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Turing Tests Have Been Implemented
One of my jobs as a web designer is to market the websites I create, obviously the ultimate success or failure of a website can sometimes depend on how many people visit said website.
When I created this web journal I decided to use it as an experimental platform for several different techniques related to web design, one of which being website marketing.
I am happy to say that in the 6 weeks (or so) since starting out I have increased traffic to this site by about 2.5 times, which is a pretty good start for a journal that is basically about esoteric digital nonsense.
Looking through statistics for how people find this site is very interesting; some of my more esoteric posts are actually my greatest traffic generators as far as Google searches. Whether or not people are actually happy with the results of their searches leading to one of my rambling posts is another question entirely.
One note of interest is how many people looking for my books or myself misspell my name. Having a name with an usual spelling as sort of numbed me to this problem, especially when living in a small town where the bank will cash a cheque with just about any version of my name on it.
However, I would once and for all like to put a rest to the subject. My name is Dylon Whyte, that's with an "o" in Dylon and a "y" in Whyte. It's not Dylan (like a certain famous Mr. Zimmerman a.k.a. Bob Dylan), who was named after a famous poet (Dylan Thomas), who was named after a Welsh Sea God (Dylan Eil Ton). It's not Dillon, like a certain movie star (Matt Dillon) or a famous fictional gunslinger (Marshall Dillon). It's not Dhillon (popular family name from the other side of the world). And it is most certainly not Zoltan (as a certain mail marketing firm has spelled it for years).
And with regards to Whyte, it's Whyte in the classic Scottish sense (Yay Robert Roy MacGregor!), not white, which is a colour representing the full colour spectrum. It's also not wight, as in the undead, magical treasure hording, inhabitants of certain Middle-earthian barrows.
Did you see that? That's right, the two paragraph rant that immediately proceeds this paragraph is actually an active marketing test as I try to determine if it is possible to start picking up on more searches by folks who may be misspelling my name. Nothing on the web is ever as it seems.
Oddly enough, my other purpose for this post was to address that very fact, if from a slightly different perspective. In marketing my website, I have also made it very visible to some not-so-reputable elements of the Internet, namely spammers.
In the past week, I've had about 10 garbage comments pop up on various journal entries. They were obviously created by automated systems that track down Movable Type based journals and attempt to post to them automatically.
Now, none of these posts ever saw the light of day, as I was able to delete them during the comment approval process. However, I decided that it would be interesting to look into a more automated solution to prevent spam posts.
Six Apart (creators of Movable Type) actually have an excellent page detailing comment spam issues and solutions.
Several of their solutions were quite excellent, including details on how to implement obfuscation techniques. However, I decided that I wanted to go with one of the more popular methods used on the 'net today, a "CAPTCHA" (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart). I still prefer to refer to these challenges simply as "Turing Tests" after computer logic pioneer Alan Turing, who put a lot of thought into the conceptual idea of artificial intelligence and the challenge of telling sufficiently intelligent machines apart from humans back when computers were the size of houses, contained more glass than a cathedral and had less computer power than a modern digital watch. (I'm sure John Connor would have taken a great interest in Mr. Turing's ideas during the war with Skynet.)
After doing a couple of searches on the Movable Type Plug-in page, I finally came up with a fairly straightforward little plug-in called SCode. Installation was mostly trouble free, so, for anybody who's left a comment in the past, you will now notice the new magic little "Turing Test" is now mandatory in order to post a comment.
What I am actually most interested in is how long it will take programmers to figure out methods for circumventing these kinds of tests. As always, the war rages on!
Posted by Dylon on December 22, 2006 11:58 PM |
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Comments
All hail the “Turing Test!”
I once created a web site for a northern town complete with message board that people were invited to submit questions and comments to about the town. I had been asked me not to put any restrictions on the site so that people could be free to say what they wanted and everything was great for the first year or so. Then some ignorant yahoo discovered it and started making some very personal and nasty comments about a few of the local people and businesses… free speech don’t you know! It ended up that I had to monitor everything almost 24 hours a day as whoever the anonymous chicken was seemed to know the minute I deleted their entries. Eventually enough was enough and we just zapped the message board completely which was really too bad as there were some great legitimate entries on there. I offered to alter things so each comment had to be approved before public posting but they just didn’t want that. A “touring test” was not required at that time as perhaps the automatic computer spamming wasn’t in wide use yet.
Oh well, it’s just unfortunate that we have to police what should be an opportunity for people to express themselves with an open mind. Instead, unless you really pin them down, many will hide behind anonymity and as someone said, “engage mouth without putting brain in gear first.” Bring back the soapbox I say, then we can see who is making the speech!
I agree with Murray! If there's anything I abhore, it's ignorant, rude people...who hide behind the guise of being "Anonymous". I can't stand people who are too cowardly to just say something up front. Sad.
Anyway, I really think all your work is pretty neat, Dylon. I certainly can't wrap my head around all this web and computer stuff! Genius...absolute genius, I say!
I am so happy to discover that neither of you are artificial intelligences!
The old version of my Manitoulin Link forum ran into similar problems , I guess that's why message boards that require users to log in are pretty much the de facto standard on the 'Net these days.
I could not agree more with regards to cowards that like to sit in their ivory towers of anonymity. When did it become acceptable to cease acting like proper ladies and gentlemen when in public? Sure, I may be sitting at a keyboard, behind a pair of monitors in my own home, but when I post messages on forums and bulletin boards or when I have conversations, whether it be via a IRC channel, using a popular IM client or even fiddling around, I am in a public place and therefore (in my ever so humble opinion) common rules for behaving like a gentleman apply, this means:
1. Avoid the top 3 taboo subjects for "polite company", which are politics, religion and sex". (Unless, of course, you have joined a public community that is dedicated to the discussion of one or more of these topics.)
2. Don't SHOUT and do not use profanity. (If you can't express your point of view without resorting to YELLING or profanity then you're just not being creative enough.)
3. Respect the opinions of others while expressing your own opinion. (This is what freedom of speech is truly about, I may not agree with your opinion on a given subject, but I absolutely must defend your right to have and express your opinion if I wish to keep the right to have and express my own opinions.)
4. Do not attack or personally insult other members. (Like the old saying goes: "Never judge another person until you have walked a mile in their shoes". Of course, I always enjoyed the further addendum: "Then you're a mile away from them and you have their shoes".)
There are other rules that can be observed, of course, and the benefits and limitations of both have been well discussed, I believe that's way the term "Netiquette" was invented! (LOL)
April 2008