The Captcha system has accompanied us for years. Strange hieroglyphics, impossible comparisons, broken images, and twisted and crossed-out book phrases are part of its arsenal that separates humans from computers. In the past we have explored developments like algorithms that managed to conquer it, and we also studied a good part of its history, but now we come across an extension for Chrome and Firefox called Buster, which promises to solve captchas automatically using the secondary audio method.
A captcha can be irritating, but it brings out the worst in us when it becomes almost impossible to solve. "Click on the advertisements? That photo shows a piece of advertising billboard in the corner, it's valid!" Unfortunately, it makes no sense to argue with a captcha, because things always turn out the way the system wants them: either you deliver the exact result, or you don't pass. I've even seen specimens that turn the captcha into mini advertising (I remember one forced me to type "Walmart"). Developers are very aware of the negativity that captcha carries, and in many cases they have decided to activate the NoCaptcha variant, which reduces the process to a simple click on a checkbox. Now, what if it were possible to avoid that too?
That is the promise made by the Buster extension, compatible with Chrome and Firefox. Instead of attacking the structure of images presented by reCAPTCHA in a normal session, Buster calls the alternative audio-based system (designed for the blind), and tries to solve its challenge using speech recognition. Basically, Buster adds an icon at the bottom of the reCAPTCHA (the man with the green checkmark). Click on that icon, and the extension will try to pass the test.
Buster is at version 0.2.0 (at least, that's the build reported in the Chrome store), so nobody should expect perfect performance (let's not forget that speech recognition carries its own limitations). In fact, the idea is to expect Buster to make mistakes the first few times, and retry by clicking until it succeeds. With a bit of luck and effort, Buster will become a useful tool, unless webmasters implement NoCaptcha on a massive scale.
