Re: [Python-Dev] Summary of Tracker Issues

2007-05-17 Thread Hrvoje Nikšić
On Wed, 2007-05-16 at 22:17 -0700, Talin wrote:
> Here's a simple method: Put up a free porn site [...]

Is it known that someone actually implemented this?  It's a neat trick,
but as far as I know, it started as a thought experiment of what *could*
be done to fairly easily defeat the captchas, as well as all other
circumvention methods that make use of human intelligence.


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Re: [Python-Dev] Summary of Tracker Issues

2007-05-17 Thread Greg Ewing
Talin wrote:
> Here's a simple method: Put up a free porn site, with a front page that 
> says "you must be 18 or older to enter". The page also has a captcha to 
> verify that you are a real person. But here's the trick: The captcha is 
> actually a proxy to some other site that the spammer is trying to get 
> access to.

The "python-related question" technique would probably be
somewhat resistant to this, as your average porn surfer
probably doesn't know anything about Python. (At least
until CP4E takes off and everyone knows Python...)

-- 
Greg Ewing, Computer Science Dept, +--+
University of Canterbury,  | Carpe post meridiem! |
Christchurch, New Zealand  | (I'm not a morning person.)  |
[EMAIL PROTECTED]  +--+
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Re: [Python-Dev] Summary of Tracker Issues

2007-05-17 Thread Guido van Rossum
On 5/17/07, Hrvoje Nikšić <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Wed, 2007-05-16 at 22:17 -0700, Talin wrote:
> > Here's a simple method: Put up a free porn site [...]
>
> Is it known that someone actually implemented this?  It's a neat trick,
> but as far as I know, it started as a thought experiment of what *could*
> be done to fairly easily defeat the captchas, as well as all other
> circumvention methods that make use of human intelligence.

I don't have hard data but it's been related to me as true by Googlers
who should have first-hand experience.

-- 
--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)
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Re: [Python-Dev] Summary of Tracker Issues

2007-05-17 Thread Scott Dial
Hrvoje Niksic wrote:
> On Wed, 2007-05-16 at 22:17 -0700, Talin wrote:
>> Here's a simple method: Put up a free porn site [...]
> 
> Is it known that someone actually implemented this?

I moderate a discussion forum which was abused with this exact attack. 
At the time, it was a phpBB forum which had the standard graphical 
captcha. After switching to a different forum package, the attacks went 
away. I will assume because (as it has been said) it was no longer a 
well-known and common interface.

However, it may also be because instead of using a graphic (which is 
easily transplanted to another page), it uses ascii art which would 
require more effort to extract and move to another page.

-Scott

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Scott Dial
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Re: [Python-Dev] Summary of Tracker Issues

2007-05-17 Thread O.R.Senthil Kumaran
* Scott Dial <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2007-05-17 11:04:46]:

> However, it may also be because instead of using a graphic (which is 
> easily transplanted to another page), it uses ascii art which would 
> require more effort to extract and move to another page.

Another approach would be a 'text scrambler' logic:

You can aclltauy srlbcame the quiotesn psneeetrd wchih only a hmuan can
uetrnnadsd pperlory. The quiotesn ovubolsiy slouhd be a vrey vrey slmipe one.

And you can hvae a quiotesn form the quiotesn itslef.

Site: What is the futorh word of tihs scnnteee?

Answer: fourth.

Site: You are intelligent, I shall allow you.

-- 
O.R.Senthil Kumaran
http://uthcode.sarovar.org
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Re: [Python-Dev] Summary of Tracker Issues

2007-05-17 Thread Georg Brandl
O.R.Senthil Kumaran schrieb:
> * Scott Dial <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2007-05-17 11:04:46]:
> 
>> However, it may also be because instead of using a graphic (which is 
>> easily transplanted to another page), it uses ascii art which would 
>> require more effort to extract and move to another page.
> 
> Another approach would be a 'text scrambler' logic:
> 
> You can aclltauy srlbcame the quiotesn psneeetrd wchih only a hmuan can
> uetrnnadsd pperlory. The quiotesn ovubolsiy slouhd be a vrey vrey slmipe one.
> 
> And you can hvae a quiotesn form the quiotesn itslef.
> 
> Site: What is the futorh word of tihs scnnteee?
> 
> Answer: fourth.
> 
> Site: You are intelligent, I shall allow you.

Please bear in mind that non-native speakers who don't have had much exposure
to the English language should be able to solve this problem too.

I doubt that is the case for the kind of challenge you propose.

Georg

-- 
Thus spake the Lord: Thou shalt indent with four spaces. No more, no less.
Four shall be the number of spaces thou shalt indent, and the number of thy
indenting shall be four. Eight shalt thou not indent, nor either indent thou
two, excepting that thou then proceed to four. Tabs are right out.

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Re: [Python-Dev] Summary of Tracker Issues

2007-05-17 Thread Tristan Seligmann
* Andrew McNamara <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2007-05-17 15:30:43 +1000]:

> technique could be used, but my suspicion is that real people are being
> paid a pittance to sit in front of a PC and spam anything that moves.

http://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome

Complete simple tasks that people do better than computers. And, get
paid for it. Learn more.

Choose from thousands of tasks, control when you work, and decide how
much you earn.
-- 
mithrandi, i Ainil en-Balandor, a faer Ambar


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Re: [Python-Dev] Summary of Tracker Issues

2007-05-17 Thread Greg Ewing
O.R.Senthil Kumaran wrote:

> Site: What is the futorh word of tihs scnnteee?
> 
> Answer: fourth.

Are you sure it isn't "futorh"?-)

--
Greg
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Re: [Python-Dev] Summary of Tracker Issues

2007-05-17 Thread O.R.Senthil Kumaran
* Greg Ewing <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2007-05-18 13:06:41]:
> 
> > Site: What is the futorh word of tihs scnnteee?
> > Answer: fourth.
> 
>  Are you sure it isn't "futorh"?-)
> 
:-) My idea was, a human got to answer it unscrambled as 'fourth' as  he
"understands" what the question is and gives the proper answer.
Agreed, there could be confusion at first.

For non-native speakers of English, this could be difficult if their
experience with English is less, but we will have to take a chance that anyone
capable of reading english should be able to figure it out.

Again these are my thoughts and I dont have a good data to prove it.
Implementation standpoint, this is one of the easiest I can think of.

Thanks,

-- 
O.R.Senthil Kumaran
http://uthcode.sarovar.org
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[Python-Dev] recursion limit in marshal

2007-05-17 Thread Neal Norwitz
I had a little argument with the marshal module on Windows last night,
I eventually won. :-)

A patch was checked in which would prevent blowing out the stack and
segfaulting with this code:

marshal.loads( 'c' + ('X' * 4*4) + '{' * 2**20)

Originally, I didn't change the recursion limit which was 5000.  (See
MAX_MARSHAL_STACK_DEPTH in Python/marshal.c)  This is a constant in C
code that cannot be changed at runtime.  The fix worked on most
platforms.  However it didn't on some (Windows and MIPS?), presumably
due a smaller stack limit.  I don't know what the stack limits are on
each architecture.

I dropped the limit to 4000, that still crashed.  I eventually settled
on 2000.  Which passed in 2.6.  I don't think there is a test case for
the recursion limit when dumping a deeply nested object.  I suppose I
should add one, because that could also blow the limit too.

The point of this message is to see if anyone thinks 2000 is
unreasonable.  It could probably be raised, but I'm not going to try
it since I don't have access to a Windows box.  Testing this remotely
sucks.

n
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Re: [Python-Dev] recursion limit in marshal

2007-05-17 Thread Martin v. Löwis
> The point of this message is to see if anyone thinks 2000 is
> unreasonable.  It could probably be raised, but I'm not going to try
> it since I don't have access to a Windows box.  Testing this remotely
> sucks.

If this turns out ever to be a limitation, I would challenge the
reporter to rewrite marshal in a non-recursive manner.

It shouldn't be that difficult: w_object should operate a queue of
objects yet to be written, and Tuple, Dict, Set (why does marshal
support writing sets, anyway?) would all just add things to the
queue rather than recursively invoking w_object.

The only challenge would be code objects, which have a w_long
interspersed with the w_object calls. I would fix this by changing
the marshal format of code objects, to move the co_firstlineno to the
beginning.

For reading, a heap-managed stack would be necessary, consisting
of a (type, value, position, next) linked list. Again, code
objects would need special casing, to allow construction with
NULL pointers at first, followed by indexed setting of the code
fields. For lists and tuples, position would define the next
index to be filled; for dictionaries, it would not be needed,
and for code objects, it would index the various elements of
the code object.

Regards,
Martin
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