CAPTCHA THE ESP GAME AND OTHER STUFF LUIS

CAPTCHA, THE ESP GAME, AND OTHER STUFF LUIS VON AHN CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY

CAPTCHA A PROGRAM THAT CAN TELL WHETHER ITS USER IS A HUMAN OR A COMPUTER

CAPTCHA A PROGRAM THAT CAN GENERATE AND GRADE TESTS THAT: A. MOST HUMANS CAN PASS B. CURRENT COMPUTER PROGRAMS CANNOT PASS

EXAMPLE PICKS RANDOM STRING OF LETTERS oamg RENDERS IT INTO A DISTORTED IMAGE

…AND GENERATES A TEST: TYPE THE CHARACTERS THAT APPEAR IN THE IMAGE

P STANDS FOR PUBLIC ALL CODE AND DATA USED BY A CAPTCHA SHOULD BE PUBLICLY AVAILABLE

COMPLETELY AUTOMATED PUBLIC TURING TEST TO TELL COMPUTERS AND HUMANS APART

UTILIZING THE POWER OF HUMAN CYCLES CAPTCHA APPLICATIONS EXAMPLES DIRTY HACKS THE ESP GAME OTHER STUFF

APPLICATIONS OF CAPTCHAS

QUICKVOTE Which is the best Computer Science Grad School in the US? Berkeley MIT CMU Princeton Cornell Stanford vote (FROM WWW. SLASHDOT. ORG)

APPLICATIONS FREE E-MAIL SERVICES DATA COLLECTION WORMS AND SPAM PREVENTING DICTIONARY ATTACKS (PINKAS AND SANDER ‘ 02)

APPLICATIONS FREE E-MAIL SERVICES DATA COLLECTION WORMS AND SPAM PREVENTING DICTIONARY ATTACKS (PINKAS AND SANDER ‘ 02)

APPLICATIONS FREE E-MAIL SERVICES DATA COLLECTION WORMS AND SPAM PREVENTING DICTIONARY ATTACKS (PINKAS AND SANDER ‘ 02)

APPLICATIONS FREE E-MAIL SERVICES DATA COLLECTION WORMS AND SPAM PREVENTING DICTIONARY ATTACKS (PINKAS AND SANDER ‘ 02)

EXAMPLES OF CAPTCHAS

PIX WHAT ARE THESE PICTURES OF?

PIX WHAT ARE THESE PICTURES OF? THE IMAGES NEED TO BE RANDOMLY DISTORTED

PIX WHAT ARE THESE PICTURES OF? THE IMAGES NEED TO BE RANDOMLY DISTORTED

PIX WHAT ARE THESE PICTURES OF? THE IMAGES NEED TO BE RANDOMLY DISTORTED

WHAT ARE THESE PICTURES OF?

BONGO VISUAL ANALOGY PROBLEMS (BONGARD 1951)

SOUND-BASED CAPTCHA HUMANS ARE BETTER THAN COMPUTERS AT UNDERSTANDING SPOKEN LANGUAGE

OPEN PROBLEM CREATE A CAPTCHA BASED ON LANGUAGE UNDERSTANDING

DIRTY HACKS

CAPTCHA SWEAT SHOPS SPAM COMPANIES HIRE HUMANS TO SOLVE CAPTCHAS ALL DAY LONG $2. 50 PER HOUR FOR EACH HUMAN 720 CAPTCHAS PER HOUR PER HUMAN 1/3 CENT PER ACCOUNT

Free Nude Photos > NEXT

Free Nude Photos Type the word in the box if you want to see the next picture

UTILIZING THE POWER OF HUMAN CYCLES CAPTCHA APPLICATIONS EXAMPLES DIRTY HACKS THE ESP GAME OTHER STUFF

LABELING IMAGES WITH WORDS MARTHA STEWART FLOWERS SUPER EVIL STILL AN OPEN PROBLEM

IMAGE SEARCH ON THE WEB USES FILENAMES AND HTML TEXT

ACCESSIBILITY LESS THAN 10% OF THE WEB IS ACCESSIBLE TO THE VISUALLY IMPAIRED REASON: MOST IMAGES DON’T HAVE PROPER CAPTIONS

DESIDERATA A METHOD THAT CAN LABEL ALL IMAGES ON THE WEB FAST AND CHEAP

USING HUMANS CLEVERLY THE ESP GAME COULD LABEL ALL IMAGES ON THE WEB IN 30 DAYS!

THE ESP GAME TWO-PLAYER ONLINE GAME PARTNERS DON’T KNOW EACH OTHER AND CAN’T COMMUNICATE OBJECT OF THE GAME: TYPE THE SAME WORD THE ONLY THING IN COMMON IS AN IMAGE

THE ESP GAME PLAYER 1 PLAYER 2 GUESSING: CAR GUESSING: BOY GUESSING: HAT GUESSING: CAR GUESSING: KID SUCCESS! YOU AGREE ON CAR

© 2004 Carnegie Mellon University, all rights reserved. Patent Pending.

THE ESP GAME IS FUN 4. 1 MILLION LABELS WITH 23, 000 PLAYERS THERE ARE MANY PEOPLE THAT PLAY OVER 20 HOURS A WEEK

LABELING THE ENTIRE WEB 5000 PEOPLE PLAYING SIMULTANEOUSLY CAN LABEL ALL IMAGES ON GOOGLE IN 30 DAYS! INDIVIDUAL GAMES IN YAHOO! AND MSN AVERAGE OVER 5, 000 PLAYERS AT A TIME

A FEW MILLION LABELS CAN IMPROVE IMAGE SEARCH CAN BE USED TO IMPROVE COMPUTER VISION

SINGLE PLAYER GAME A SINGLE PERSON CAN PLAY WITH PRERECORDED ACTIONS AS THEIR PARTNER (0: 12) CAR (0: 15) HAT (0: 21) KID (0: 08) BOY (0: 23) CAR WHEN 2 PEOPLE PLAY, WE RECORD EVERY ACTION WITH TIMING INFORMATION WE EMULATE PARTNER BY PLAYING PRERECORDED MOVES NOTICE THAT THIS DOESN’T STOP THE LABELING PROCESS!

WHAT ABOUT CHEATING? IF A PAIR PLAYS TOO FAST, WE DON’T RECORD THE WORDS THEY AGREE ON

WHAT ABOUT CHEATING? WE GIVE PLAYERS TEST IMAGES FOR WHICH WE KNOW ALL THE COMMON LABELS: WE ONLY STORE A PLAYER’S GUESSES IF THEY SUCCESSFULLY LABEL THE TEST IMAGES

SEARCH RESULTS

SAMPLE LABELS BEACH CHAIRS SEA PEOPLE MAN WOMAN PLANT OCEAN TALKING WATER PORCH

SAMPLE LABELS SADDAM MR. WILSON MAN FACE COMING SOON: MEET YOUR SOULMOUSTACHE MATE THROUGH THE GAME! BUSH PRESIDENT DUMB YUCK

WHY DO PEOPLE LIKE THE ESP GAME?

ESP GAME GIVES ITS PLAYERS A “ THE WEIRD AND BEAUTIFUL SENSE OF ANONYMOUS INTIMACY. ON THE ONE HAND, YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHO YOUR PARTNER IS. ON THE OTHER HAND, THE TWO OF YOU ARE BRINGING YOUR MINDS TOGETHER IN A WAY THAT LOVERS WOULD ENVY. ”

“ ” SO MUCH FUN TRYNG TO GUESS “ IT’S WHAT OTHERS THINK. YOU HAVE TO STRANGELY ADDICTIVE STEP OUTSIDE OF YOURSELF TO MATCH ” “ IT’S FAST-PACED ” “ HELPS ME LEARN ENGLISH ”

BLOGS OTHER CROWNING ACHEIVEMENTS, “ INI HAVEN'T PLAYED IN AT LEAST A WEEK (PROBABLY LONGER), AND I AM STILL ON THE TOP TEN LIST OF PLAYERS ON THE ESP GAME. NUMBER EIGHT IF I REMEMBER CORRECTLY. GOD, MY LIFE IS SAD. ”

“ THERE ARE MANY FASCINATING THINGS ABOUT THE ESP GAME: HOW IT USES A GAME STRUCTURE TO BUILD AN INDEX OF IMAGES ON THE WEB WHAT WORDS BECOME TABOO FROM FREQUENT USE HOW INTERESTING SOME OF THE IMAGES PULLED RANDOMLY FROM THE WEB ARE BUT BY FAR THE MOST INTRIGUING ASPECT OF THE GAME IS HOW OFTEN YOUR RANDOM, UNKNOWN PARTNER IS A COMPLETE IDIOT. ”

OTHER GAMES

LOCATING OBJECTS IN IMAGES THE ESP GAME TELLS US IF AN IMAGE CONTAINS A SPECIFIC OBJECT, BUT DOESN’T SAY WHERE IN THE IMAGE THE OBJECT IS SUCH INFORMATION WOULD BE EXTREMELY USEFUL FOR COMPUTER VISION RESEARCH

PAINTBALL GAME PLAYERS SHOOT AT OBJECTS ON THE IMAGE SHOOT THE: CAR WE GIVE POINTS AND CHECK ACCURACY BY GIVING PLAYERS IMAGES FOR WHICH WE ALREADY KNOW WHERE THE OBJECT IS

PAINTBALL GAME X% OF IMAGES (100 -X)% OF IMAGES DON’T KNOW

BALL

REVEALING IMAGES GUESSER REVEALER CAR BRUSH CAR GUESS BRUSH CAR PARTNER’S GUESS

MEDIUM-TERM GOAL USE THE ESP GAME, ALONG WITH THE PAINTBALL GAME AND THE REVEALING GAME TO CREATE THE MOST ACCURATE COMPUTER VISION ALGORITHMS TO RECOGNIZE A WIDE VARIETY OF OBJECT CATEGORIES

X OR NOT $$$ CAN BE USED TO CLASSIFY ALL IMAGES ON THE WEB AS HAVING PROPERTY X OR NOT WE GIVE PEOPLE 40% OF IMAGES WITH PROPERTY X 40% OF IMAGES WITHOUT PROPERTY X 20% OF UNKNOWN IMAGES IF PEOPLE LIKE IMAGES WITH PROPERTY X, WE CAN OFFER AN INCENTIVE: THE MORE ACCURATE A PLAYER IS, THE MORE IMAGES WITH PROPERTY X THEY GET

THE POWER OF HUMAN CYCLES CAPTCHA OPEN PROBLEM GAME

OUR WORK ON CAPTCHA HAS APPEARED IN OVER 100 NEWSPAPERS AROUND THE WORLD

THE ESP GAME HAS APPEARED IN OVER 50 NEWSPAPERS AROUND THE WORLD

Name That Image Computers excel at sifting information, but they have trouble distinguishing a picture of a tree from one of a turtle. So researchers at Carnegie Mellon University knew they needed human volunteers to successfully label millions of unmarked images on the Web. Luis von Ahn, a graduate student in computer science, had the inspired idea of turning the laborious process into a two-player contest called the ESP Game (espgame. org). Each time you play, you are randomly paired with another anonymous player. You can't communicate with your partner, although you both see the same image. The goal is to guess the descriptive word your partner is typing for the image. Once you both type the same word, you see a new image. Since October the game has attracted 15, 000 registered players, and they have created more than 1. 5 million labels (a label is a single descriptive word; most photos require multiple labels). The site draws from a database of 200, 000 Web images; another 200, 000 are to be added soon. Mr. von Ahn said that properly labeling Web images would allow for more efficient image searching, improve the screen readers used by the visually impaired and help users block inappropriate images.

WWW. CAPTCHA. NET

WWW. ESPGAME. ORG

SLIDE DESIGN WARDROBE PROVIDED MORE SPECIAL THANKS TOBY LUIS VON AHN THE GAP ADITYA UDI MANBER AKELLA JOSH MONI BENALOH NAOR CAPTCHA CREW HAIRSTYLES LENORE RAMM BLUM LUISROSENBERG VONBLUM AHN ARNAUDCHUCK SOME-FRENCH-LAST-NAME MANUEL BLUM RONI ANDREW ROSENFELD BORTZ NICHOLAS HOPPER THIS WORKCHAWLA HAS BEEN SHUCHI DAVID STORK JOHN LANGFORD ANDLATANYA WILL BE PARTIALLY LAURA DABBISH SWEENEY SUPPORTED SHINGO BILL UCHIHASHI GATESBY THE ESP GAME CREW MANUEL BLUM BRIGHTEN MANUELA GODFREY VELOSO VON AHN THE LUIS ALADDIN CENTER NICK HOPPER LAURA DABBISH MICROSOFT RESEARCH SCOTT HUDSON MY MOM TAKEO KANADE SPEAKER’S ENTERTAINMENT YOUR TAX DOLLARS STEVEN KATZ PROVIDED BY JOHN LANGFORD HOMESTARRUNNER. COM JITENDRA MALIK