but also ensures that its users are actually humans.
CAPTCHAs take different approaches to distorting words. From stretching and bending letters to representing them in a weird ways, as if you’re looking at the word through magnified or melted glass.
In some cases putting the word behind a crosshatched pattern of bars to break up the shape of the letters. A few use different colors or a field of dots to achieve the same effect. In the end, the goal is the same: to make it really hard for a computer to figure out what’s in the CAPTCHA.
