I actually built one of those robot arm kits. I got more enjoyment out of building it than I have since

Quote from: chrism on Today at 08:08:10 AMConsidering that self-driving cars can spot traffic lights and mopeds, I doubt it's beyond the abilities of a bot with only a modicum of AI built in to do likewise 

Mind you, most sites that want to check only ask me to tick a box to say that I'm not a robot - hardly a strong verification requirement.

I mean this was 9 years ago!

Quote from: zwilnik on Today at 09:43:23 AMand reject any that have a steering wheel

But you'd need to make sure that it didn't mistake a screw reverser wheel for a steering wheel 

Time for a new member questionnaire that goes full rivet counter including draw the driving cab of a (insert random UK steam loco) and reject any that have a steering wheel

Build an infinite feedback loop sending it a verification code that doesn't stop. The users that get fed up and go can be emailed the right verification code to get an account. The bots will just have their own world to play in.

Not a workable solution but a fun one nevertheless.

So @Tank could actually be a bot?     

Ticking the box to show your human involves the website monitoring the time taken to do the click, where and how the mouse moves etc. Getting a bot to replicate the human movement is difficult.

Similarly, when you get asked to click on photos of traffic lights - it's the timing of the clicks that it's most interested (the clicked pictures also help identify images containing traffic lights that help AI learn).

Quote from: GlenEglise on Yesterday at 07:39:47 PMPerhaps a verification page of some sort needed to show you are a human when applying. They pop-up on so many pages nowadays.

Considering that self-driving cars can spot traffic lights and mopeds, I doubt it's beyond the abilities of a bot with only a modicum of AI built in to do likewise 

Mind you, most sites that want to check only ask me to tick a box to say that I'm not a robot - hardly a strong verification requirement.

From experience on another forum I run, most spam accounts are created by actual humans, who can therefore bypass whatever anti-bot checks you put in place. Some of them are relatively clever these days about avoiding detection, and use either their brains or AI to help make some seemingly relevant posts, which they come back to later to edit referral links into. Their goal is to have those referral links on the site as long as possible.

Combating them is a balance between stamping down on spam and inconveniencing new/existing users, and at the end of the day usually ends up mainly inconveniencing the kind people running the site who have to spend their time to manually detect and delete them and any posts they make.

Quote from: GlenEglise on Yesterday at 07:39:47 PMPerhaps a verification page of some sort needed to show you are a human when applying. They pop-up on so many pages nowadays.

I've got that (Google ReCaptcha) on my web site. It doesn't prevent the occasional flood of people attempting to leave comments with links to dodgy web sites.