The Amazing CAPTCHA!

Why am I doing this? , even the most stupidest thing on earth can pass this!

Well that is incorrect, to make it correct “even the most smartest computer on earth could’nt solve that! “. Yes you’ve heard it right! CAPTCHA is solved impeccably by humans but not by our computers! Amazing isn’t it?

Well CAPTCHA forms a great validation mechanism for companies willing to justify whether the operator of a system is a human or the computer itself. CAPTCHA stands for “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers & Humans Alike” Phew! that was long one. Well the name completely describes its purpose, its a test that distinguishes between humans and machines.

CAPTCHA was invented basically to keep ‘bots’ as they are called or in other words computer scripts to do stuffs that are intended for humans. So it is a test that only humans can pass.

So how does CAPTCHA work?

Well CAPTCHA is a test that is very analogous to what we used to feel about our childhood teachers, its a test created by our teachers, yet no teacher can ever pass it, they can olny grade it! well so is with CAPTCHA, no computer can ever pass it, all the computer can do is judge the correctness of the answer.

The reason behind even the most smartest computers failing to pass CAPTCHA is due a missing link in computer evolution, AI (Artificial Intelligence). CAPTCHA is based on the idea of Alan Turing that computers can’t think, all they can do is simulate that they’re intelligent. Computers only process information but don’t understand them. Hence computers fail in character , image and audio recognition, they can only process them but not understand them, hence they fail.

Uses:  CAPTCHA is used in many real world scenarios,

1. For website login to prevent Brute-Force Attacks. 
2. For e-Polling to prevent bots from casting votes.
3. For verifying the user of the computer (i.e a human or a bot).

So at the end you can say that you’re more intelligent than your computer, cause of CAPTCHA! 😉 and next time when you see a website having CAPTCHA don’t morn, be happy cause that website has lesser changes to fail or is more secure than a non-CAPTCHA one!

Stay tuned for more, Thank You & have a cyber safe day!

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