14 DAY TRIAL // Cultural CAPTCHA might be the new method attempted by webmasters to keep out spammers from invading their website. A Russian forum is currently testing the method and it seems to be working great.
As revealed by Krebs On Security, Verified, one of the most popular Russian forums, has implemented the idea for whenever someone wants to log in or register.
CAPTCHAs are usually placed at the end of a form and they are “solved” by users as a way to verify if they are really human visitors and not just a script made by some hacker.
In most cases, these types of tests consist of a blurred or scrambled image, containing letters and numbers which the current or future members will have to reproduce in a corresponding text field. In some situations, they are made of easy logical questions or simple math problems such as “1+3”.
As these things evolve, so do spammers, in this case, internauts from poor countries will solve thousands of CAPTCHAs for small amounts of money allowing those who flood our emails to keep working. Of course, webmasters noticed this and that's how the cultural puzzles were born.
These CAPTCHAs imply cultural questions and in order to answer them you might need a higher level of knowledge. For instance, the tests from the Verified forum are all written in Russian and the questions consist of things only a true educated citizen would know.
I've taken a look at the website myself and after clicking the log-in button, a text that writes “Сколько градусов должно быть в настоящей водке?” appears. With the help of Google Translate I've managed to translate it to “How many degrees must be present in vodka?”
You would imagine that not many people know the answer to this type of questions which means that spammers would have a hard time deciphering these puzzles. Also, I imagine that a low-end worker hired by them would also find it impossible to solve these riddles.
The bottom line is that these intelligent tests might just be the next thing that can act as a barricade between us, the regular users, and those who keep bombarding us with useless and malicious messages.