{"id":59077,"date":"2014-01-23T21:24:52","date_gmt":"2014-01-23T19:24:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/onsoftware.en.softonic.com\/?p=59077"},"modified":"2025-07-02T00:55:43","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T07:55:43","slug":"snapchat-captcha-system-defeated-in-30-minutes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/snapchat-captcha-system-defeated-in-30-minutes\/","title":{"rendered":"Snapchat captcha system defeated in 30 minutes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Snapchat&#8217;s <a title=\"Snapchat introduces &quot;ghost&quot; captcha to thwart hackers\" href=\"http:\/\/news.en.softonic.com\/snapchat-introduces-ghost-captcha-to-thwart-hackers\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">anti-bot captcha system<\/a> has been defeated in less than a day. <a title=\"Steve Hickson Google+ profile\" href=\"https:\/\/plus.google.com\/111353927380064338623\/about\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Steven Hickson<\/a> managed to program a piece of software that is able to detect features of Snapchat&#8217;s ghost mascot, which allows the software to choose with good accuracy the captcha images with the logo.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;This is an incredibly bad way to verify someone is a person because it is such an easy problem for a computer to solve.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It took Hickson all of 30 minutes to create the program but admits it&#8217;s far from perfect. &#8220;I&#8217;m not saying it is perfect, far from it. I&#8217;m just saying that if it takes someone less than an hour to train a computer to break an example of your human verification system, you are doing something wrong,&#8221; writes Hickson in a blog post.<\/p>\n<p>Snapchat has been under fire since the company allowed <a title=\"Snapchat hack exposes 4.6 million usernames and phone numbers\" href=\"http:\/\/news.en.softonic.com\/snapchat-hack-exposes-4-6-million-usernames-and-phone-numbers\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">4.6 million<\/a> user names and phone numbers to be stolen using the company&#8217;s own developer tools. The company quickly issued an apology and fixed the security hole but security researchers are still scrutinizing Snapchat&#8217;s security efforts. And with a new security tool being cracked in 30 minutes, the scrutiny may be well deserved.<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a title=\"Steves Computer Vision Blog\" href=\"http:\/\/stevenhickson.blogspot.com\/2014\/01\/hacking-snapchats-people-verification.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Steves Computer Vision Blog<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Via: <a title=\"Engadget\" href=\"http:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2014\/01\/23\/snapchat-anti-bot-verification-already-broken\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Engadget<\/a><\/p>\n<h4>RELATED STORIES<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/news.en.softonic.com\/snapchat-introduces-ghost-captcha-to-thwart-hackers\">Snapchat introduces &#8220;ghost&#8221; captcha to thwart hackers<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/news.en.softonic.com\/snapped-app-unofficially-brings-snapchat-to-mac\">Snapped app unofficially brings Snapchat to Mac<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/news.en.softonic.com\/snapchat-update-gives-option-to-opt-out-of-find-friends\">Snapchat update gives option to opt-out of Find Friends<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Snapchat&#8217;s anti-bot captcha system has been defeated in less than a day. Steven Hickson managed to program a piece of software that is able to detect features of Snapchat&#8217;s ghost mascot, which allows the software to choose with good accuracy the captcha images with the logo. &#8220;This is an incredibly bad way to verify someone &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/snapchat-captcha-system-defeated-in-30-minutes\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Snapchat captcha system defeated in 30 minutes&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2033,"featured_media":59082,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wpcf-pageviews":0},"categories":[],"tags":[2357],"usertag":[],"vertical":[],"content-category":[],"class_list":["post-59077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-app-subdomain-redirectionsnapchat"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2033"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59077"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":331486,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59077\/revisions\/331486"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59077"},{"taxonomy":"usertag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/usertag?post=59077"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=59077"},{"taxonomy":"content-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content-category?post=59077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}