A virtual stripper is helping to defeat anti-spam security checks. Spammers have created a Windows game which shows a woman in a state of undress when people correctly type in text shown in an accompanying image. The scrambled text images come from sites which use them to stop computers automatically signing up for accounts that can be put to illegal use. By getting people to type in the text the spammers can take over the accounts and use them to send junk mail. The scrambled text systems used to defeat automatic sign-ups are known as Captchas or "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart". Many computer criminals have been trying to crack these systems to get at the net-based resources, such as e-mail accounts or blogging tools, they are designed to protect. Yahoo spokesperson said: "Yahoo began deploying Captcha more than six years ago to help combat the ability for malicious programs to send spam. "Because of the effectiveness of this technology, we have begun to see scammers adapt their tactics, where human beings solve the puzzles the viruses cannot."http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7067962.stm
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=6800
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