Google’s ‘invisible’ CAPTCHA automatically knows you’re a human

Google has promised to abolish one of the biggest online annoyances - the CAPTCHA tests that ask you to prove you’re a human, not a robot.

The company says it has developed an “invisible” system that confirms a user is human by analysing how they browse the web. If it proves successful it means you’ll no longer need to decipher squiggly letters, or tick a ‘I’m not a robot’ box.

For years websites have used CAPTCHAS to prevent automated software from bombarding them with internet traffic. Hackers launch these Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks in order to knock a website offline. Other sites use CAPTCHAS to prevent automated programs from buying tickets online and leaving comments.

Google acknowledges that the human-robot test is a necessary evil, but since buying the RECAPTCHA technology in 2009 the company has been working on a way to make it less irritating.

It has gradually replaced wobbly text with puzzles that

pe people can solve, but computers can’t. These include identifying pictures of dogs in a gallery of animal photos, and listening to somebody reading numbers over music.

Google has launched a site telling website owners about the new system ( www.snipca.com/23756), saying that it lets genuine visitors “pass through with ease”.

The company hasn’t revealed exactly how the system works lest hackers find a way to bypass it. But it’s known to look for types of behaviour online typical of humans, but not robots. For example, humans move the cursor in a more random way than robots do.