[REBOL] Preventing Automated Website Registrations
From: tserpa:earthlink at: 8-May-2002 9:36
We run a sweepstakes on one of our websites. Recently we have been hijacked by a site
that uses a program to automatically register people for the sweepstakes. The lowly
perpetrators are at www.ezsweeps.com - absolute scum.
Anyway, I know Yahoo and PayPal use a technology to prevent automated registrations and
would like to implement this technology on our site. If you haven't seen it, go to Yahoo
and scroll to the bottom of the registration page.
In a nutshell, the program generates an image containing some effects and a word within
the image. The user has to enter the word in a text box. Since computers aren't able
to decipher the word, it's a safe bet that the user is actually a human registering at
the site and not an automated program.
The program (or some variant of) Yahoo uses is a free Perl program that is available
for Linux. It makes use of the Gimp to generate the images. The source is a free download
from:
http://www.captcha.net/captchas/gimpy/
I thought this would be a perfect program to implement in Rebol. I imagine /View could
be used to generate the images, obviating the need for the Gimp. Also it would be cross-platform,
not just for Linux.
Unfortunately, I don't have the knowledge to do this myself. Can anyone offer some assistance?
Ted
