Anti-Spam Webforms Leave Out The Blind

geekee writes "An article on CNET claims that a technique whereby a user enters a code word displayed in an image in order to register for a service such as an e-mail account discriminates against the blind. Advocacy groups for the blind are even hinting at lawsuits against companies using this practice. A proposed audio workaround for the blind still has problems since it has to be garbled to the point where most people can't understand it to prevent a computer from recognizing the letters. Brings up some interesting issues surrounding the Turing test."

What about the deaf mutes?

[ramdac]

Audio wouldn't help the deaf mutes.

Hellen keller is scooting around in her grave...maybe even rolling over.

I can see it now....

[Lord_Slepnir]

...In a few years, gun manufacturors will have to have audible scopes on their rifles because optical scopes discriminate against the blind.

Wall....Wall....Intruder's leg....Intruders stomache....Intruder's head
*BANG*

Anyone could have seen this coming

[JUSTONEMORELATTE]

And let me just say I'm profoundly sorry about the subject line of this post.

--

Bonzai Buddy

[docstrange]

Hello, I am your seeing eye monkey from bonzai buddy, I can help you read the text off of the screen that you need to register for your e-mail account.

Would you like to.

1. have the selection recognized with ocr, and read to you.
2. send your personal information to us, along with the new e-mail account so we can send it to spammers.
3. Profit!@!@
(except in soviet russia where the OCR owns us)

Re:What's the big deal?

[4doorGL]

So what would you prefer to do as a solution?

Remove the test altogether and let spammers have their way with free email accounts? If anything, why not create an e-mail service just for the blind that requires some other type of verification that they can use, but will still stop spammers?

Re:Monitors.

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe that's why so many computers are "Monitor not included."

Re:How much to concede to please everyone?

[geckofiend]

Don't you understand this is the 21st century? If everyone can't do it then nobody should do it.

Re:Hotmail

[Anonymous Coward]

Eventually we will be required to send out CDs, cassettes, or vinyl records to the blind of this site. If you do not own any of the required hardware, then a messenger will have to be sent. For those who are blind AND deaf, we will be required to send them a copy in braille. All of this at /.'s expense. But at least we won't be offending anybody, and that is what is important.

Re:How much to concede to please everyone?

[Jaguar777]

Except now, you had bums popping in a quarter, and having a free room for the night.

Free cookies to the first person that sees what's wrong with this sentence.

Ok, I will tell you, but do I have to give you a quarter to get the free cookies???

Re:How much to concede to please everyone?

[whmac33]

Except now -- present tense

you had -- past tense

That's my guess

Porn Sites

[Stonent1]

Oh yeah, porn sites discriminate against the blind too you know! Ever tried to get off on a mouse-over image desc?

speech recognition probably not that good.

[SuperBanana]

Is speech recognition so good now that sound would have to be played back from inside a '73 Pinto at the bottom of a swimming pool to keep a computer from parsing it?

Years ago, I told my Powermac 660AV "Computer, open window", and it shut down instead.

Granted, it was the only computer on the market that could do speech recognition thanks to a builtin DSP, and the integration with the Macintosh environment was superb- but it still would do the most amusing things.

Re:I can see it now....

[el-spectre]

and kevlar vests will have speakers too...

"uh oh... hey, you might wanna... oh, it's O..... SHIT! RUN!"

Re:Hotmail

[ryanvm]

Although if you're blind and deaf, you're still out of luck.

You ain't shittin'.

Re:Monitors. - actually...

[hazem]

Now you're discriminating against the stupid. You can't do that - too many government employees, particularly the elected variety, would be kept out.

Re:Monitors.

[Carnivorous Carrot]

> Most blind people are lonely and cut off as it
> is. Where's your compassion?

Strangely, it disappeared when lawyers representing them start talking about how we must pay them and their clients money for asinine stuff. Compassion? Hell, it's bordering Euthanasia at the moment.

Re:speech recognition probably not that good.

[EvilStein]

Heh. When Speakable Items came back in Mac OS 9, I was working at Apple. I ran into a training lab and yelled "COMPUTER! SHUT DOWN!" from the back of the room several times and managed to utterly ruin a training session.

But boy, was that funny. ;) It worked a LOT better than I had expected it to!

Re:Turing Test?

[dupper]

No, that's not what he's saying at all. The blind can't pass the distorted image test, so they clearly aren't people.

Bad Joke:

[Fallen_Knight]

Well the lawyers are at it all websites should sue any blind/lynx visitors under the DMCA for circumventing ads and preventing the website from generatieng any revenue.

(weeee my first bad joke!)

Re:How much to concede to please everyone?

[per11]

Free cookies to the first person that sees what's wrong with this sentence.

no main verb?