Halt! Who Goes There?

Or, perhaps, "What goes there?" Human or machine?

Over in "When Spambots Attack" I described how the number of false email addresses has been causing real headaches for FeedBlitz the last few days. The previous technique we were using, filtering, simply didn't scale well enough and quickly enough to prevent boatloads of junk being added to lists by the scripts. It was getting to be very annoying to say the least. Another way needed to be found to separate people from machines.

So, scratch filters, enter image verification. You've seen this before - you have to enter a sequence of letters or numbers as part of the registration or subscription process. The idea is that the human eye can pick out the text fairly easy - millions of years of evolution have seen to that - but computers aren't that good at it (yet). So a spambot won't succeed in filling the FeedBlitz database with meaningless addresses because it won't be able to read the text. Some images are easier to read than others, but simply refreshing the screen creates a new test image for you to try if you can't quite see the current one clearly. The visually impaired and those using text-based browsers can contact support at the support address to complete their registrations.

With immediate effect, image verification has been implemented for subscriber sign ups and new registrations. It adds an element of inconvenience and difficulty to the process, which I don't like, but it makes the service more robust and more secure, which I do. This has to be done to maintain FeedBlitz's service quality. Score this one to the "necessary evil" column, unfortunately. Any issues, please drop a line to support.