So a Turing Test is a method of determining whether or not something/someone is human. Â Really, the goal is to figure out if the test taker can “think”. Â If the testee passes the Turing test, then he/she/it is deemed human, as computers, at least as far as I know, cannot “think”. Â Captchas are a form of Turing test.
Lately, a spambot has gotten ahold of my Yahoo name. Â Whenever I log on, I get a few messages from people I don’t know. Â Because I am on a few websites, about 10% of those messages are legitimate–but the other 90% are not. Â Initially, it took me about 2 minutes to figure out who was real and who wasn’t, as the spambots are programmed to respond to a user’s input. Â For instance, if you ask “Who are you?” the spambot will respond something like, “I’m Michelle. What’s your name?”, then use that input later on in the conversation. Â The problem is, after a couple minutes, “Michelle” will send a link to her webcam, and immediately, I know I’ve been fooled by a spambot.
So I decided to do a little experiment. Â Rather than respond immediately to the new messages with something that makes sense, I instead ask a question, like “What’s four plus five?” or “What is three times 8?” Â If I get a valid response, I can be more confident the message is from a real human–and if the response is more of, “Tell me about yourself”, I know that it’s a spambot.
