[gui-talk] Fwd: Captchakiller.com

[Steve Jacobson]

Darrell,

Just to be sure it is clear, nobody in the NFB has said, to my knowledge, that we should not deal with CAPTCHA's, and I know there are some efforts to affect 
change.  I really don't think there is serious disagreement here so I don't understand the feeling that there is an argument.  

We have a whole range of problems with security schemes as you already know, and it is not clear how the law applies.  The existence of the captchakiller web site 
indicates more than anything to me that the life of captcha's is short, but there will probably then be something else.  We must become part of the equasion when 
security schemes are developed more than we are now.  I really don't think there is disagreement on this topic, though.

On Mon, 10 Mar 2008 10:54:45 -0700, Darrell Shandrow wrote:

>Hi Sherri,

>Karen and I certainly understand your issue.  Sometimes, it seems to me that 
>different blind people deal with accessibility concerns at differing levels 
>of priority according to the number and qualification of the sighted people 
>around them and their willingness to be available to meet their needs at a 
>moment's notice.

>I've visited the NFB national center a couple of times in the past, and I 
>can certainly understand why the Federation might be inconsistent and rather 
>spastic in the ways they do or don't prioritize equal access.  There are 
>plenty of sighted people who have been hired to meet the needs of Dr. Maurer 
>and the rest of the citizens working in those buildings.  I figure that, 
>once one has had a bunch of sighted people at their beck and call for 
>awhile, one probably tends to forget what it is like for the rest of the 
>blind population out here living in the real world.  Same is true for those 
>blind people who tend to lean heavily on sighted colleagues, friends and 
>family members to fill their access needs.




>----- Original Message ----- 
>From: "Sherri" <flmom2006 at gmail.com>
>To: "NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List" <gui-talk at nfbnet.org>
>Sent: Monday, March 10, 2008 10:41 AM
>Subject: Re: [gui-talk] Fwd: Captchakiller.com


>You know, I make these somewhat tongue-in-cheek comments and it starts a
>long controversial thread. What I was referring too is in my case, and my
>case only, if I have to depend on someone in my family to read anything to
>me, it is an arduous and frustrating task. For example, I needed to fill out
>a form. I have people around who can do that. They have plenty of time on
>their hands. No one would help and my financial planner finally just came
>over and got the form from me and we filled it out. It took all of five
>minutes. If I had the funds, I would hire a sighted reader, a driver, etc.,
>but I don't so it isn't an option for me, so I am glad for the software I
>have that does allow me to read my mail. And that's my two cents worth.

>Sherri
>----- Original Message ----- 
>From: "Joel Deutsch" <jdeutsch at dslextreme.com>
>To: "NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List" <gui-talk at nfbnet.org>
>Sent: Monday, March 10, 2008 12:34 PM
>Subject: Re: [gui-talk] Fwd: Captchakiller.com


>Hi Raul,

>First of all, let me say that I don't have a dog in this fight, as the
>expression goes. If someone feels comfortable using a sighted reader in an
>instance like this, fine with me. If they don't begrudge this approach to
>someone else, but feel strongly that it's not only more efficient but more
>dignified to be able to overcome the CAPTCHA obstacle all by themselves,
>either by pressuring for audio links or finding a way to break the system,
>also fine by me.

>But I think the folks who are objecting to the "sighted reader" approach (I
>think of this role more as " that of a sighted accomplice, for some reason)
>must feel that the goal of independence means not having to ask another
>person for assistance if at all possible. that's why it matters so much to
>them, seems like a capitulation and, possibly, even a humiliation.

>as someone who's in the process of going blind by degrees (I'm using "blind"
>in the most conventional meaning, here), one of the biggest challenges I've
>faced over the past few years since my vision crossed the line from being
>too poor to drive or make sense of movies to rendering me unable to perform
>many more tasks was that of having to learn to ask others for help. And I
>have found that although I'm happy to have something like Jaws at my
>disposal so I don't require a sighted reader for the vast majority of my
>usual reading needs,in other situations, such as shopping for groceries at
>my local food markets, I've not only given in to asking to have someone
>assigned to me to go around and pluck items off the shelves and put them
>into the shopping basket, I more often than not feel enriched by the
>interaction,. It took some time to accept feeling like this instead of the
>shame and irrational resentment I felt at first-- I mean resentment against
>those who were helping me-- and get over the undeniable loss of anonymity
>(which is really prized by most people when they have to run their errands;
>you drive alone to some store, wrestle a shopping cart out of the parked
>stack, wheel it around the store raving things and tossing them into the
>cart, and check out at the cashier line, and maybe that cashier is the only
>person you acknowledge with at least a "how ya doing today" and a smile
>before taking your bags and tossing them into your car. You haven't been
>forced to interact with anyone else unless you really wanted to discuss the
>French wines with the man who was standing beside you at that display or
>flirt with the woman whose eyes met yours over the watermelons). Some
>sighted people these days manage to even get past the cashier without a real
>affirmation that it's a fellow human being they're dealing with, but rather
>talk on their cell phones while they watch the total come up on the cash
>register and whip out money to pay with, exchanging nothing but a glance
>with the cashier that says "here's the dough, now let's have my change."
>This is the kind of privacy and anonymity in a public situation that most
>people in the U.S., at least, prize as a social birthright. And disability
>robs you of that, as well as rendering something like grocery shopping
>massively inefficient and time-consuming compared to before, if you're
>experiencing what I've been experiencing over recent years. for me, that's
>still a bummer. but not the part about learning to reach out and ask for
>assistance and then interrelate a little with the person who helps me.
>That's all been an enrichment, despite my regrets. It took me a long time to
>get to feeling this, though, I admit. Just saying this stuff in case anyone
>else might be heartened to hear it.

>And the same with voting. Let's be realistic. I don't go to vote in a
>precinct where my vote is likely to arouse hostility on a helper's part,
>whether or not someone else might even care about that. I live in an area
>that's basically politically friendly for someone of my political bent.
>whether or not everyone agrees on this state proposition or that candidate
>for office. If I lived in a more threatening locale, I might wish more
>fervently to have private voting access, but that's not my situation.

>And I'll also confess that the way I deal with the occasional CAPTCHA that
>flummoxes me is to email a close friend, give him the user ID and pass I'm
>using on that site, and have him log in for me so I can do whatever it was I
>was trying to do. I don't feel diminished by that. But I'm also happy that
>people campaign to get Web masters to reform on this issue by adding audio.
>Both, not just this or that, black and white.

>Just a personal observation. I know that others may feel differently, and
>I'm not trying to argue or rally anyone to my side. I just felt inspired to
>share my own experience of something like this in all its meaning beyond
>some political correctness issue.

>----- Original Message ----- 
>From: "Raul A. Gallegos" <raul at asmodean.net>
>To: "NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List" <gui-talk at nfbnet.org>
>Sent: Monday, March 10, 2008 3:51 AM
>Subject: Re: [gui-talk] Fwd: Captchakiller.com


>I think it's rather amusing how the informative nature of the original
>post has to degrade as to whether using sighted readers is good, bad,
>honorable, silly, or something else not mentioned as yet. Come on folks.
>Whether you use the killer site or not, or whether you always use
>readers or not, what it comes down to is if you get the job done in any
>way you can, that is what makes you independent. So, let's not split hairs.

>ryan perdue said the following on 3/10/2008 3:03 AM:
>> Mike, why would it be an honorable thing?
>> Sometimes, it's easy to feel like you're getting in someone's way, that
>> would make it worse.
>> Accessibility is a right and we need to be able to live independently as
>> much as possible.
>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>> From: "Darrell Shandrow" <darrell.shandrow at gmail.com>
>> To: "NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List" <gui-talk at nfbnet.org>
>> Sent: Monday, March 10, 2008 2:11 AM
>> Subject: Re: [gui-talk] Fwd: Captchakiller.com
>>
>>
>>> Hello Mike,
>>>
>>> I see you trotting out this "sighted reader" argument quite often.
>>> That's
>>> all fine and good, but...
>>>
>>> Why should there be screen readers and other assistive technologies for
>>> the
>>> blind?  Couldn't one just avail themselves of a sighted reader?
>>>
>>> Why should there be accessible voting?  Why should the election officials
>>> have to help us vote?  Shouldn't we all be required to bring our trusty
>>> sighted reader with us?
>>>
>>> Why should anyone purchase a K-NFB reader when they can plunk even more
>>> money down over their lifetime to hire the services of a more reliable
>>> sighted reader?
>>>
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>>> From: "Mike Freeman" <k7uij at panix.com>
>>> To: "NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List" <gui-talk at nfbnet.org>
>>> Sent: Sunday, March 09, 2008 8:21 PM
>>> Subject: Re: [gui-talk] Fwd: Captchakiller.com
>>>
>>>
>>> Now waaaait a minute here.
>>>
>>> I agree that the site is progress. But using sighted readers is an
>>> honorable thing!
>>>
>>> Mike
>>>
>>>  ----- Original Message ----- 
>>>  From: Sherri
>>>  To: NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List
>>>  Sent: Sunday, March 09, 2008 8:06 PM
>>>  Subject: Re: [gui-talk] Fwd: Captchakiller.com
>>>
>>>
>>>  Hey, anything's better than having to wait for a sighted person!
>>> Thanks.
>>>  I'll give it a try.
>>>  ----- Original Message ----- 
>>>  From: "Steve Pattison" <srp at internode.on.net>
>>>  To: "GUI Talk" <gui-talk at nfbnet.org>; "Access-L"
>>> <access-l at access-l.com>
>>>  Sent: Sunday, March 09, 2008 10:44 PM
>>>  Subject: [gui-talk] Fwd: Captchakiller.com
>>>
>>>
>>>  Sent: Sunday, 9 March 2008 9:33 AM
>>>
>>>  Today, I heard about this site on another list, and I love it.  If you
>>>  ever
>>>  need to use a site that requires captchas,
>>>  you will to.  The url is
>>>
>>>  www.captchakiller.com
>>>
>>>  The first thing you will have to do is sign up for an account.  On the
>>>  home
>>>  page, they have a lot of forum posts and
>>>  comments, but if you look for the crate an account link, you should
>>> have
>>>  no
>>>  problems at all.
>>>
>>>  Once you have an account, you can upload those bothersome captchas,
>>> and
>>>  the
>>>  site will process them for you.
>>>
>>>  I had a little trouble at first, but once you realize what they want,
>>>  it's
>>>  fairly straight forward.
>>>
>>>  I'll give you the step by step instructions.
>>>  1.  go to the site that has the captcha.
>>>  2. find the exact page that has the captcha, and copy the url that's
>>> in
>>>  the
>>>  address bar.
>>>  3.  find the captcha on the page, and right click on it.
>>>  4.  choose the save picture as option and save it to your hard drive.
>>>  5.  on the captchakiller site, choose the upload captcha link.
>>>  6.  paste the page url into the url field.
>>>  7. hit the browse button on the page, and browse to the file you saved
>>>  on
>>>  your computer.
>>>  8.  after hitting open on the file, hit the submit button on the page.
>>>  9.  then choose the view captchas link on the page, and find the most
>>>  recently uploaded one.  It should be the one at
>>>  the top.
>>>  10 when you go through the table you'll result, and beside that is
>>> what
>>>  you
>>>  have to type in for the captcha.
>>>
>>>  This may sound a little complex, but it isn't so bad once you get used
>>>  to
>>>  doing it.  I'm not saying it's a solution to
>>>  all our captcha problems, but it sure beats getting sighted help every
>>>  time
>>>  you need a captcha interpreted.
>>>
>>>  Another helpful hint I can give you, is to keep the captchakiller
>>> site,
>>>  and
>>>  the site you want the captcha for, opened at
>>>  the same time.  That way, you can get the captcha processed quickly
>>> and
>>>  enter it on the site before it expires.
>>>
>>>  Hopefully, some people will find this site useful.
>>>  --------
>>>  Earle
>>>  Skype, Twitter, and Yahoo:  rowdyamerican
>>>  MSN:  peterson_33 at sympatico.ca
>>>  Aim:  rowdyamerican28
>>>  ICQ:  155852055
>>>
>>>  Regards Steve
>>>  Email:  srp at internode.on.net
>>>  Windows Live Messenger:  internetuser383 at hotmail.com
>>>  Skype:  steve1963
>>>  _______________________________________________
>>>  gui-talk mailing list
>>>  gui-talk at nfbnet.org
>>>  http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/gui-talk
>>>
>>>  _______________________________________________
>>>  gui-talk mailing list
>>>  gui-talk at nfbnet.org
>>>  http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/gui-talk
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> gui-talk mailing list
>>> gui-talk at nfbnet.org
>>> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/gui-talk
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> gui-talk mailing list
>>> gui-talk at nfbnet.org
>>> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/gui-talk
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> gui-talk mailing list
>> gui-talk at nfbnet.org
>> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/gui-talk


>-- 
>Raul A. Gallegos -- http://www.asmodean.net
>_______________________________________________
>gui-talk mailing list
>gui-talk at nfbnet.org
>http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/gui-talk

>_______________________________________________
>gui-talk mailing list
>gui-talk at nfbnet.org
>http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/gui-talk

>_______________________________________________
>gui-talk mailing list
>gui-talk at nfbnet.org
>http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/gui-talk 

>_______________________________________________
>gui-talk mailing list
>gui-talk at nfbnet.org
>http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/gui-talk