Workers lose someone else's shirt Friday, November 02, 2007
Apparently, following the news that
a virtual stripper named "Melissa" that promises to progressively remove items of clothing for viewers who solve online CAPTCHAs is actually part of a scheme by spammers to crack web site registration traps meant to keep them out
Every time a user correctly enters the text on a CAPTCHA, the user is rewarded by Melissa removing another item of clothing. The catch is that the CAPTCHAs are being fed from real services, like Yahoo! Mail's signup process. So users looking for a free skin show are actually helping spammers and scammers thwart online security measures that usually keep their robots out.
the same Mechanical Turks can also be caught out when they go to lapdancing bars and hand over their credit cards to pay for live shows, thereby helping the adult industry to prosper. Evidently they think it is a fair trade.
posted by John Wilson @ 9:34 AM Permanent Link
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