Reading access codes difficult

[IH]

Does anyone else have problems when signing up for a new email address or registering / buying something online when you have to enter a special code (I presume to prevent abuse), but the code is written in fancy lettering with coloured backgrounds!!!

Can be difficult to read.

Here's an example I found on a google search


http://www.kemahfire.com/images/guestkey.jpg

[Kirsten]

I know which codes you mean and yep.. I really had an issue with that the other day!

It was when I sent an email from my hotmail account. I had to type in the letters and I mucked it up the 1st time. I prayed I'd get it right the 2nd, because it was a long email which I didn't want to type again... lol

[Michael P]

Yes, sometimes they are really hard to fathom out.

I must say I found the example to be one of the easier ones to read.

[jayuk]

Oh yeh....I find Ebay's the worse!....

[Andrew MacLean]

I have that problem all the time. I got round it by changing my screen to "white on black" rather than black on white. I find the wobbly letters easier to read in negaive image.

I think that one of the reasons that spammers find it so easy to break into this forum is that John has more or less steered clear of putting too many barriers between a legitimate clientelle with wonky eyes and the forum itself.

Andrew

[GarethB]

The example you give is one of the better ones, I can read that with no lenses!

I liked the e-bay one, not because it was impossible to see, but because underneath it said if you are unable to read the letters click Here for the letters to be spoken. Did that and registerd with no problems at all. That was in about October 2006.

Now when I need to register I always look closely round the letters not to read them, but to see if there is a similar thing. So far it has been about 50:50 on the sights I have had to register with.

[John Smith]

Yes, it's a big shame, but I fear that a similar device would be the next step in the war against spammers.

As Andrew suggested, the absence of such a device is indeed the reason for the spam that appears here from time to time (unless Gareth, Claire or myself get to it first!).

As part of the forthcoming forum software upgrade, I may experiment with this for a couple of days to see if I can create a genuinely easy-to-read for humans but hard for the spammers graphic. Don't think that this software supports "read back" though yet