Re: A Golden Opportunity!

From: Watson A.Name - \ (NOSPAM_at_dslextreme.com)
Date: 08/19/04 

Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2004 03:29:09 -0700

"Mark" <bigfathhairybiker@MAILhot(swapemround).com> wrote in message
news:4123165a$0$20257$ed9e5944@reading.news.pipex.net...
> The way to stop sniping is to always have to type in a "displayed"
number in
> order to bid. This displayed" number would be like the bitmapped
numbers on
> some security systems where a slightly squewed picture of a number is
> displayed for verification.

That doesn't stop sniping. That may stop sniping software, but humans
can still wait until the last few seconds to snipe you.

So ebay starts using your method, called "CAPTCHA" or Turing Test. Some
enterprising individual will then start a biz of sniping for those who
can't be in person at the end of an auction. Probably will call it
proxy bidding or something like that.

Rather than use your method, I would think that it would be easier to
just delay a bidder's bid for a random amount of time, say somewhere
between 20 seconds and 120 seconds. If you submit your bid on or before
the deadline minus 2 minutes, you have 100% chance of bidding. But
after that, your bid may be delayed past the ending point.

Some *** spammers from hell had software to auto sign up accounts on
Hotmail, but were blocked after Hotmail started using CAPTCHA images.
The spammers then started some porn website where the user had to type
in the number in the image to gain entry. Well, you guessed it. The
spammers were using the porn site to sign up accounts on Hotmail.

Quantcast