As the amount of spam coming from Gmail accounts has been increasing in recent months, some have suggested that spammers have come up with a way to break past the captchas that protect Gmail with automated bots. Google, however, contends that this is simply not the case, and suggests instead that the driving force behind the increase in spam is actually low-wage workers from third-world countries being paid to get past the captchas.
Google insists that it is clearly being done by humans, and that there are easily identifiable patterns that back that up, such as the rates at which they find the spammer’s accounts during certain times in specific parts of the world. Although its not likely that bots themselves are busting the captchas, Google has said that automated software could have made the human end of the process a bit more efficient, such as the bots signing up for accounts and then emailing the captchas to actual people.
Hackers have already cracked the captchas for both Hotmail and Yahoo Mail, so is it only a matter of time before they figure out Gmail as well? For the sake of my inbox, I sure hope not.
