Avoid the “are you human?” field

[JoniGiuro]

Hi,
I just came back from a workshop where there was this guy who showed a webpage with a form on it. At the bottom of said form there was the usuale “Prove you’re human by adding 3 and 4”.

I started thinking, is there really not a better way to avoid bots and spam? So I thought it would be an interesting topic to discuss.
I thought a solution would be to detect mouse click (also works on touch devices) or mousemove events on the document, to see if the user really has a pointing device (I don’t think bots have a mouse).

For those who don’t have javascript enabled we could just add a noscript tag and prompt them with the usuale “add 2 and 3” question.

I’m not facing this issue right now, I just want to hear what the community thinks.

Jonas

[Paulie_D]

At the end of it all, you are still requiring some user interaction aren’t you?

Whether it be “add 3+4” or “click here” is irrelevant.

I confess that JS is not my area of expertise but if you are going to enable the “Add” option for ‘no-js’ then it might as well be there for the ‘has-js’ side too…No?

[Justin_G]

Something some plug-ins use is basically the reverse. There is a hidden captcha without information filled in. If the information DOES get populated, you know it was a bot..perhaps this would work for you?

[JoniGiuro]

@Justin That would be a solution

@Paulie I wasn’t saying to add a “click here” button, but rather a hidden listener that listens for clicks or mouse movements. something like

$(‘document’).on(‘click’, function() {
isHuman = true;
});

and then you submit the form only if isHuman is true. I hope this makes sense

[Paulie_D]

What…any click/touch anywhere?

I suppose that would work but I fall back to my question regarding the ‘no-js’ option.

If you’re going to put that in anyway then you might as well use it for both ‘no-js’ and ‘has-js’.

[JoniGiuro]

No, because that would force the user to fill in the field. What I’m trying to achieve is to find a way of detecting humans sitting in front of the computer without them noticing.

[Paulie_D]

>What I’m trying to achieve is to find a way of detecting humans sitting in front of the computer without them noticing.

Yes, I get that but my point is that **if** you are going to do something for the no-js side of things then it’s only logical to use the same for the ‘has-js’ side.

I suppose you could bypass that form field if js is enabled, using your method, though.

[Author]

Posts