Fancy a chat – bot?
We have been asked if we are going to get a chat-bot. Absolutely not! We are people and presumably anyone reading this is another Homo Sapien and not a robot, so we don’t ask you to tick a box to confirm you are not a robot.
So what is CAPTCHA? Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart, designed by AltaVista (Alta who?, we hear you ask), another blast from the past.
The latest versions of reCAPTCHA are able to take a holistic look at a user’s behaviour and history of interacting with content on the Internet. Most of the time, the program can decide based on those factors whether or not the user is a bot, without providing the user with a challenge to complete. This means they check your history if you haven’t blocked non-essential cookies, security concern!!!
If you don’t know who or what Turig is/was, follow the link to the Bletchley Park website, to learn about the gay man* who history regards as the father of modern computer science. *FYI we don’t care if you are gay, straight, LBGT or anything else. You’re a person, a human, that’s all we care about, so we don’t ask and do not have a test. Being human is special enough for us.
Bots – recent exchanges for example
- Ordered a pair of special running gloves (not for us!), they got lost on delivery, twice. Get stuck with the bot, Order ref 123456F# has not arrived, the item was a pair of running gloves Bot “To assemble your bicycle, note that the left pedal is marked with a letter L and the right pedal, with an R”
Us -“It’s not a bicycle, it’s a pair of gloves”. Bot “To assemble your bicycle, note that the left pedal is marked with a letter L and the right pedal, with an R”
Repeat ad infinitum.
Try to contact the company without using the bot? No e-mail or text service. Nobody answers the phone!!! If this makes you take a sharp intake of breath and think it’s a bit rich for us to say? See our News post on how we communicate, It’s so funny, how we don’t talk any more“.
Energy company Bot “Please give you personal details for a security check” Us “We want to speak to an advisor” Bot” Thank you for providing your details” Us ” We didn’t give our details, we want to speak to an advisor”
And on it goes. Artificial Intelligence?! In 2011 (ancient history?) researchers found that 500 000 hours a day was spent by humanity completing CAPTCHAs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Any humans still with us at this point, security matters as we work out how to create secure accounts for our site users, in part which is why we ask you to confirm your e-mail address to us when registering and in our work prior to this going live, so we (humans) can vet who is trying to access the site before we set you up. We take your security and personal/business information seriously, so please update us as requested and check out both our Privacy Policy and our Cookie Policy (No dough involved) to see how we comply with GDPR.
If you’re a Bot – it’s been nice not talking to you. Who has bothered doing the research to see how many hours we Homo Sapiens have wasted on you?