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Captcha advertising

countzero — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 18:21:27 +0000

I linked to an article about captcha advertising yesterday, so here is some links I’ve collected on the subject. I have found the following four services so far:

AdCopy – In beta, you can request an invite.

AdCaptcher – Advertiser functionality coming soon.

AdAptcha – Also in closed beta, you can request an invite.

CaptchaAd – These guys are open for business. The counter on their site says they have served 23 million captcha ads so far.

The idea of captchavertising (see what I did there, I made a new word) has been popping up every now and then for the past few years.

http://adverlab.blogspot.com/2005/10/captcha-advertising.html

Probably the earliest mention of “captcha advertising”.

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2006/12/commercializing.html

Next year Seth Godin comes up with it.

http://adverlab.blogspot.com/2007/01/captcha-advertising-part-ii.html
http://www.seobook.com/captcha-advertising

http://adverlab.blogspot.com/2010/03/captcha-advertising-closer-to-reality.html

http://www.techi.com/2010/04/captcha-advertising-coming-soon-to-a-website-near-you/

http://www.captchaadvertising.com/ – One of the above companies should grab this domain.

http://captchavertising.com – Parked. Seems like I’m not the first one to think of “captchavertising”.

http://captchadvertising.com/ – Also parked.

Copyright 2010, BLACKHAT-SEO.COM
This post is originally from http://www.blackhat-seo.com/. If you want more like this, visit my website to subscribe.
(#fnkey: b4e6bbb02fae174c227d407f9522b5a0 (38.107.191.91) )

Link anchor text variations

countzero — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 18:44:10 +0000

I wrote down a few lists with common link anchor texts. Enjoy!

click here
here
read more
more
this
read this
link

Replace domain.com with whatever your domain is.

domain.com
www.domain.com
http://domain.com
http://domain.com/
http://www.domain.com/
about domain.com
contact domain.com

comments
leave a comment
post a comment
discussion
discuss this
feedback
leave feedback
respond
reply
leave a reply

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DEFCON 17

countzero — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 07:56:17 +0000

Reading suggestions from DEFCON 17. Go to the DEFCON website for videos of the talks.

Screen scraper tricks (focus on iMacros)

Abusing Firefox extensions

Attacking SMS

Social Zombies

Stealing profits from stock market spammers

Exploiting automated software updates

Cross Site Scripting Anonymous Browser 2.0

Deciphering Decaptcher’s protocol

countzero — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 21:17:38 +0000

Decaptcher has a TCP socket and an HTTP API. This is a description of the socket API, deciphered from Decaptcher’s official PHP client. You can also look at my version of the Decaptcher PHP client that I posted recently. The following will come in handy if you’d like to code your own client.

The socket API uses a 6 byte header containing protocol_version/command_code/data_size. Let’s call this the cc-header.

protocol_version is there for keeping old code functioning when the protocol changes. Currently, version is still 1.

command_code is used for actual commands as well as error codes.

data_size tells you the size of data in bytes following the cc-header. Size often is 0.

If you are sending a picture or receiving picture text there’s a second header following the cc-header. Let’s call this the pic-header.

The pic-header is 20 bytes long and contains pic_timeout/pic_type/data_size/major_id/minor_id.

pic_timeout is used to tell Decaptcher how much time it has to get the captcha back to you.

pic_type serves as an affiliate application id, as far as I know.

data_size is the size in bytes that will follow the pic-header.

major_id and minor_id are sent to you when you get picture text, they are used when reporting picture text as bad.

You append your image binary after the pic-header, when you are sending.

Picture text comes after the pic-header, when you are receiving.

Logging in:

Open socket to Decaptcher’s server.
Send cc-header, command_code=1, followed by your username.
Receive 32 byte salt, with command_code=3.
Using sha256, hash the salt,md5 of your password and username (in this order).
Send the hash along with a cc-header and command_code=4.
Receive cc-header with command_code=7.

Sending a picture:

Must be logined.
Send cc-header with command_code=12, then a pic-header and then the picture binary.
Wait on the socket until you get a cc-header with command_code=14. A pic-header and picture text will follow. You must store the major_id and minor_id you get in the pic-header preceding the picture text (in order to report bad picture text).
If command_code is not 14 then it’s an error code.

Notifying of bad picture text:

Must be logined.
Send a cc-header with command_code=13, then a pic-header containing the major_id and minor_id that came back with the picture text.

Getting your API credits balance:

Must be logined.
Send a cc-header with command_code=10.
Receive a cc-header with command_code=10 and the balance follows as text.

Logging out:

Must be logined.
Send a cc-header with command_code=2.
Close the socket.

The command codes:

‘cmdCC_UNUSED’, 0
‘cmdCC_LOGIN’, 1 // login
‘cmdCC_BYE’, 2 // end of session
‘cmdCC_RAND’, 3 // random data for making hash with login+password
‘cmdCC_HASH’, 4 // hash data
‘cmdCC_PICTURE’, 5 // picture data, deprecated
‘cmdCC_TEXT’, 6 // text data, deprecated
‘cmdCC_OK’, 7 // ok
‘cmdCC_FAILED’, 8 // failed
‘cmdCC_OVERLOAD’, 9 // server overloaded
‘cmdCC_BALANCE’, 10 // zero balance
‘cmdCC_TIMEOUT’, 11 // time out occured
‘cmdCC_PICTURE2′, 12 // picture data
‘cmdCC_PICTUREFL’, 13 // picture failure
‘cmdCC_TEXT2′, 14 // text data

Picture timeout codes:

‘ptoDEFAULT’, 0 // default timeout, server-specific
‘ptoLONG’, 1 // long timeout for picture, server-specfic
‘pto30SEC’, 2 // 30 seconds timeout for picture
‘pto60SEC’, 3 // 60 seconds timeout for picture
‘pto90SEC’, 4 // 90 seconds timeout for picture

The default picture type:

‘ptUNSPECIFIED’, 0 // picture type unspecified

Captcha Farms

countzero — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 17:46:56 +0000

The one greatest vulnerability of captchas is the mechanical turk. If a human can solve it, which is not always the case these days, then you can find people that will solve a thousand captchas for a dollar.

Captcha farm services

The following is a list of commercial captcha farms. A few of those seem to be coupled with specific products, which probably means you can’t use them with your own code. Prices are per thousand captchas solved.

Decaptcher seems to be the best choice for now, with low prices and an assortment of APIs you can use. SocialMarketServices rivals Decaptcher’s prices, especially with their volume discounts, however I haven’t heard from anyone using them.

Advantages of commercial captcha farms

24/7 availability of captcha entry workers
Quick deployment with off the shelf APIs
Seamless scaling up to moderate volume

Disadvantages

Higher cost than hiring your own workers
Too slow when there is excess service load
They can only handle so much volume

Running your own captcha farm

Having your own private captcha farm might be cheaper but it is a more involved affair. First of all, you need a backend and an interface for your workers. SocialMarketServices and SolveMyCaptcha offer solutions that let you hire your own captcha solvers. You could also surely find an assortment of ready-made captcha farm solutions by posting on one of the freelancer websites.

One important design decision is whether your workers initiate the captcha fetching scripts or poll a queue asynchronously. The first one means your scripts might be running too fast, which leads to either getting banned immediately or having big groups of accounts banned at the same time in the future. Fetching from a queue could frustrate your workers, unless you can provide consistent volume. If you pay your workers per captcha, they won’t be happy when you are not giving them more captchas than they can handle. Keeping your queue full and not overloading it, is a fine balance you have to keep, unless of course you like submitting timed out captchas.

Finding workers to solve captchas should be fairly easy. Here is an example project on a freelance site, there are 113 bids. There is a more than adequate supply of people that will solve captchas for $0.001 each.

You should assign your workers shifts that cover the whole 24 hours, that way you can spread your captcha fetching throughout the day. You might be inclined to divide the day in three eight-hour shifts. Typing captchas for eight hours straight is not an easy feat. I think workers would be more comfortable and efficient with two or four-hour shifts.

Advantages of running your own captcha farm

Cheaper cost per captcha solved
Designed for your use case, could add tasks other than captcha solving
Can scale beyond what the commercial services can handle

Disadvantages

Time wasted managing servers, software and workers
Hard to keep workers occupied if you are doing low volume
Takes time to deploy, with a service you can get started in a couple of hours

A better captcha farm design

If you are serious about setting up your own captcha farm, here are some ideas to consider. Please leave a comment if there’s something you would like to add.

Backend

Ability to include simple tasks besides solving captchas
Asynchronous queue for tasks
When queue is empty, either try to increase the rate of captcha fetching or queue different tasks
Monitor queue load, send warnings when things aren’t going smoothly
Offload captchas to a commercial service when things are running hot

User management

Configurable fixed-time as well as free-running shifts
Collect statistics on workers, such as: completed tasks, failed tasks, timeouts, task completion speed
Allow master accounts for managers of worker teams, slave accounts don’t receive payments and can’t choose their shifts

Worker interface

“Take a break” button
Tasks pulled from queue via AJAX
Optional timeout counter attached to tasks, input disabled when time runs out
Optional input restraints/validation, such as allowed characters
Move to next captcha input field on
Allow input field navigation with arrow keys
Configurable number of tasks displayed simultaneously, vertical list of tasks is better
Fetch new tasks before the previous ones are finished
Support translations of the interface

A useful trick

I borrowed this trick from BlackhatWorld. The idea is that you can glue two captchas side by side and have workers treat it as a single captcha with two words, not unlike reCaptcha. Quite the brilliant idea, since I suspect this will not only lower your cost per captcha, but could also increase overall throughput. This is somewhat complicated to implement but I believe it would be time well spent.

Misc links

Here are some possibly defunct services as well as some worker’s login pages. On a sidenote, PixProfit is allegedly the other side of Decaptcher.

http://pixprofit.com/

http://captchasolver.biz/

http://www.captchakiller.com/

http://mrcaptcha.com/

http://captchasolve.com/purchase.php

http://captchahawk.com/

http://picworker.com

http://www.trueonlineworker.com/

http://www.truehardworker.com/

http://www.2dotnetguys.com/CaptchaWeb/CaptchaWebDecodingPage.aspx

http://www.captcha247.com/

http://www.captchawork.cn/

http://www.captchawork.cn/captchatype/

http://solvemycaptcha.com/WorkerLogin.aspx

Feedburner sucks

countzero — Wed, 06 May 2009 01:23:39 +0000

Did you know Feedburner sucks? Well it does.

If you were naive enough to turn your feed over to Feedburner, you’d be pleased it now is four times as accessible compared to your vanilla WordPress feed.

Here is a demonstration:

Speaking of naiveness… do you know how Feedburner actually works? It’s real simple.

It seems that Google’s recommendation is to redirect anyone without “Feedburner” in their useragent.

So, if someone is using Feedburner and uses automatic excerpts or has spliced a ton of crap in his feed *cough*this blog*cough*, you just need to use “Feedburner” for your feed fetcher’s useragent and grab the full unmodified feed directly from the blog.

Past popular posts

countzero — Fri, 01 May 2009 00:46:01 +0000

This is a list of past popular posts. A good starting point for new readers.

Short URL Services

countzero — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 21:35:15 +0000

The canonical list of short URL services. 363 tiny URL services with 892 unique domains. 11 long URL services. 11 paid-to-link services. 12 short URL scripts.

Short URLs

tinyarro.ws
- ta.gd
- xn--hgi.ws
- xn--ogi.ws
- xn--vgi.ws
- xn--3fi.ws
- xn--egi.ws
- xn--9gi.ws
- xn--5gi.ws
- xn--1ci.ws
- xn--odi.ws
- xn--rei.ws
- xn--cwg.ws
- xn--bih.ws
- xn--fwg.ws
- xn--l3h.ws
snipurl.com
- sn.im
- snipr.com
- snurl.com
metamark.net
- xrl.us
snugurl.com
- locationmap.biz
- locationmap.org
mobiletinyurl.com
- ad.ag
ne1.net
- r8.org
c-o.in
- c-o.cc
- coz.in
- cq.bz
f2b.be
- ssr.be
- short.be
- n0.be
- n3t.nl
- tweaker.eu
- freakz.eu
321.cn
- active.ws
- here.ws
- ouch.ws
- true.ws
- visit.ws
- better.ws
- premium.ws
- official.ws
- 4×2.net
- such.info
- neat.name
- mypiece.com
sitelutions.com
- passingG.as
- redirect.hm
- rr.nu
- kwik.to
- fw.nu
- ontheweb.nu
- isthebe.st
- byinter.net
- findhere.org
- onthenet.as
- ugly.as
- assexy.as
- pass.as
- athissite.com
- athersite.com
- isgre.at
- lookin.at
- bestdeals.at
- lowestprices.at
sg5.co.uk
- sg5.info
- sg5.biz
- scooby.me.uk
- sg2.co.uk
- sg3.co.uk
easyurl.net
- atu.ca
- clickthru.ca
- goshrink.com
- redirects.ca
- readthis.ca
shim.net
- shim.net
- freegaming.org
- freebiefinders.net
- op7.net
- 2cd.net
- 0kn.com
- v9z.com
ulimit.com
- be.tf
- best.cd
- bsd-fan.com
- c0m.st
- ca.tc
- clan.st
- com02.com
- en.st
- euro.st
- fr.fm
- fr.st
- fr.vu
- gr.st
- ht.st
- int.ms
- it.st
- java-fan.com
- linux-fan.com
- mac-fan.com
- mp3.ms
- qc.tc
- sp.st
- suisse.st
- t2u.com
- unixlover.com
- zik.mu
vdirect.com
- inetgames.com
- direct.net
- webrally.net
- snapto.net
- getto.net
- emailme.net
- netbounce.com
- netbounce.net
- oneaddress.net
omf.gd
- wintermut.es
cloakreferer.com
- moveto.ws
jmp2.net
- 2me.tw
webalias.com
- sail.to
- up.to
- way.to
- got.to
- escape.to
- learn.to
- browser.to
- thrill.to
- remember.to
- fun.to
- stop.to
- andmuchmore.com
- resourcez.com
- latest-info.com
- veryweird.com
- radpages.com
- webdare.com
- uncutuncensored.com
- imegastores.com
- web-freebies.com
- tophonors.com
- webalias.com
- xxx-posed.com
- hottestpix.com
- mp3-archives.com
- moviefever.com
- myprivateidaho.com
- fornovices.com
- sports-reports.com
v3.com
- i.am
- all.at
- drink.to
- jump.to
- snap.to
- back.to
- drive.to
- kiss.to
- start.at
- beam.at
- drop.to
- listen.to
- subscribe.to
- been.at
- easy.to
- messages.to
- surf.to
- begin.at
- everything.at
- mine.at
- switch.to
- bite.to
- fade.to
- more.at
- talk.to
- board.to
- fly.to
- move.to
- transfer.to
- bounce.to
- flying.to
- mypage.org
- travel.to
- bowl.to
- forward.to
- nav.to
- turn.to
- break.at
- fullspeed.to
- on.to
- vacations.to
- browse.to
- get.to
- page.to
- w3.to
- change.to
- getit.at
- pagina.de
- walk.to
- chill.at
- go.to
- quickly.to
- warp9.to
- come.to
- hello.to
- redirect.to
- welcome.to
- connect.to
- hey.to
- run.to
- window.to
- crash.to
- hop.to
- scroll.to
- yours.at
- direct.at
- how.to
- shortcut.to
- zap.to
- dive.to
- i.am
- skip.to
- zip.to
kickme.to
- lovez.it
- needz.it
- craves.it
- means.it
- digs.it
- adores.it
- chills.it
- is-groovin.it
- is-chillin.it
- drives.it
- reads.it
- surfs.it
- swims.it
- playz.it
- singz.it
- dances.it
- has.it
- does.it
- knows.it
- shows.it
- rules.it
- rocks.it
- makes.it
- says.it
- owns.it
- zor.org
- 1024bit.at
- 128bit.at
- 16bit.at
- 256bit.at
- 32bit.at
- 512bit.at
- 64bit.at
- 8bit.at
- again.at
- allday.at
- alone.at
- altair.at
- american.at
- amiga500.at
- ammo.at
- amplifier.at
- amstrad.at
- anglican.at
- angry.at
- around.at
- arrange.at
- australian.at
- baptist.at
- basque.at
- battle.at
- bazooka.at
- berber.at
- blackhole.at
- booze.at
- bosnian.at
- brainiac.at
- brazilian.at
- bummer.at
- burn.at
- c-64.at
- catholic.at
- catalonian.at
- chapel.at
- christiandemocrats.at
- cname.at
- colors.at
- commodore.at
- commodore64.at
- communists.at
- conservatives.at
- conspiracy.at
- cooldude.at
- croatian.at
- cuteboy.at
- dancemix.at
- danceparty.at
- danish.at
- dealing.at
- deep.at
- democrats.at
- divxlinks.at
- divxmovies.at
- divxstuff.at
- dizzy.at
- dork.at
- dutch.at
- dvdlinks.at
- dvdmovies.at
- dvdstuff.at
- emulators.at
- end.at
- english.at
- eniac.at
- error403.at
- error404.at
- evangelism.at
- exhibitionist.at
- faith.at
- fight.at
- finish.at
- finnish.at
- forward.at
- freebie.at
- freemp3.at
- french.at
- graduatejobs.at
- greenparty.at
- grunge.at
- hacked.at
- hang.at
- hangup.at
- hide.at
- hindu.at
- htmlpage.at
- hungarian.at
- icelandic.at
- independents.at
- invisible.at
- japanese.at
- jive.at
- kickass.at
- kickme.to
- kindergarden.at
- kurd.at
- labour.at
- leech.at
- liberals.at
- linuxserver.at
- liqour.at
- maxed.at
- meltdown.at
- methodist.at
- microcomputers.at
- mingle.at
- mirror.at
- moan.at
- mormons.at
- musicmix.at
- nationalists.at
- nerds.at
- neuromancer.at
- newbie.at
- nicepage.at
- ninja.at
- norwegian.at
- ntserver.at
- paint.at
- palestinian.at
- phoneme.at
- phreaking.at
- polish.at
- popmusic.at
- portuguese.at
- powermac.at
- processor.at
- prospects.at
- protestant.at
- rapmusic.at
- raveparty.at
- reachme.at
- reboot.at
- relaxed.at
- republicans.at
- researcher.at
- reset.at
- resolve.at
- retrocomputers.at
- rockparty.at
- rollover.at
- rough.at
- rumble.at
- russian.at
- scared.at
- seikh.at
- serbian.at
- short.as
- silence.at
- simpler.at
- sinclair.at
- slowdown.at
- socialists.at
- spanish.at
- split.at
- stand.at
- stoned.at
- stumble.at
- supercomputer.at
- swedish.at
- synagogue.at
- syntax.at
- syntaxerror.at
- techie.at
- temple.at
- thinkbig.at
- thirsty.at
- throw.at
- toplist.at
- trekkie.at
- trouble.at
- turkish.at
- unexplained.at
- unixserver.at
- vegetarian.at
- venture.at
- verycool.at
- vic-20.at
- viewing.at
- vintagecomputers.at
- virii.at
- vodka.at
- wannabe.at
- webpagedesign.at
- wheels.at
- whisper.at
- whiz.at
- wonderful.at
- zx80.at
- zx81.at
- zxspectrum.at
shorturl.com
- 2Ya.com
- vze.com
- 1stA.com
- 24ex.com
- hitart.com
- bigbig.com
- 2fear.com
- 2hell.com
- 2tunes.com
- 2freedom.com
- 2truth.com
- 2savvy.com
- 2fortune.com
- mirrorz.com
- echoz.com
- ebored.com
- antiblog.com
- headplug.com
- dealtap.com
- filetap.com
- spyw.com
- funurl.com
- alturl.com
- hereweb.com
- mp3update.com
redirect100.com
- Key.to
- Hit.to
- Hot.to
- Like.to
- Happy.to
- 18.to
- CN.to
- HK.to
hotredirect.com
- hothere.com
- coolhere.com
- homepagehere.com
- mustbehere.com
- onlyhere.net
- pagehere.com
- surfhere.net
- zonehere.com
iscool.net
- areCool.net
- isFun.net
- tux.nu
woosah.net
- cjbb.net
- everstats.com
- x26.biz

Long URLs

Paid URLs/Redirects

Short URL Software

Hijack Google Local listings

countzero — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 15:43:37 +0000

How to hijack listings on Google Local via SemPortland:

How to knock your competitor(s) off the top of the Local Search Listings and replace their listings with yours even if they’ve already claimed their listing.

Here’s a fun one. First, you go to Google’s Local Business Center and attempt to claim the listings of your competition. Google will let you go through the process but without confirmation, all your work is moot. At the end, you get the option of choosing whether to “confirm” your information via telephone or postcard. Choose postcard. When you input the information that’s used to generate the mailing label, make sure you get the label to say “Attn: xxxxxx” and use a name that people will most certainly remember.

You wait a few days and then send your spouse / significant other to each location with the following story:

“My husband was here a few days ago. He lost his wallet and he thinks this is where he lost it. Has anybody turned in a missing wallet?”
“I don’t think so. What was your husband’s name?”
“John Holmes.”
“Yeah, sure it is. Really?”
“Really. His name is John Holmes. You have a problem with that?”
“Well, nobody has turned in a missing wallet.”
“May I leave you my card and if you find his wallet, will you call me?”
“Sure thing.”

Now, you’ve spent $5 at VistaPrint to get a bunch of cards printed up with her name (Katie Holmes), address and phone number (best to use a disposable Google Voice number). She leaves her card and gets a card from the person at the business. It’s unlikely that she’ll get a call back…but leaving the card gets them to remember her for when she calls back in a few days…

“This is Katie Holmes and I’m calling to see if you’ve found my husband’s wallet.”
“Nobody’s turned in the wallet. But the darnedest happened. We got a postcard here addressed to him from Google?”
“Really. Can you read to me what it says?”
“Sure…”

You’re now in control of your competitor’s local business listing to do with as you wish :.)

Of course you could just intercept the postcard or even the phone call, instead of relying on someone to read you the postcard over the phone.

Dreamhost invitations

countzero — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 20:46:00 +0000

Here are some Dreamhost invitations. Use them before they are all gone.

Dreamhost Invitation Codes:

003810958544
165279203961
363976799364
522959190111
983849760981

Go to signup.dreamhost.com and input one of the above codes in the “promo code” box.

What you will get:

2TB disk
20TB bandwidth!
$150 off a 5-year signup or $200 off a 10-year signup!

80/20 Time Management

countzero — Fri, 30 May 2008 20:40:57 +0000

Quoting Richard Koch (‘The 80/20 principle’) again, more on time management.

The name ‘time management’ gives the game away:

it implies that time can be managed more efficiently,

that it is a valuable and scarce resource,

and that we must dance to its tune.

We must be parsimonious with time. Given half a chance, it will escape from us. Time lost, the time management evangelists say, can never be regained.

Our current use of time is not rational. There is therefore no point in seeking marginal improvements in how we spend our time. We need to go back to the drawing board and overturn all our assumptions about time.

There is no shortage of time. In fact, we are positively awash with it. We only make good use of 20 per cent of our time.

Time is a friend, not an enemy. Time gone is not time lost. Time will always come round again. It is our use of time, and not time itself, that is the enemy.

The 80/20 principle says that we should act less. Action drives out thought. It is because we have so much time that we squander it. The most productive time on a project is usually the last 20 per cent, simply because the work has to be completed before a deadline. Productivity on most projects could be doubled simply by halving the amount of time for their completion. This is not evidence that time is in short supply.

It is increasingly apparent that the whole idea of working directly for someone else, of having a job with security but limited discretion, has just been a transient phase in the history of work. Even if you work for a large corporation, you should think of yourself as an independent business, working for yourself, despite being on Monolith Inc’s payroll.

Make the difficult mental leap of dissociating effort and reward.

Eliminate or reduce low-value activities.

Free yourself from obligations imposed by others.

Be unconventional and eccentric in your use of time.

Identify the 20 per cent that gives you 80 per cent.

Multiply the 20 per cent of your time that gives you 80 per cent.

(please, don’t sue me)

How to break captchas

countzero — Fri, 30 May 2008 17:24:39 +0000

There’s only a few things I like better than having to type a captcha before I can get to my porn or post to my favourite wob2.0 site, things like getting kicked in the crotch, food poisoning and Alanis Morissette. Without further ado, here is how to break captchas part one.

—
Wintercore – Breaking Gmail’s Audio captcha

Vorm – Defeating audio (voice) captchas

Always look at the audio version of the captcha you are trying to break.

DefCon 15 – T535 – Black Ops 2007: Design Reviewing The Web

Interesting video all around, skip to last few minutes for an interesting audio captcha breaking approach (you should really watch the whole thing).

AlwaysMoveFast – Cracking CAPTCHAs for Fun and Profit

Useful ideas and sample code (in python).

WebSecurity.com.ua – Various captcha vulnerabilities

WebSecurity.com.ua – More captcha vulnerabilities

Various tricks for bypassing captchas, mostly without actually solving them.

RookSecurity – Captchas

How to break PHP-Nuke’s captcha (used by other applications as well) and Simple Machines Forum’s audio captcha. For the first one, he generated all possible images and stored their hash in a database, so you only had to compare the hash of your captcha to the database to solve it . For SMF’s audio captcha he calculated Hamming distances, although perhaps he should have used the more flexible variant called a Levenshtein distance.

DarkSeoProgramming – PHPBB3 Captcha is super easy

DarkSeoProgramming – Instant GOCR Training

DarkSeoProgramming – Letter Derotation

DarkSeoProgramming – GOCR to Neural Nets Pt 2

DarkSeoProgramming – 10 Steps to Solving a Captcha

DarkSeoProgramming – A custom floodfill routine

DarkSeoProgramming – Replacing GOCR part 1

Lots of good stuff, plus sample source code.

The Captcha Breaker (in OCaml)

This howto will take you through using Captcha Breaker to break a given
captcha. This howto covers only how to use the solvers once you already have
image files. This howto does NOT cover how to extract that file from a web
site, nor how to enter the text back.

PWNtcha

Author has decided to release the source code for PWNtcha. Old but probably worth examining.

Captcha Recognition via Averaging

Averaging of a series of images can be used to improve image quality (reduce distortion, or improve signal-to-noise ratio, so to say) of captchas and hence to make them more easily recognizable by OCR (optical character recognition) systems.

BluehatSEO – Del.icio.us Captcha Cracked

BluehatSEO – Captcha Breaking W/ PHPBB2 Example

BluehatSEO – Creating An Army of Free Captcha Typers

The del.icio.us solver uses a useful and easy technique for removing noise, which I like very much and you should learn. It goes through each black pixel, checks all the surrounding pixels if they are black. If the number of black neighbours is below a certain threshold (4 in this case) then you can remove that pixel. You should calculate neighbours for all pixels first, then in one pass change all those below the threshold to white. If you change them incrementally, bad things may happen, so keep that in mind.

You should experiment in each case and find how to get best results. The optimal threshold value is usually 3 or 4. More importantly you can experiment with multiple passes, for example using 2 for the first pass, then 3 for the second and 4 for the final pass.

Another interesting idea is setting up some honeypots so you can get infected by botnets that are going to solve captchas. For example, bots solving Live’s and Google’s captcha. You might be able to either acquire the captcha breaking code or perhaps even better, get access to the service that bots are sending their captchas to for solving.

Even more related links:

Yahoo/Hotmail/Google CAPTCHA Extraction

Using AI to beat CAPTCHA

Old Yahoo Captcha solver (now fixed)

http://www.cs.sfu.ca/~mori/research/gimpy/

http://captcha.ru/articles/visual/

http://captchasolver.com/

http://www.lafdc.com/captcha/

http://ocr-research.org.ua/

http://www.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/

Using WhatTheFont

Breaking CAPTCHAs without using OCR

Quick SEO Tip: Rank for filetype queries

countzero — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 22:22:04 +0000

Add a dot and a file extension to your URLs and your site will show up for ‘filetype:’ queries on Google (and other engines I guess) even if you serve just html and not the assumed filetype. Search for filetype:torrent for some examples.

Network Solutions is evil

countzero — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 12:17:14 +0000

A member on DomainState reports that Network Solutions is registering domains after availability lookups, follow-ups on Conceptualist, Elliot’s Blog, Dominik Mueller, DomainBits
DotSauce. The only thing I have to say is that this is utterly ridiculous. Not to mention that NetSol is now the proud owner of the following domains:

networksolutionsarecunts.com
networksolutionsarefucktards.com
networksolutionsarecfuckheads.com
DOMAINKITINGISWRONG.COM
NETWORKSOLUTIONSSUCKSMONKEYBALLS.COM
NetworkSolutionsSucksAss.com
NETWORKSOLUTIONSKISSMYASS.COM
NETSOLLIKESTOSTEAL.COM

Jonathon Nevett, Vice President of Policy at Network Solutions responds on CircleID:

I’d like to clarify what we are doing. In response to customer concerns about Domain Name Front Running (domains being registered by someone else just after they have conducted a domain name search), we have implemented a security measure to protect our customers. The measure will kick in when a customer searches for an available domain name at our website, but decides not to purchase the name immediately after conducting the search.

After the search ends, we will put the domain name on reserve. During this reservation period, the name is not active and we do not monetize the traffic on these domains. If a customer searches for the domain again during the next 4 days at networksolutions.com, the domain will be available to register. If the domain name is not purchased within 4 days, it will be released back to the registry and will be generally available for registration.

This protection measure provides our customers the opportunity to register domains they have previously searched without the fear that the name will be already taken through Front Running.

You are correct that we are trying to take an arrow out of the quiver of the tasters. As you know, domain tasters are the largest Front Runners. Due to no fault of registrars, Front Runners purchase search data from Internet Service Providers and/or registries and then taste those names. Some folks may not agree with our approach, but we are trying to prevent this malicious activity from impacting our customers.

Another response in Bill Hartzer’s comments:

Hi Bill,
I work for Network Solutions and saw your tweet on Twitter and would like the opportunity to respond, This measure is geared for our customers. It gives them a chance to look for domains consider if it’s what they want and then have an opportunity to register it.

Network Solutions is not front running. “ Front Runners” are people who register domain names known to have been searched, for the purpose of monetizing them and then selling them at inflated prices either directly to the customer who searched for the domain or through aftermarket channels.
We have started protecting all domain name searches at Network Solutions by holding the searched domains for our customers for a short period of time before releasing them. This gives our customers the opportunity to register names later without fear that the name will be registered by a “Front Runner.”
We are not monetizing these domains, nor do we intend to keep them after the holding period.

We did this because we heard customers complain that queried domain names are being snatched up by other people as soon as they searched. Network Solutions makes sure its search data is secure and we do not sell it any third party. I know that Network Solutions has no intention of keeping any searched domain or monetizing it.

Thanks for listening,
Shashi

Word on DomainState is NetSol shut down their stealing machine but I doubt anyone feels like regging or even looking up domains on their site right now. Not for a couple months at least.

Mininova content distribution network

countzero — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 21:57:26 +0000

This is good stuff. Mininova will take your content, make a torrent and seed it for you. You just have to upload it once to them. You can’t upload anything with DRM or spam and you have to own the copyright to the content. You’ll get a featured listing at the top of the frontpage.

Looks like a good way to get extra exposure for your content. It has to be free but there’s nothing stopping you from posting a “lite” version for free and the full for a fee. Plus, I can’t help but think that this is great way for Mininova to get some leverage against legal threats, by providing this very useful and legal service.

(link: Mininova Content Distrubution Network)