One of the most frequent questions on the Internet is "Are you a robot?" followed by a text field where you type a word or two to prove that you are in fact human. These reCAPTCHA security checkpoints are used on many sites to prevent automated spam bots from accessing and damaging sensitive data. Today, Google announced a quicker and more secure form of reCAPTCHA called "No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA."
No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA can easily determine if a user is human, and it only requires a simple check mark instead of the need to type words or a series of letters. If the API can't determine if the user is human, the old text CAPTCHA is created along with the check mark to verify the user.
The new CAPTCHA will also work on mobile devices. Instead of typing words as an additional security measure, images will appear. For example, the user has to match corresponding images to the original image for verification.
The creation of a new CAPTCHA system is a result of Google's test to see if machines were able to read the distorted text. The terrifying conclusion was that today's advanced artificial intelligence was able to solve the challenge with an accuracy of 99.8 percent.
As a result, Google used an Advanced Risk Analysis program which gathered data on a user's actions before, during and after using a reCAPTCHA in order to differentiate between human and automated users. This eventually evolved into No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA.
So far, only a few websites have adopted the new system, but these include Snapchat, Wordpress, and Humble Bundle, and the results seem to show that No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA is working. According to the announcement blog post, over 80 percent of Humble Bundle's traffic and 60 percent of Wordpress' traffic encountered No CAPTCHA security.
Even with a new CAPTCHA API, the old version isn't going anywhere. Sites that are a bit skeptical of the new API don't have to upgrade and can choose to stick with the current version.