CAPTCHA

Maybe it's something to do with Alan Turing who was responsible in some way for the enigma code breaking thingy! In WW2.

Aarrgh - just looked up Turing Test on Wikipedia - can't make head nor tail of what they're on about

Let me know when you find out grannyknot - I never realised that it actually stood for something, thought it was just a play on the word "capture"

yoga and I replied at just about the same time. . Now will have to find out what a 'Turing Test' is.

I think the security works because only a human being could capture a captcha and type it in! so the computer or website 'knows' it's not a cyber phishing scam or a computer generated virus or a hacker. For most of them you can click on a button and get them as an audio, or otherwise I just refresh till I get an easy one. Agree they're a pain though.

This makes it all crystal clear goldengirl (or not!)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAPTCHA

It is an acronym based on the word "capture" and standing for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart".

Can't really see the point. How does the security work?

Bloody annoying things! I encountered a particulary bad one whilst trying to register with an employment agency.

I know that they are there for a reason, i.e. to stop random computer generated hits and web bots, but it meant after failing 3 times, I couldn't continue with my registration.

The ones that slowly move up and down are much easier to decipher, and - no - I haven't had too many - they really do move up and down

I hate the way they squash the letters together so you have to guess and then they say you've got it wrong.

And there's yet another new word to add to my vocabulary (if I remember it!). Thanks, ga!

Oh I've got it now. It's a neoligism that I shall be sure to incorporate into one of my 'computer-speak' classes.

I hate them. Sometimes you can't tell the difference between an 'o' or a zero or they blurred and you can't read anything because they are squshed up together!

They don't spell anything, glamma - it's just to see if you can recognise the letters.

None of them ever spell anything you can decipher anyway or is it me who needs to go to specsavers.

grannya its those scrambled letter that you have to decipher to enable you to access different sites or on forms etc, they are usually in different fonts and all squashed up together.

Sometimes it isn't clear whether the letter is upper or lower case, as well!

ga they're those strings of letters and/or numbers you have to decipher and type in so the site knows you're a human being, for security purposes.

Ditto!

Huh?
Explain please glass.

I hate them too. On some sites they seem to accept them more easily, but sometimes I've had to refresh so many times that I've lost patience!