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How is it that a computer can generate a captcha but not solve it?

Last Updated: 28.06.2025 15:19

How is it that a computer can generate a captcha but not solve it?

Because a big part of Captcha is about the erratic moves that a human does when clicking on things, moving things, etc. If you try to move your mouse cursor to click on the word “click” in this sentence, you will miss and have to move back and forth a bit, which is part of how the captcha thingy knows you are a human.

The point isn’t to stop every computer in the world from ever entering a captcha’d website, but it’s to stop common cyber-thieves trying a million credit card numbers on a million websites in a short amount of time. Because that’s the threat, not that a single “robot computer” can make one purchase on Amazon or similar.

Also, a lot of the pictures of “bicycles” or “park benchs” or “bridges” are not very clear or very easy to detect - on purpose. Whilst it may be possible to use computer vision or AI to figure what pictures are bridges, etc. The problem is that you can’t connect to hundreds of computers, analyze the pictures in seconds and move the mouse cursor erratically with a simple computer.

What should I be looking for when trying out running shoes? Local store lets me try the shoe and jog up and down the block, but they mostly feel the same to me. Is there some feeling or anything else specific I should be looking for?