CAPTCHA

See also: captcha and Captcha

English

A typical representation of a CAPTCHA

Alternative forms

• captcha, Captcha

Etymology

Coined by a team of researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in 2000 as a loose acronym of “completely automated public Turing test to tell computers and humans apart”.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈkæp.t͡ʃə/

Noun

CAPTCHA (plural CAPTCHAs)

1. (computing, Internet) A computerized test requiring the human user to perform a task deemed to be difficult to automate, such as entering a displayed series of distorted characters or describing images, to demonstrate that they are a human and not a computer program.
   • 2011, Dafydd Stuttard, Marcus Pinto, The Web Application Hacker's Handbook: Finding and Exploiting Security Flaws, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN:

     CAPTCHA puzzles are intended to be easy for a human to solve but difficult for a computer. Because of the monetary value to spammers of circumventing these controls, an arms race has occurred in which typical CAPTCHA puzzles have […]

   • 2014, Laura Fitton, Anum Hussain, Brittany Leaning, Twitter For Dummies, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 24:

     A CAPTCHA is a quick check to make sure that an actual person, rather than a computer program, is using the website. Web applications use CAPTCHA […]

Derived terms

• CRAPTCHA (humorous, derogatory, vulgar)

Translations

computerized test

• Amharic: ካፕቻ (kapča)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 驗證碼／验证码 (zh) (yànzhèngmǎ)

• Dutch: captcha (nl)
• French: CAPTCHA (fr) m, Captcha m
• German: Captcha m or n, rarely CAPTCHA m or n
• Tamil: காப்ச்சா (ta) (kāpccā)
• Tigrinya: ካፕቻ (kapča)
• Turkish: CAPTCHA (tr)

See also

• Turing test

Further reading

• CAPTCHA on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from English.

Noun

CAPTCHA m (plural CAPTCHA's)

1. Alternative letter-case form of captcha