Why is reCaptcha used only for foreign IPs?

[Andrei Petcu]

Hello,

Why is reCaptcha used only for foreign IPs? I think it would be better to use reCaptcha for all signups.

If I make a task to add an extra variable in general.yaml FORCE_USE_CAPTCHA and use it in instead of @request_from_foreign_country in _signup.rhtml and in user_controller.rb will you accept my patch?

The FORCE_USE_CAPTCHA will be default to false and have the current behavior and if it set to true it will have the behavior proposed by me.

Andrei Cristian Petcu

[Alex Skene]

Hi Andrei

For some background - it was implemented on WhatDoTheyKnow as a
response to spammers in the Far East who managed to set up thousands
of user accounts. These accounts then tried to use the messaging
system send spam to other users.

reCaptcha is annoying if you're a real person, and pretty much all
UK-based sign-ups are real. I've not got any issue with your proposal
as it does sound like it should be a configurable item, and there'd be
no impact for sites who wanted to maintain the current config.

Rather than limiting it to just true/false ie between Foreign IPs or
All IPs, you'd might want to make it more configurable to include use
cases like "Don't require captcha" - but that could be refactored in
later if there's demand for it.


Kind regards
Alex - WhatDoTheyKnow.com volunteer
al...@whatdotheyknow.com
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