If you’re tired of constantly running captcha tests to prove you’re not a robot, you’re not alone. It appears that reCAPTCHAv2, the version you probably know as the latest version that directly tests image recognition, can be defeated with 100% success by current generation AI models. According to a research article appropriately titled “Breaking reCAPTCHAv2” submitted to arXiv on September 13, using the existing You Only Look Once (YOLO) object recognition model after training it with 14,000 labeled traffic images allowed it to defeat reCAPTCHAv2 with 100% success.
So what does this mean for Internet users and website operators today? It depends! As it turns out, Google’s reCAPTCHAv2 is actually somewhat antiquated compared to reCAPTCHAv3, which uses different metrics to determine whether a user is human or not, rather than directly testing it with image recognition challenges… unless your hosting provider decides to enable this feature. In the case of reCAPTCHAv3, there are potential false positives that should theoretically be mitigated by the ability to operate reCAPTCAv2 tests… but now that it is widely known that reCAPTCHAv2 can be defeated, things may change sooner than we expect.
In low, this study was not conducted solely to alleviate the shortcomings of reCAPTCHAv2 in the face of the incredible power of artificial intelligence. In any case, researchers have concluded that the existence of mighty, working captcha or similar systems is advisable, if not “essential” to the future of a vigorous Internet – and they are right! While the article’s introduction states that “we have officially entered an era beyond captcha,” the conclusion acknowledges “the need to proactively evolve captcha technology, ahead of rapid improvements in artificial intelligence.”
