Prove You’re a Human by Selecting the Grids Showing Black Pepper

I am not a big fan of CAPTCHA, another of those security tests to prove that (1) you’re human; (2) you have superfine X-Ray vision; and (3) you never make mistakes. Many a time, I have had to undergo half a dozen CAPTCHA screens showing cars, buses, bridges, traffic signals, crosswalks and other more or less indistinct on centimeter-square grids.

And why are they all road-traffic-oriented? It would be easier for me to distinguish a house fly from a mining dredge or a pen from a peacock.

To start with, CAPTCHA is an acronym for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart. Strictly speaking, it should be CAPTTTCHA; but then, these things are always a bit wonky. As are the images shown, which typically are tiny and indistinct.

How many times have I tried to look into the tiny grid squares and attempt to distinguish a small car from a bus or an eighteen-wheeler. Eventually, I usually get in. It’s just that I resent having to jump through hoops to prove I’m human, and not just a malicious algorithm.