[mattlondon]

Not just for Tor.

I use Firefox with a few basic extensions (Privacy badger, uBlock, Google Container) yet every time I am presented with having to pick out traffic lights over and over and over again. I usually have about 5 or 6 "challenges" before I give up and use another site.

My timezone has not changed, my IP address and rough location has not changed, my screensize has not changed, my broadband speed has not changed, and my general computer dexterity has not changed, yet I am relentlessly targeted. On chrome I never saw these challenges, but on firefox with the privacy plug-ins I am always always always challenged.

At this stage I think the only signal it is using is "is there a google cookie in this browser? and if so has the google cookie got some 'normal' looking activity logged against it?" I.e. they are checking their server-side logs for a given cookie ID and seeing if that looks normal or not (i.e. seen on google search, seen on youtube, seen ads from a variety of third parties on various different sites, mixed up with time of day and speed of viewing etc etc).

Since I have got Google in a container in Firefox, I am guessing that my google cookie is not present when the captcha loads (due to the containers and privacy badger et al) so there is no identity back in the mothership to compare me against.

[gcb0]

for google, you are the enemy. not even bots.

captcha is google master blow against ad blockers.

a regular user, who they have all the info, give them dollars per ad impression. You, with your doNotTrack (ha! that was a joke) and privacy addons makes them only cents per ad impressions.

you are google's enemy. remember this when you get stuck in captcha hell (and consequently censored from most sites until changing device/ip)

[nine_k]

IDK. I run Firefox on many OSes, everywhere with uMatrix that blocks known trackers, ad networks and such. I don't see most ads (if any).

I rarely see the "I am not a robot" box, and hasn't seen image recognition tasks for a long-long time.

[raws]

That also heavily depends on what kind of/which sites you visit.

[gcb0]

"that also depends if you have something to hide" was said of every police state and censorship scheme.

[gcb0]

if you were really blocking all trackers, Captcha would even work. Firefox help page for their new tracker blocking feature says so even.

[jplayer01]

They're on a lot of sites that I frequent.

[jplayer01]

Yup. It's insufferable. Even on sites where I'm a paying customer, I have to go through captcha garbage.

[mcv]

If you're a paying customer, complain to the company. Let them know their site is annoying and frustrating to use because of this.

If they lose enough customers over this, they will probably remove the captcha.

[raws]

I think quora over states what Google looks at by a wide margin, just try to access a captcha in incognito, they won't have access to as much info as they do on you and yet you're still presented with the same level of captcha (if not more of them, which is to be expected)

[mcv]

Sometimes just checking the checkbox is enough. Sometimes you need to identify cars and store fronts. I think the better Google knows who you are, the more likely just the checkbox is going to be enough. If you go incognito, you have to train their neural nets, if you give up your privacy, you get in for free.

The clever part from Google's perspective is that you have to trade one of these things to Google in order to get access to sites that do not belong to Google at all. Google convinced site owners to have their users pay a tax to Google.

[speedplane]

There are many services out there that can solve Google's recaptcha for fraction's of a penny. When someone puts one up, they can make things more expensive, and perhaps sometimes uneconomical, but in general, the cost is low (~$2.00 for 1,000 recaptchas).

When someone uses a recaptcha, they should think about why they are doing so. It's one thing to use it to save a business model, but it's another to use it to protect information that should be free anyway. The elephant in the room is government data. Many government agencies think that selling their data can be a nice source of side revenue, and a recaptcha is a good way of enforcing it. In reality, they just increase the costs for everyone, and those with means can obtain the information while those without means cannot.

Governments need to release their data, freely, without captchas or fees for single users and bulk users, no exceptions.

[orzig]

I've actually been pleasantly surprised at how much data /is/ available, and how much of it is available through common formats like Socrata Open Data API (for use with tools like https://github.com/xmunoz/sodapy)

The counter argument is that they do a great job with trivial stuff like registered dog's names, and less well with sensitive/important issues like policing.

What's the right way to leverage the platform developed for the first into the second?

[mcv]

> Governments need to release their data, freely

Totally agree. Fortunately the Dutch government is trying to make as much data open as they reasonably can, and regularly organise events to encourage developers to use their open APIs.

[crankylinuxuser]

> My timezone has not changed, my IP address and rough location has not changed, my screensize has not changed, my broadband speed has not changed, and my general computer dexterity has not changed, yet I am relentlessly targeted. On chrome I never saw these challenges, but on firefox with the privacy plug-ins I am always always always challenged.

That's because Google isn't just profiling "Tor users". They're going after anyone who values privacy in any way or technology.

Simply put, you're being punished for ensuring privacy. And anybody who uses Google's captcha services is an accessory to that.

[sneakernets]

There is no Google "punishment algorithm". It's just computers being dumb.

[SahAssar]

Somebody made those computers dumb in that exact way. That's the complaint.

[JohnFen]

I think that Google is more than happy to punish people for protecting their privacy. That may or may not be the main goal, but it doesn't appear to be something Google considers a downside.

[YUMad]

Sometimes people intentionally make computers dumb.

[JCSato]

Same thing happens to me, same extensions involved, mostly browse incognito. I bet your suspicion is spot on.

[LukaD]

I use chrome with Privacy Badger + uBlock Origin and I have to solve the CAPTCHAs every single fucking time. I even have to solve them multiple times. At this point I just leave a page if they have one of those captchas.