Cats Inside RapidShare CAPTCHA Images

24 apr 2008

The next time you download a file from RapidShare, you may be asked to solve a tough CAPTCHA image. Each of the letters in the RapidShare CAPTCHA include a sketch of a cat or a dog and you need to figure out the letters that just have a cat image. It may be hard [...]

The next time you download a file from RapidShare, you may be asked to solve a tough CAPTCHA image.

rapidshare-captcha-cats

Each of the letters in the RapidShare CAPTCHA include a sketch of a cat or a dog and you need to figure out the letters that just have a cat image.

It may be hard for spammers to break this complex CAPTCHA but even human beings will have a real tough time deciphering such images.

http://jamesallen.name James Allen

Totally agree! I’ve just tried 4 times to get a file at rapidshare and I just can’t ‘break’ their new captcha codes. I’m gobsmacked at how dumb this is.. There has to reach a point where trying to defeat spammers just ends up destroying the usability of a site…
Mr Brad

The shape of their heads is the biggest difference.
http://tftb.net/2008/04/16/captcha-rapidshare/ V

Today Spammers are creating a menace on Internet. Looking at the present scenario, this step by Rapidshare is completely a good security step.

In some CAPTCHA it is difficult to find the difference between cats and dogs, but after zooming the page it becomes real easy.
http://www.technologyhacker.com Technoogy Hacker

This is indeed the toughest captcha to break by bots..Very tricky one..
http://imessedwithit.blogspot.com Atin

Well the captcha is good thought but it indeed sucks when the text goes messy and we can’t differentiate out the text having dog and cats, this really sucks when we really need some file from rapidshare.
n/a

one way to get dependents to finally pay for completely free-of-charge leeching services. for one-off downloaders it is unfortunate. i am sure there must be more regular rapidshare-ers these days. i am quite satisfied with my premium account and the bandwidth and speed i receive from respective servers. good luck to you who must deal with CAPTCHA at all.
http://askwiki.blogspot.com Rishil

Yes, a real tough one.. but i somehow feel this too might be broken. The bots are also getting smarter.
Sree Prakash

Well, when looking in the captcha, we feel it is difficult to figure out the correct characters… But, just look for dogs small head and the belt in dogs neck…

After they implemented this new captcha, I downloaded some 25 files… All with correct captcha….
Lewis

Thanks for explaining what to do here :P I never understood this before, but now I do and can use RS again :)
http://www.webicy.com/ SticKer

sometimes i can’t get the codes right because of those cats in between. I hope they make changes to the captcha code
http://ashventure.blogspot.com aasheesh

…Yeah, its indeed a toghie to crack 4 spammers…..but smtimes its very frustrating when you just cant figure out the shape…..the shapes r so distorted, so dat it neither looks like a cat nor a dog!
http://www.funthusia.com Sameer

Man..

THIS is just a ploy to save their bandwidths and get more premium users…
http://www.yalcinaydin.com Yalcin Aydin

I’ve failed at my 4th attemp again!
This torture repeates every time :(
http://blarnee.com Addy Osmani

I must say, I’m not a fan of this new captcha – I’ve been a Rapidshare Premium user for quite some time but I’ve decided to take a break from that for a while..ah how I miss it.

On average it can take between 3 to 5 attempts to solve the new scheme. I do however feel it would be much easier to break this Captcha than the previous iterations.

For starters, As we’re all supposed to be able to make out the cat (in particular it’s head) all you need to do is create a matrix of deviations to the cat’s head and then simply apply probabilistic classification to figure out which letters contain the image. After that it’s an easy case of pattern matching the letters to standard characters in that font.
Exxon

The instruction reads that one should enter letters with cats. but apparently rapidshare refers to characters not just letters with this instruction.
I realized this after 6 failed attempts!

For users to have a hard time, this a really crappy implementation of a new captcha.
Blue

Thank you so much for posting about this. I’ve been trying to get the 6th part of a file for half a day now, and I had no idea what was going on. I finally realized there must be some trick I was missing, and voila, here you explain it. I wasn’t noticing a difference between the dogs and cats. I thought it had something to do with not picking numbers and certain characters like Is and Os sometimes being numbers. :P The least they could do is properly explain it! So thanks for doing what they fail to. Much appreciated.
Jason

>> Sameer 04.28.08

Man..

THIS is just a ploy to save their bandwidths and get more premium users…
<<<

This is exactly my thought as well.
Moh

I never knew they were dogs up till now, I always thought it was a related to the position of the cat in respect to the midpoint of the letter. That was inspired to me by the “Below”, and they all looked like cats anyways.

Now that I’ve obtained knowledge to type the letters with “cats” on them and not “dogs”, I still am unable to get it right.
Peter

Yes, I too think that this is the way to increase the number of revenue in other words to make people sign on up for a Premium account.

If you look at at the competitor Megaupload they’ve always had 40 sec time limit which is fine because it never fluctuates and the speed improved
from ’06 to ’08

While Rapidshare on the other hand Is the only one one that increased the download speed limit added preposterous codes and the Captchas system.

Time to look for a better alternative you guys

Megaupload, Depositfiles, Uploaded.to, FileFactory
Jan

Darn, i had to google “Rapidshare cats” to realise that there were dogs in the picture. If they specified that some have cats attached and other dogs it would have been a lot easier. First time i encountered the system i was thinking that some cats are not actually attached…:))
alexander markov

The cats have gone, replaced by a grid, which can also be tricky – have to get used to it.

Can anybody tell me why I can only use level 3 to download free fines from rapidshare?
Jjonny

The grid system is NOT case sensitive. Next, need to determine if number 0 and lettter O are interchangeable. Changing viewing angle helps to decipher.

Technology, Software and Internet

Cats Inside RapidShare CAPTCHA Images

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