Enhanced CAPTCHAs: Using Animation to Tell Humans and Computers Apart

Abstract

Completely Automated Public Turing Test to tell Computers and Humans Apart (CAPTCHA) is a –rather– simple test that can be easily answered by a human but extremely difficult to be answered by computers. CAPTCHAs have been widely used for practical security reasons, like preventing automated registration in Web-based services. However, all deployed CAPTCHAs are based on the static identification of an object or text. All CAPTCHAs, from simple ones, like typing the distorted text, to advanced ones, like recognizing an object in an image, are vulnerable to the Laundry attack. An attacker may post the test to a malicious site and attract its visitors to solve the puzzle for her. This paper focuses on sealing CAPTCHAs against such attacks by adding a dimension not used so far: animation. Animated CAPTCHAs do not have a static answer, thus even when they are exposed to laundering, unsuspected visitors will provide answers that will be useless on the attacker’s side.