Re: Hey Google - Recaptcha sucks

[William Herrin via NANOG <nanog () lists nanog org>]

On Thu, Feb 5, 2026 at 12:25 PM Marco Moock via NANOG
<nanog () lists nanog org> wrote:
> I also run such a proxy and that is presenting that captcha to all
> users - I need to avoid bots using the form because then the search
> engines will block all requests.

Captchas don't generally offend me, especially from a public wifi
where there's no practical way to enforce good behavior at the source.
But Recaptcha... they've let themselves become the absolute worst.

I can't tell you the number of times I get hit with recaptcha on my
home Centurylink (Quantum) fiber line. Where I know for absolute
certain there has been no malicious traffic from the IP for at least
the months I've held that IP. And it's always the same.. click the
images with sidewalks or busses or bikes. And then you're "wrong," try
again because our database is so thoroughly corrupted that we haven't
the faintest clue what's actually in our images. Usually it's on some
rando web site though, not https://www.google.com/.

Seriously Google, if you can't do better than this you should shut the
Recaptcha service down.

Regards,
Bill Herrin
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