image verification (was: Re: [Mediawiki-l] Deleting users.)

[Dori]

On 5/29/05, Jama Poulsen <jama at debianlinux.net> wrote:
> On Sun, May 29, 2005 at 12:07:05PM -0400, Myria wrote:
> > Any suggestions... Well, any suggestions short of filling the server room
> > with C4, as I'm already contemplating that one, would be welcome...
> 
> Seeing all these complaints about wikibot spam and bogus accounts,
> I'm considering using an image verification tool for the account
> creation process on Wikicompany. Eg. using a short string of digits
> in image form as acceptable proof of direct human interaction.
> 
> Has anyone already used an image verification tool with mediawiki?
> If not, I'll try to setup something like like this, and hope it can be
> made modular enough to be usable with a mediawiki configuration switch.
> 
> Then I'll ask for evil-bot detection and good-bot repair tools :)

I am not sure how many blind people participate on wikis, but why not
go with a simple [math] question that can be answered easily and
unambiguously by a person but not by simple bots. I'm not suggesting a
full blown Turing test, something as simple as "1 plus 1 is ?" Have a
series of these and throw one out randomly.