E-mail spammers make their money by leveraging the scale of the Internet: by sending out as many spam e-mails as possible, via as many e-mail accounts as possible. Eventually enough unsuspecting people will respond to the spam to make the whole endeavor profitable.
Owners of free e-mail account services really do not want spammers to acquire accounts for the purpose of sending spam. So service owners use captchas to help ward off automated account registrations. Of course we believe our captcha works better than all the others out there, but still there are some spammers who continue to acquire e-mail addresses despite security tactics. How do they do so?
The answer, for some, is decidedly low tech.
Today’s NY Times has an article describing how some nefarious spammers simply hire others to answer captchas on their behalf. In other words, outsourcing!
I certainly can’t imagine a more tedious job: most captchas are difficult to read, and typically not that interesting (although there are some humorous exceptions). Indeed, one company who used to offer such outsourced captcha-solving services no longer does so as it is neither all that profitable nor interesting:
“We found that it’s not worth doing,” said Mr. Paveri, a manager in SBL’s business process outsourcing and graphics unit. Moreover, he added, “after some time, the productivity of people comes down because it’s a monotonous job. They lose their interest.” (source: NY Times).
So should you worry about it? Perhaps, but your volume of new accounts should be on the order of MSN’s (thousands per day) to make it worth spammers’ time.
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Today is a great day at BotProof: after months of planning and tremendous effort, we have re-launched our website! We’ve focused our branding and products on CAPTCHA 2.0 with AdEmbed, making the site easier for publishers to sign up for the world’s best CAPTCHA (if we do say so ourselves!) — as well as creating more of a resource for advertisers looking for better, more effective ways to get their messages out.
For those looking for our breakthrough IT security product that protects “in use” data, CamoKey, visit our sister site Cernious.
So please poke around the site, let us know what you think, and by all means: sign up!
‘Tis the season for giving. And in the true spirit of Internet companies, we here at BotProof found a way to scale our contributions to our communities.
In conjunction with a newly formed partnership with the Community Foundation of Utah (mission: “to harness Utah’s entrepreneurial spirit in service to the common good through smart philanthropy”), I was invited to join almost 140 like-minded entrepreneurs and senior leaders from Utah’s non-profits in 5-minute “speed mentoring” sessions on topics such as marketing, strategy, and operations. The objective was to provide non-profits with meaningful, strategic advice to help them through their various challenges.
In three hours of intense work, I was amazed to hear of the various services offered to our state, and inspired by the dedication these leaders have to their respective missions. I was pleased to be able to help so many organizations in a short time period.
And our contribution does not end there, we are also a donor — and, again, in a way that capitalizes on the scale of the Internet. By contributing equity to the Community Foundation, our success will help fund their success.
Happy Holidays!
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Welcome to our blog! We have started the blog in conjunction with re-launching our website, and have created it as a resource for both current and prospective users of our technology. We believe we have the best CAPTCHAs on the market, and will use this space for several purposes:
- on-going education about our technology, what makes it superior, and how we’re evolving it
- how best to utilize our solutions, whether you are a publisher or an advertiser
- provide context for bot-driven activity, why you might care, and what we are doing to protect you and your site
- occasional “behind-the-scenes” view as to who we are, why we are emphasizing certain marketing messages, and how we are reacting to industry trends
- foster a conversation about best practices for our user base, such as how publishers can maximize returns for themselves and participating advertisers
Our blogs will primarily be authored by the BotProof management team, including this one. I’ve helped multiple startups grow and am honored to have been part of BotProof since late 2008.
I have been tasked with managing the product you see and use, and I think you’ll find that we’ve created a successful marriage between a superior CAPTCHA and a business model where everybody can enhance their revenue:
- publishers can turn existing site functionality (i.e. CAPTCHAs) into incremental, premium ad inventory
- advertisers can enjoy higher ad interactions
- we can fund continued technical development
We welcome your comments!
Regards,
Tim Brown
COO, BotProof.com
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Hello, the new site looks great! I am very pleased with the captcha I’ve been using on my WordPress blog. No spambot posts, and users find it easy to read.
Recently, I discovered that I could customize the colors of the captcha using botproof.net. Awesome! I wish you had made that a little easier to figure out, since it took me some research and experimentation to get it right. But I was happy with the results.
Comment by Victor Zeno — February 1, 2010 @ 9:12 pm
Victor: thank you for the kind review! I appreciate you finding the need for better documentation. I’ll make sure our development team works on creating an easier way to find the support documentation and configuration options!
Comment by admin — February 10, 2010 @ 3:15 pm