Distorted Character Visual CAPTCHA Analysis - Thesis Proposal Example

The main of this study is to determine the major visual CAPTCHA being used and how they are created. The anti-segmentation and anti-recognition techniques that are currently being used make CAPTCHA very hard for automated computer attacks and bots to segment the CAPTCHA'S. This is intended to eventually help in the creation of reliable CAPTCHA'S.

There is increased insecurity by many web users in maintaining their privacy due to many hackers being able to acquire users' information details. This study is to impact and increase users' confidence in the use of CAPTCHA as a security tool and to help visual CAPTCHA designers to formulate the best algorithms that will be used in the creation of reliable anti-recognition and anti-segmentation techniques. This will eventually make user information and use of CAPTCHA very secure against automated computer bots.

We will perform a deep analysis of the different anti-segmentation techniques that are used to prevent the separation of CAPTCHA'S characters to make a sense of them like collapsing, distortion and noise. We will also study some anti-recognition techniques like collapsing, distortion, waving, and using multiple fonts and sizes. We will be conducting comparative research based on existing research in this area and concerns over information security. We will collect data and statistics and represent the finding in form of tables and charts.

The data in this study will be mostly acquired from previous research done on the security of CAPTCHA'S. This will be gotten from the internet and the websites that use them. Samples of CAPTCHA'S to be used be collected manually from websites since most CAPTCHA'S generation software are not publicly available for general use. This will include the use of statistical data from famous websites like Google, Microsoft's Yahoo, Twitter Facebook, and other modern websites.

Data for this study will be mostly gotten from reliable internet sources and data found in the various previously done studies on captchas like reCAPTCHA which has gained a lot of approval for its high levels of maintaining security.

The key terms that will be used in this study will be:
- CAPTCHA – This is a completely automated public Turing Test to tell computers and humans apart that has the aim of making it difficult for computers to solve but easy for humans to solve. CAPTCHA'S.
- Anti-segmentation – this is a technique used to prevent the separation of characters through distortion, noise, lines, collapsing, and the creation of a complex background.
- Anti-recognition – this is the process of altering single character features in CAPTCHA'S like their font size, and the type and is done through burring, collapsing, using multiple fonts, different font sizes, distortion, and the rotation of each character.
- Verification word – this is a known word being used as the actual CAPTCHA test.
- Read word – this is a new word that comes from a book that should be digitized and is difficult for a computer to recognize it.

We predict that the results will be helpful to get an exact idea of what needs to be done to increase the security of CAPTCHA and its reliability. The modern CAPTCHA famously known as reCAPTCHA contains and will continuously increase its features of simple implementation, acceptance by people, high practicality, and reliable security. These characteristics and the acquired results will give CAPTCHA designers the basis for creating future CAPTCHA that will reliably distinguish computers from humans.