Captcha Monster Eliminates CAPTCHA Completion Frustration

The CAPTCHA, short for “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart”, serves a useful purpose – minimizing, or eliminating, one of the scourges of the Internet; the comment spammer. I can speak to how disruptive comment spam can become since, on a daily basis, I have to deal with 300 – 400 comment spams on this site. It’s infuriating, frankly.

I’ve often though of implementing a CAPTCHA scheme here – but then, I come to my senses. I hate CAPTCHAs and, I do everything I can to avoid sites that use them. I’m just no good at trying to work out a “u” from  “v” – an “rn” from an “m”. I could go on but, you see the point, I expect.

I’m hardly alone in this, and as an alternative, many sites off an audio CAPTCHA. You’d think that this would solve the problem for people like me – but no. Generally, I have absolutely no idea what’s been read back. The end result? I’m out of there.

Visual CAPTCHA samples.

Graphic – Wikipedia.

So, is there a solution for people like me who have a low solve percentage? (in my case approaching zero   ) As it turns out – there is.

Captcha Monster – “an easy-to-use, innovative Firefox add-on that completes CAPTCHA tests without you even asking it to. The add-on was designed with people who suffer from dyslexia and/or sight problems in mind, but also extends to those who are just plain fed up of having to prove they are not a site-hacking machine.”

Captcha Monster – screen shots from the developer’s site. Click to expand.

Fast facts:

Captcha Monster can work for you in different modes.

Set it to its highest level if you want it to routinely weed out CAPTCHA tests.

Run only when you are filling out forms or simply request it as you need it.

With an average solving time of 8.5 seconds, quite often the CAPTCHA window will be completed before you even see it.

98,94% success rate.

Works with virtually any CAPTCHA.

Complete automation.

Dedicated support.

Unlike many Firefox add-ons however – Captcha Monster is not a free service. Instead, the developer offers a number of monthly plans – as follows.

Basic plan – 60 CAPTCHAs a month @ $2.99 monthly.

Extended plan – 120 CAPTCHAs a month @ $4.99 monthly.

Professional plan – 760 CAPTCHAs a month @ $9.99 monthly.

System requirements: Firefox.

Download: You may download a 30 day trial version at the developer’s site: Captcha Monster.

You can checkout the FAQ page here.

A big shout to Mateusz M. for taking time to turn me on to this service.

Pointing Magnifier and Angle Mouse – Mouse Apps For Older Computer Users

An exploding aging population is a reality previous generations had little or no experience with – but not so now.

Those of us who “fit” into the aging population paradigm, are increasingly aware that motor skills may not be quite as sharp as they once were. For some, this can be quite noticeable when manipulating a computer pointing device – accuracy may be an issue.

Regular reader Michael F., has passed on his recommendations for two free Mouse applications – one of which (Angle Mouse) has been expressly designed to assist with movement accuracy. The other (Pointing Magnifier), is an assistive application which can be used selectively, to enlarge screen content.

Pointing Magnifier – from the site:

The Pointing Magnifier is a two-stage pointing technique. During the first stage the user controls an area cursor of arbitrary size depending on the pointing accuracy of the user. To interact with a target, the user places the area cursor over that target and activates it by clicking any mouse button. This causes everything under the circular cursor to be magnified, and the cursor is pinned in place.

While magnified, the user controls a standard mouse pointer inside the magnified area. Upon performing an action (e.g., clicking, dragging) in magnified space, the pointer’s location is transposed so that the interaction occurs at the correct position in unmagnified space. After the user performs an action, the Pointing Magnifier returns to its original size and the user resumes control of the area cursor.

Setup is uncomplicated, but I suggest that you consider the available options carefully. You may need to experiment to find your optimal settings.

An awareness of the keyboard shortcuts is important, otherwise you run the risk of a frustrating experience.

Two times magnification illustrated – I found the default (4 x magnification),  too large for my needs.

If you, or someone you know, find reading enlarged screen content more comfortable, then this application is worth considering.

Download at: University of Washington

Angle Mouse – from the site:

The Angle Mouse is a pointing facilitation technique that runs quietly in the background and improves the efficiency and ease of mouse pointing, especially for people with motor impairments.

The Angle Mouse is a target-agnostic pointing facilitation technique that works by continually adjusting the control-display (C-D) gain based on how coherent (straight) or divergent (angular) the mouse movement is.

When the mouse moves straight, the gain is kept high, but when the mouse corrects abruptly, often near targets, the gain is dropped, making targets bigger in motor-space.

The application is highly configurable, as the following screen capture illustrates.

Download at: University of Washington

As always Michael, I very much appreciate your contribution.

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WOT (Web of Trust) – Is It The Most Important Browser Security Add-on You Need To Install?

It would be difficult for regular readers of this site not to be aware, that I write consistently on the importance of Internet Browser protection.

In fact, we’ve covered 20 or more Browser add-ons here in the past few weeks – from add-ons that add functionality, to those that promise to provide additional security.

All this coverage of Browser add-ons rattled my Brain somewhat, and got me thinking about the single most important add-on I have installed – the add-on I couldn’t do without.

Based on the way that I surf the Web, there was no contest. Of the 17 add-ons I have installed on Firefox, the hands down winner – the single most important add-on for my style of surfing is WOT (Web of Trust). I don’t think I’m alone in this assessment.

I frequently hear from readers who, after installing WOT on their computer systems, feel reassured that they are safer than ever before, and who express a renewed sense of confidence, and  a new level of enthusiasm, while surfing the Internet.

In fact, just under 6,000 Tech Thoughts readers have installed WOT in the last two years – according to today’s download stats.

And why not. Security starts with the Web Browser, and WOT substantially reduces the risk exposure, that comes with wandering through the increasingly risky neighborhood that the Internet has become.

What is WOT?

WOT, one of the most downloaded Firefox Add-ons at the Mozilla add-on site, (also compatible with Internet Explorer and Chrome), is a free Internet Browser resource which  investigates web sites you are visiting for spyware, spam, viruses, browser exploits, unreliable online shops, phishing, and online scams – helping you avoid unsafe web sites.

For example, here’s a Google search in which WOT indicates which sites are safe. Notice the unsafe (red) sites, in the Google ads!

Take a look at what happens if, in fact, you do end up on an unsafe web site. WOT’s dropdown warning curtain blocks access to the site until you determine otherwise.

WOT operates in a unique fashion in order to offer active protection to the Internet user community. It stands out from the crowd of similar applications, by soliciting the opinions of users/members whose views on web site safety are incorporated into the overall site safety rating. According to WOT, the user community now has reputation data on over 30 million sites worldwide.

The shared information on a site’s reputation includes trustworthiness, vendor reliability, privacy, and child safety. As well, in order to achieve maximum security coverage, WOT uses thousands of trusted sources including phishing site listings, to keep users protected against rapidly spreading threats.

WOT integrates seamlessly with search engine results from popular search engines including Google, Yahoo, MSN and other popular sites, and provides impressive protection against Internet predators.

WOT recently added the top three web-based email services – Google Gmail, Windows Live Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail, to its free security protection. You can now feel more confident and secure, since WOT checks links embedded in your email, and warns you of dangerous web sites so that you can avoid spyware, spam, phishing, identity theft and other Internet scams; before you click on dangerous embedded links.

How WOT works:

The Browser add-on icon, displays a color rating for each site you visit, indicating whether a site is safe to use, should be used with caution, or avoided entirely.

Using traffic light colors, (green, yellow, and red), WOT leaves you in no doubt as to the safety rating of a web site. An impressive feature of WOT is the dropdown transparent warning curtain, shown earlier, triggered on visiting a dangerous site.

Recognizing that up to ten percent of Internet users are at a disadvantage however, due to colorblindness, and cannot rely on an Internet safety system based on color coding, the Web of Trust development team recently released an adaptive version of WOT. This version incorporates equivalent alternative information, through assistive or adaptive technology, for colorblind users.

This colorblind accessible application provides the same critical benefits to those individuals who have to contend with visual impairments, as it has to those of us who have come to rely on WOT as a major defense against the pervasive hazards we encounter on the Internet.

Quick facts – WOT checks the following on each web site visited:

Trustworthiness

Vendor reliability

Privacy

Child Safety

More quick facts:

Ratings for over 30 million websites

The WOT browser add-on is light and updates automatically

WOT rating icons appear beside search results in Google, Yahoo!, Wikipedia, Gmail, etc.

Settings can be customized to better protect your family

WOT Security Scorecard shows rating details and user comments

Works with Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome

Interface supports English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Polish, Portuguese, Swedish and Finnish.

System requirements: Windows (all), Mac OS X, Linux

Download at: MyWot

Surf more securely by installing this browser add-on which will provide you with an in-depth site analysis based on real world results. Keep in mind however, that you are your own best protection. Stop · Think · Click.

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Luxand Blink – Free Facial Recognition Login Application Now In 64 Bit Version

I’m a big fan of biometric systems like facial recognition, fingerprint recognition, palm print recognition, and iris recognition. From a security perspective, biometric systems play an important role, (visit your local airport for a taste), and are definitely a step in the right direction for home computer users.

In March 2010, when I first came across a free biometric login solution (Luxand Blink), based on facial recognition, I could hardly wait to try it out (and yes, take the opportunity to play the role of a bad guy and attempt to defeat it).

At that time, only a 32 bit version of the application was available. Looking ahead though, the developers promised that a 64 bit version of the application was in the works. True to their word, the developers have just released a 64 bit version.

As for defeating this impressive free application, I’ll cut right to the chase – it was an absolute “no go”. The only way to login automatically was by presenting my real face, and only MY face, to the camera.

I wasn’t really surprised. After all, the developers of Luxand Blink are specialists in artificial Intelligence, and biometric identification technologies. According to their web site, “Luxand technologies are used at online entertainment portals, chat rooms and movie Web sites around the globe.”

Contrary to some forum comments I’ve read since I first reviewed this application, it is not possible to “fool” the application by holding a photograph to the camera. I think these people have seen one too many spy movies.

Installation and setup:

Installing Luxand Blink was a snap. The setup automatically detected the make and model of my web cam, and then walked me through the process of establishing the digital image/video frame, which was then used to establish my login template.

As the following screen capture of the Settings panel indicates, further adjustments are easy to make.

On system startup the user is presented with the following screen (this sample screen was taken from the developer’s site). The green box encapsulates the subject’s face to determine if the face matches a previously saved template (from setup). If it does –voila! Automatic login. Very cool!

Additionally, the option to login manually using a password is always available.

Fast facts – from the developer’s site:

Reliable Login under Varying Conditions – With Blink!, you can login day or night. Sophisticated face recognition algorithms adjust for varying lighting conditions automatically, making login possible without additional training no matter whether window or artificial lighting is being used.

Changed Haircut? Swapped Glasses for Contacts? No Problem! – Advanced biometric identification algorithms used in Blink! help it cope with changes of your personal appearance. Grow or shave off beard and mustaches, use makeup or dye you hair, wear or remove glasses or contact lenses – Blink! will let you in to your PC no matter what.

Improved Security – No one remembers those long, complex passwords demanded by your corporate security policy? They don’t have to! With Blink!, users sign into their accounts by simply looking at a webcam. There are no false positives and no delays in letting authorized users into their accounts.

Catch Identity Thieves – Blink! provides additional security benefits by making it simpler to computer users to automatically unlock their PCs by simply looking into a webcam. Stolen passwords are becoming less of an issue as Blink! photographs and timestamps users every time they log in, no matter whether they use a password or biometric sign-in. Journaling account logins helps identify hijacked accounts and find out about who logged in using stolen credentials.

System requirements: Windows Vista and Windows 7 – 32 bit and 64 bit editions available.

Download at: Luxand Blink!

Notes:

If the 64 bit version is what you’re after, then follow the instructions on the link page.

I found that if I sat back too far from the camera on startup, it caused the program to take an unreasonable time to activate. Sitting forward slightly, caused the application to activate almost instantly.

Overall, I’m pretty impressed by this slightly futuristic method of login. I’ve  keep it on my principal home Windows machine since March, 2010 – something I rarely do with test software. It’s very cool!

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Download Luxand Blink – Facial Recognition Login

I’m a big fan of movies that highlight technology; particularly security technology. I love movies in which biometrics such as facial recognition, fingerprint recognition, and eye recognition systems play an important role. Inevitably, in this type of movie, the bad guys fumble the job of trying to defeat these systems.

So, when I recently came across a free biometric login solution, based on facial recognition, I could hardly wait to try it out (and yes, take the opportunity to play the role of a bad guy and attempt to defeat it).

I’ll cut right to the chase – defeating this impressive free application was an absolute no go. The only way to login automatically was by presenting my real face, and only MY face, to the camera.

I wasn’t really surprised. After all, the developers of Luxand Blink are specialists in artificial Intelligence, and biometric identification technologies. According to their web site, “Luxand technologies are used at online entertainment portals, chat rooms and movie Web sites around the globe.”

Installing Luxand Blink was a snap. The setup automatically detected the make and model of my web cam, and then walked me through the process of establishing the digital image/video frame which is then used to establish identity.

As the following screen capture of the Settings panel indicates, further adjustments are easy to make.

On system startup the user is presented with the following screen (taken from the developer’s site). The green box encapsulates the subject’s face to determine if the face matches a previously saved template (from setup). If it does –voila! Automatic login. Very cool!

Additionally, the option to login manually using a password is always available.

Fast facts – from the developer’s site:

Reliable Login under Varying Conditions – With Blink!, you can login day or night. Sophisticated face recognition algorithms adjust for varying lighting conditions automatically, making login possible without additional training no matter whether window or artificial lighting is being used.

Changed Haircut? Swapped Glasses for Contacts? No Problem! – Advanced biometric identification algorithms used in Blink! help it cope with changes of your personal appearance. Grow or shave off beard and mustaches, use makeup or dye you hair, wear or remove glasses or contact lenses – Blink! will let you in to your PC no matter what.

Improved Security – No one remembers those long, complex passwords demanded by your corporate security policy? They don’t have to! With Blink!, users sign into their accounts by simply looking at a webcam. There are no false positives and no delays in letting authorized users into their accounts.

Catch Identity Thieves – Blink! provides additional security benefits by making it simpler to computer users to automatically unlock their PCs by simply looking into a webcam. Stolen passwords are becoming less of an issue as Blink! photographs and timestamps users every time they log in, no matter whether they use a password or biometric sign-in. Journaling account logins helps identify hijacked accounts and find out about who logged in using stolen credentials.

System requirements: 32-bit Windows Vista and Windows 7 only. According to the developer, a 64 bit application is in the works.

Download at: Luxand Blink!

There is a version of this software available for download at Download.com which CNET states, is compatible with Windows Me, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows NT, Windows XP. I have NOT tested this download.

A couple of caveats: I found that if I sat back too far from the camera on startup, it caused the program to take an unreasonable time to activate. Moving toward the camera slightly, caused the application to activate instantly.

Overall, I was pretty impressed by this slightly futuristic method of login. I’ll keep it on a least one of my machines for a while yet. It’s very cool!

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Panda Cloud Antivirus – Free Cloud Protection

As Glenn Taggart, in a guest writer article on this site, wrote recently – “Cloud computing is not a new concept. If you really want to get down to it, the internet IS the cloud”. He is right of course.

Nevertheless, the sorry state of security on the Internet with its exponentially growing threats has dissuaded me, at least to this point, from actively participating in the Cloud, in any form.

Good news for late adapters (like me), of the Cloud concept though. Overnight, Panda Security briefed me on their new free Cloud application, so I might have to overcome my reluctance to jump on board the Cloud express.

Let me just quote briefly from Panda’s email:

“With Panda Cloud Antivirus, Panda Security is introducing a new protection model that utilizes a thin-client agent and server architecture which processes and blocks malware more efficiently than locally installed signature-based products. By moving the entire malware scanning and determination process to the cloud and applying non-intrusive interception techniques on the client architecture, Panda Cloud Antivirus is able to provide advanced protection against new and unknown viruses with a lightweight thin-client agent that barely consumes any PC resources”.

As Panda Security CEO Juan Santana says “”The threat climate demands a new protection model”. I can certainly second that, and it comes not a moment too soon, in my view.

Quick highlights:

FREE, antivirus thin-client service for consumers which is able to process and block malware more efficiently than locally installed signature-based products.

The immediate benefits to users thanks to Panda’s new protection model are: 100x faster protection against new malware and 50 percent less impact on PC performance, compared to the industry average.

Utilizing its proprietary in-the-cloud scanning technology called Collective Intelligence, to automatically identify and classify new malware strains in near real-time (less than six minutes.

This same process takes up to 48 days with traditional AV products, according to a recent study from the University of Michigan.

If you download and install this product, I’d be very interested in your personal observations as to its speed, functionality and ease of use, and so on.

It’s too early yet for me to provide a personal assessment of this product; that will come later. I like to run test applications for a minimum of 30 days to properly assess an applications relative strength, and weaknesses.

One disappointment though: I run Windows 7 Beta on all my machines, including my test beds, and Panda Cloud Antivirus does not yet run on Win 7.

Download at: Cloud Antivirus

Update – May 1: Good news from Rick Robinette over at What’s On My PC. Rick has already completed a substantial test run on Cloud Antvirus, so be sure to read his report – Panda Cloud Antivirus – Is It Netbook ready?

WOT – Unique Website Security for Color Blind Users

According to the American Foundation for the Blind, visually impaired people work in virtually every sector of our economy, and are just as likely as the general population to use computers and the Internet.

Colorblindness, a particular type of visual impairment, affects approximately two percent of women and eight percent of men. People who are visually impaired in this way then, have great difficulty with color-based distinctions.

Web of Trust (WOT) a popular Internet Browser application has taken the lead in addressing this issue. This free Internet Browser resource which has established an impressive 3.5/5.0 star user rating on CNET, tests web sites for spyware, spam, viruses, browser exploits, unreliable online shops, phishing, and online scams.

WOT which integrates with search engine results from popular search engines including Google, Yahoo, MSN, Dogpile, Ixquick, Baidu and other popular sites, provides impressive protection against Internet predators and helps users’ avoid unsafe web sites.

The Browser add-on’s icon, normally displays a color rating for each site you visit, indicating whether a site is safe to use, should be used with caution, or avoided entirely. Using traffic light colors, (green, yellow, and red), WOT leaves you in no doubt as to the safety rating of a web site.

Recognizing that up to ten percent of Internet users are at a disadvantage however, due to colorblindness, and cannot rely on an Internet safety system based on color coding, the Web of Trust development team released a unique version of WOT. This particular version incorporates equivalent alternative information, through assistive or adaptive technology, for colorblind users.

Esa Suurio, CEO of Against Intuition Inc. referring to WOT’s development of this accessible application stated in part “Our goal is to make the Internet a safer place for everyone, so it was essential for us to make the extra effort.”

This colorblind accessible application will provide the same critical benefits to those individuals who have to contend with visual impairments, as it has to those of us who have come to rely on WOT as a major defense against the pervasive hazards we encounter on the Internet.

If you are challenged by colorblindness, or you know someone who is, then installing this browser add-on will increase Internet safety substantially by providing an in-depth site analysis based on real world results.

Quick facts – WOT checks the following:

Trustworthiness

Vendor reliability

Privacy

Child Safety

More quick facts:

Ratings for over 20 million websites

Downloaded over 1,000,000 times (Checkout WOT’s Million Download contest).

The WOT browser add-on is light and updates automatically

WOT rating icons appear beside search results in Google, Yahoo!, Wikipedia, Gmail, etc.

Settings can be customized to better protect your family

WOT Security Scorecard shows rating details and user comments

Works with Internet Explorer and FireFox

Interface supports English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Polish, Portuguese, Swedish and Finnish.

Surf more securely by installing this unique browser add-on which will provide you with an in-depth site analysis based on real world results. Keep in mind however, that you are your own best protection. Stop · Think · Click

Download at: MyWot

Once you have downloaded and installed WOT, follow these instructions to enable the color blind version.

Open WOT settings from the rating window

Go to the Advanced page

Select the option “Enable color blind accessible version”

Press “Apply settings”

Demos:

A WOT demo video shows how WOT works in practice.

Watch the video on the colorblind accessible version.