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User Deleted@lemmy.dbzer0.com to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 108 points –

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How would you design a test that only a human can pass, but a bot cannot?

Very simple.

In every area of the world, there are one or more volunteers depending on population / 100 sq km. When someone wants to sign up, they knock on this person's door and shakes their hand. The volunteer approves the sign-up as human. For disabled folks, a subset of volunteers will go to them to do this. In extremely remote area, various individual workarounds can be applied.

This has some similarities to the invite-tree method that lobste.rs uses. You have to convince another, existing user that you're human to join. If a bot invites lots of other bots it's easy to tree-ban them all, if a human is repeatedly fallible you can remove their invite privileges, but you still get bots in when they trick humans (lobsters isn't handshakes-at-doorstep level by any margin).

I convinced another user to invite me over IRC. That's probably the worst medium for convincing someone that you're human, but hey, humanity through obscurity :)

I convinced another user to invite me over IRC. Thatโ€™s probably the worst medium for convincing someone that youโ€™re human

Hahah, I'll say!

I can't help but think of the opposite problem. Imagine if a site completely made of bots manages to invite one human and encourages them to invite more humans (via doorstep handshakes or otherwise). Results would be interesting.

This would tie in nicely to existing library systems. As a plus, if your account ever gets stolen or if you're old and don't understand this whole technology thing, you can talk to a real person. Like the concept of web of trust.