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Comment by NetToolKit | Hacker News Reader

To the extent that you'd consider non-Google alternatives, there are multiple different CAPTCHA services, and we at NetToolKit recently launched our own version called Shibboleth: https://www.nettoolkit.com/shibboleth/about

You can try out demos at https://www.nettoolkit.com/shibboleth/demo

While not open-source, the service is very affordable ($10 for 100,000 CAPTCHAs), and clients get to review user submissions to see if the CAPTCHAs are reasonable or not.

Would love to get your feedback on the service.

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I understand why you'd call it that but won't it be confused for Shibboleth, the single sign-on log-in system?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibboleth_(Shibboleth_Consort...

Maybe. I'm hoping that single sign-on and CAPTCHA are sufficiently different that people won't get confused. Also, the dev team behind this didn't want a generic name, and there are enough products/services out there that name collisions are pretty easy to encounter, unless wholly making up a name (which might then require more explanation).

The maze one is interesting, but it seems it can be frustrating (because it didn't enforce walls when I tried, though I can see why it might do that)

Yes, the concern is that since browsers interpret the end-user code, if it has knowledge of the walls (required to enforce them), bot networks might be able to use the JavaScript code to figure out the correct solution in an automated fashion.

Just tried it out.

Clicking on the buttons with a laptop trackpad was tedious and unintuitive.

It would be nice if I could use the arrow keys (or even WASD) on my keyboard.

Other than that it seems preferable to Google's new image captchas.

Thanks for the feedback! One thing that is not clear from the demo (and something we should fix) is that you can click on the path CAPTCHA to grant it focus. After that, you can use the arrow keys (although WASD currently does not work).

Ah! I tried clicking every except on the path itself!

> WASD

Please don't, not everyone is american, not everyone uses a qwerty keyboard.

You should add arrow key mapping, so we can beat the captcha with the keyboard. Using the mouse is tiedous.

Yes, thanks for that feedback. We actually do have support for arrow keys, but you have to first click the path to focus on it (made similar comment at: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21327738)

This maze captcha looks trivial to defeat

I understand why it might seem that way. I personally don't think it would be trivial to wire up a working solution (including generating the correct solution strings); if you do, I certainly would welcome you to post your solution.

I estimate maybe 3 hours of effort. Will you pay me for my time upon completion ($100/hr)? If so I'll do it

if 3 hours is too much I'll crack the naval command captcha for 1 hour of work.

Adversarial testing -- I like it. Contact me via email (see my profile) and let's see if we can agree on the terms (again, it's more than just solving the puzzle). We would want to set up a proper test bed, and I'll be travelling next week, so it might take a couple of weeks to get everything ready.

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