Cloudflare to end CAPTCHAs but at what Cost ?

Cloudflare started an experiment to end the use of CAPTCHAs for identifying the difference between humans and bots.

Everyone who uses the internet has encountered the CAPTCHAs at least once or twice. They are annoying and hated by most of us. CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) was first developed in 1997 to identify if a user is a bot or human. Eventually, CAPTCHAs were being used as a source of digitalization of out of print books, street names and other AI projects along with identification of humans.

The most widely used CAPTACHA (ReCAPTHCA by Google) identifies humans along with digitalization of traffic signals, buses, cabs, fire extinguishers etc. As you might have seen, ‘I’m not a bot’; select all the boxes with traffic lights in them. How many boxes have bicycles in them? Etc.

These questions, just to prove that we are not bots, are rather insufferable. However, the good news for most of us is that the new Cloudflare’s security system doesn’t require us to prove anymore that we are humans.

According to Cloudflare,

Based on our data, it takes a user on average 32 seconds to complete a CAPTCHA challenge. There are 4.6 billion global Internet users. We assume a typical Internet user sees approximately one CAPTCHA every 10 days.

Cloudflare

According to the above assumption which is quite possible, 500 years are wasted on CAPTCHAs each day.

Why is it a good idea to get rid of CAPTCHAs?

It is not just the fact that we don’t like the CAPTCHAs. But, there are deeper reasons behind the fact that they should be eliminated.

• A lot of time is lost. Especially when you are running low on time and have to verify your ‘human-ness to the internet, it not only makes you late for your project but also frustrates you.
• There are many kinds of users on the internet, and some are visually and physically impaired. It is almost impossible for them to solve the CAPTCHAs. This means that those challenges are not user-friendly and not easily accessible to every internet user.
• The CAPTCHAs ask questions that are not always culturally appropriate. For example, the cabs are yellow in America but black in England. Some places call them cabs, but others call them taxis. Cultural appropriation makes these questions hard to answer for most users who have not seen certain things in their lives.

Cloudflare to bring in new security system

The company eliminating the CAPTCHAs is also famous for protecting websites that encounter the error of ‘distributed denial of service’ (DDoS). With this new security system, the users will be able to successfully log in to the websites by using their USB security key.

But, Cloudflare eliminating the CAPTCHAs is not the only thing that is happening. Because it is bringing in a new security system called ‘Cryptographic Attestation of Personhood’ or ‘CAP’ and it is as complicated as it sounds.

This new security software will use physical USB keys for security. So, when you want to register, you have to insert it. This action is done when the USB is paired with your computer when the security software is running. This will verify that you are a human being.

The software is currently in beta phase. And if your computer has a USB key, then you can test the software on the official website of Cloudflare. On the website, you will easily find the button ‘I am human.’ Once you click on it, the server will take you to the plug-in device.

Cryptographic Attestation of Personhood