The simplicity of it is logic defying. It used to be that you had to find crosswalks or move puzzle pieces or type blurred letters and numbers, but NOW all the sudden I can just click a box and HEY!, I’m human?

That’s hardly the Turing Test I’d expected.

  • @elrik@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    6411 months ago

    Proof of work, which becomes computationally expensive to scale, along with other heuristics based on your browser and page interaction. I believe it’s less about clicking the box and what happens after you’ve clicked the box.

    • SerotoninSwells
      link
      fedilink
      6311 months ago

      This is correct. I work in bot detections. There are baseline checks for various browser automation used as bot frameworks like Puppeteer or Playwright. Then there is basic analysis of server side and client side fingerprints; meaning, do the fingerprints you claim make sense. There are other heuristics too and I imagine Cloudflare is monitoring movements that point to automation. All of this happens after you click. I personally prefer this over Google’s captcha which frequently doesn’t recognize me as a human but is easily bypassed by bots.

    • @Dasus@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      411 months ago

      I believe it’s less about clicking the box and what happens after you’ve clicked the box.

      I think it’s before, not after.

  • @Magnetic_dud@discuss.tchncs.de
    link
    fedilink
    2411 months ago

    Cloudflare knows almost everything done from your IP address because they’re used by the majority of websites. And some websites are using a cloudflare signed TLS certificate so if cloudflare wants, can see the content of the communication instead of an encrypted package

    So they know if you have a human behavior (visiting many different websites at human speed and having rests during sleeping time) or if you have a bot behavior (sending millions of requests to the same endpoint at superhuman speeds)

    • @kahdbrixk@feddit.org
      link
      fedilink
      Deutsch
      411 months ago

      I’d argue that the certificate authority does not have the ability to decrypt your communication because of the nature of private and public key mechanism during the whole TLS certificate procedure. You do not send your web servers private key to cloudflare when requesting a certificate.

      That would actually be pretty wild…

      Other then that you’re probably right.

      • @Magnetic_dud@discuss.tchncs.de
        link
        fedilink
        211 months ago

        There’s a default setting that allows unencrypted communication between the server and cloudflare. So they receive unencrypted data, sign with their certificate. Or send with self signed certificate, they decrypt and reencrypt. Or for some reason can download and import on the server their own internal use certificate.

        • @kahdbrixk@feddit.org
          link
          fedilink
          Deutsch
          211 months ago

          You’re right, forgot that you can just not encrypt on your servers end and use cloudflare to do that for you, especially when used as CDN

  • @Ballistic_86@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    4411 months ago

    These type of “captchas” look at your browsing behavior. It is sort of a “trade secret” of what it looks for, but it might be screen resolution, mouse behavior, cookies, OS, time to click, etc. Anything a website has access to that would look different from a bot.

    • hswolf
      link
      fedilink
      711 months ago

      Yes, and it gives you (or the bot), a score.

      If you don’t meet the score, is highly likely that you are a bot.

      You can have a superficial an yet interesting read on the topic on the Google re-captch dev docs.

  • @xylogx@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    2911 months ago

    Cloudflare has a bot score. Depending on how sus your bot score is you can use several different levels of verification. The checkbox you refer to is kind of in the middle. There is also a more complicated intrusive captcha and a totally transparent javascript. It’s a pretty slick system.

          • @cadekat@pawb.social
            link
            fedilink
            911 months ago

            There are two ways to layer a VPN and tor:

            1. Tor over VPN; or
            2. VPN over Tor.

            In the first option, you gain little. Tor already encrypts your traffic, so your ISP can’t see inside them. Technically, Tor over a VPN hides the fact that you’re using Tor from your ISP, but Tor’s snowflake does something similar if you need that.

            In the second option, you’re revealing your VPN account information, which could theoretically be associated back to you. Tor adds nothing over just a VPN in this case.

            • @wolfpack86@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              1811 months ago

              So really, “no value in mixing,” which is distinct from “don’t mix.”

              The latter implies a security risk could be created.

              • nyxia
                link
                fedilink
                111 months ago

                A security risk is created, you’re creating a permanent guard node by using your VPN with TOR. A lot of people downplay how serious this can be against a dedicated attacker. Sure, it may not matter for most, but for those with the right threat model, it will.

                • @wolfpack86@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  111 months ago

                  So VPN first then Tor is ill advised for this, or only the reverse? What is the potential attack in running Tor while on VPN?

  • @isolatedscotch@discuss.tchncs.de
    link
    fedilink
    6211 months ago

    https://blog.cloudflare.com/turnstile-private-captcha-alternative/

    TL:DR cloudflare made a new recaptcha which does some complex math and other stuff on your browser, which done once has no noticable effect but if someone were to scrape websites at an absurd speed it slows everything down significantly.

    this is not only cool because you don’t have to manually solve the captcha, but also because it allows for low-speed scraping to be feasible, with tools like flaresolverr

    • @madcaesar@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      2311 months ago

      That’s actually kinda cool. Punish the scrapers, but allow regular people to not waste time.

      Meanwhile, Google is having you find the zebra crossing for the 400th time…

    • newerAccountWhoDis [they/them]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      1511 months ago

      Thanks for being the only person in this thread who doesn’t joke or talk out of their ass order-of-lenin

      Quite interesting really and a genius solution (it they don’t lie about not stealing your data)

      • @Treachery4524@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        511 months ago

        Didn’t the Soviets see geniuses and other intellectuals as a danger to society during the time this award was given out? Or are there incidents where this was given to scientists as well? I know you’re probably joking, but when I suddenly encounter Lenin’s head being used in a positive manner I have to look twice.

    • @Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
      link
      fedilink
      10
      edit-2
      11 months ago

      I have not been in a coma but…

      I could possibly be the least aware person you’ve ever had a conversation with, digital or otherwise.

      I used to have “weekends” that rotated to different two-day sets every year. One year I got Wednesday and Thursday. I told my wife, “It’s not so bad. At least Thanksgiving falls on a Thursday this year. I checked.” She looked at me and said, “Thanksgiving is on a Thursday every year.” I was over thirty. Had no idea.

      She’s a very patient woman.

    • @BigMikeInAustin@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      411 months ago

      If you don’t know you don’t need to reply.

      What’s the purpose of making fun of someone for asking a question to try to learn?

    • @Gamoc@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      611 months ago

      Ha! They must have missed the billboards, front page newspaper articles, TV reports, and public service annou- oh wait.

  • @trustnoone@lemmy.sdf.org
    link
    fedilink
    4811 months ago

    Theres a few answrs to this

    1. It uses your movements before this to determine whether it feels like your a bot or not
    2. It makes you wait, the biggest issue with bots is they may try to log in say 50 different passwords for example, so if it takes 5 seconds to do each one it makes boting multiple acounts not worth it.
    3. Google uses catchphas with images to choose. They use this to train their own AI or data to sell
    • @IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      7
      edit-2
      11 months ago

      Smarter bots know how to easily avoid being detected based on the speed of their requests by simply adding a random delay to them. A few years ago we discovered a very slow speed credential stuffing attack (testing usernames & passwords) against my employers site. It was only testing one set of credentials every couple of minutes.

      Once we discovered it we didn’t block it though. We were able to spot the attack fairly easily once we knew what to look for, so we updated our system to always return a login failure no matter what credentials they sent.

    • To elaborate on point 1, it’s about uniqueness and timing of the path the mouse takes to click the checkbox. If it’s too straight or consistent it will red flag you.

  • @Itdidnttrickledown@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    1511 months ago

    I’m pretty sure I’m a robot since they often force me to select the motorcycle from a picture that is just one motor cycle. If I select every part of it I fail every time. Same thing with street lights and fire plugs.

  • Ellia Plissken
    link
    fedilink
    English
    2211 months ago

    I’ve been told that it’s analyzing your behavior from right before you click the button

    • @tills13@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      2311 months ago

      The newest models already know whether you’re a bot or not before the checkbox loads. A massive majority of the internet goes through Cloudflare so by the time you land on a site you already have what Cloudflare dubs a Bot Score based on your behavior across the web.

      Checking the box really just confirms what they already know. There’s a second form which I’m sure is even more prevalent than the checkbox that renders nothing, requires no user action, but can prevent form submission if you fail the check.