[Pdx-pm] kwiki and TypeKey - spammed again!

[Eric Wilhelm]

# from Michael Rasmussen
# on Monday 16 April 2007 11:12 am:

>What is good cycling weather? rain, sunny, hot, cool, all
>In the sky you won't find? stars, clouds, rain, goldfish, blue
>Oregon is known for blazing, automotive, rainy, rocky or dogish
> weather?
> You will find feathers on a bicycle, squash, city, chicken, spam?

>It's dead simple for a human being to answer the question, easier on
> the eyes and system than a captcha, and so far the spambots haven't
> figured out how to answer my questions correctly.

Is it?  The goldfish one *might* not be so subjective (assuming that the 
improbability drive isn't on), but what is good bicycling weather?

And, doesn't the bot have a 25% chance of getting the right answer?  My 
statistics are a bit rusty today, but IIRC, those odds increase with 
the number of tries.

We should probably just administer a 30-minute IQ test as a captcha.  
That would allow only the smartest bots to post.

But once you take the test once, I guess you would want some way to 
prove that you have already taken it.

If only there were some sort of (Pretty Good) cryptographic signature 
system which allowed us to form some sort of trusted web of verified 
identities (a "Web of Trust" if you will.)  Perhaps then we could 
simply verify that you are trusted by some people who we trust.

Isn't the wiki model based on having enough good people with nothing 
better to do cleaning up after the spambots?  Seems like we're 
outnumbered.

--Eric
-- 
Chicken farmer's observation:  Clunk is the past tense of cluck.
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