Can't we do better?

It's kinda worse than it looks. There's Javascript tracking for your mouse movements and keyboard inputs. There a whole backend that checks browser headers, IP address ranges, etc.

When Google bought the trademark for reCaptcha from Carnegie Mellon, it was used to help digitize old public domain books by using humans to verify the words were the same as what the OCR was picking up. You were given one real known distorted word and one that was scanned from a book that the OCR software had trouble with.

Now if you don't get that single check box prompt and get the extra checks, it typically used to identify road signs or cars. I have a feeling Google is using that data to feed into waymo projects for road identifications and computer vision. You're essentially giving them free computer vision data.

Fuck that noise.

But if you think this is a simple check, you are mistaken. There's a lot going on here.

@Jilano any bot could claim that. 😄