75
It'd be so easy to set up a fake reCAPTCHA popup that downloads malware when you scan it.
This is not something that can be avoided by not using google. Many websites use the google recaptcha program at account registration to prevent bots from registering. Some ddos protection systems use this captcha system.
You may have seen the "click to verify that you are human" type button on websites. A simple version exists where you only click the button and that's it Some people think it works by some mouse tracking magic. My theory is that it uses cookies to verify you are logged in with your google account.
If you do not have a google account, you always get a complicated captcha which says like "click on all of the crosswalks", buses, bicycles, etc.
Yesterday I was visiting some website and an antibot protection gave me the scan-qr-code captcha. I refreshed the page a couple times and then it gave me one of the click-on-bicycles captchas instead.
correcting my post to not say cloudflare. it seems that cloudflare has their own captcha service.
Yeah this is the end of the private web if fully implemented unless it prompts a mass move to cloudflare by websites and they decline to do the same. Many sites would never change though, they have a solution, it works, doesn't work for you or too privacy invasive? Lol they don't care.
VPN? Doesn't matter, Google will see your real IP and all your info when you scan using your phone that they have full info on.
Private browsing extensions? Don't matter, you scanned using your phone, they know exactly who you are now.
Trying to spoof your location for some reason? Lol busted we see your phone.
I am seething most of all at all the "lol we'll just use tor and VPNs, ID laws cannot be enforced, me a tough and smart pirate" types. Funny thing on the piracy front too... 97% of piracy sites including private trackers are behind some sort of captcha, most use cloudflare not Google thankfully but you have to wonder how long until they implement something similar. And the reason why is some actors including rivals and maybe media company bandits were DDOSing the crap out of all of them a few years back, to stay online they had to get behind a solution like that.
Things like this and ID requirements which tech isn't fighting because AI made it impossible to sell ads because they can't pick out real humans have basically doomed the open anonymous web. It's going to be dead by 2030 at this rate. So really AI ruined the internet in multiple ways, first the slop and bots diluting real content then the crackdown and total removal of privacy/anonymity to fight to slop bots and of course paying to search or being coerced to use AI to sift through the slop. Really the ultimate capitalist move.
maybe media company bandits
I believe the US government was doing some of this as part of protecting their national interests and trying to provoke site owners into finding solutions that would lead to de-anonymisation errors.
torrents, if someone lights fire under their asses, can transfer to internal advertisement by peers of available links (as verified by consistency of hashes among peers or whatever harebrained scheme), sites are not long for this world, almost definitely, in more paranoid fantasy they can switch to non-ip based external device, like meshtastics. what i'm saying that vpn helps obfuscate your traffic as p2p as legit download for isp, no more no less, the rest of infra will have to be moved tho.
If you do not have a google account, you always get a complicated captcha which says like "click on all of the crosswalks", buses, bicycles, etc.
Not true, I have never had a google account and clear all cookies on browser close but nowadays I get the checkboxes more often than not.
Then they think they know who you are. Is it accurate, who knows?
What happens if you click on the headphones for the audio accessibility verification? I only ever do the words-typing accessibility thing, I never do click pictureing.
I don't even know how to scan a qr code and my phone sucks and is slow, this is a slap in the face to poor people.
we are the phone effectively. That's all the tracking and all their fucking revenue.
a legitimate movement to get off these devices needs to happen
Oh, for fuck's sake.
They are not expecting that someone on mobile uses a second phone to scan it right, can you "scan" it by taping the code? Or they will just disable it on mobile? If it will be disabled on mobile, the bots couldn't just change the user-agent?
Wow you just share a screenshot with all your information like that?
Now I know your name is John Smith, your email is john.smith@example.com, and you live in Springfield Illinois.
742 Evergreen Terrace
We're living in a Verhoeven's movie.
anubis, my beloved spread your word
while confidently welcoming legitimate users, including AI shopping assistants that drive a projected 25% increase in average order value
lol
nope, not doing that
A Reddit link was detected in your post. Here are links to the same location on alternative frontends that protect your privacy.
What the fuck. Not only is this utter shit, every time I open my phone's camera it's a 60/40 gamble if it is gonna crash or not, fuck this.
this post was submitted on 07 May 2026
75 points (100.0% liked)
technology
24369 readers
177 users here now
On the road to fully automated luxury gay space communism.
Spreading Linux propaganda since 2020
- Ways to run Microsoft/Adobe and more on Linux
- The Ultimate FOSS Guide For Android
- Great libre software on Windows
- Hey you, the lib still using Chrome. Read this post!
Rules:
- 1. Obviously abide by the sitewide code of conduct. Bigotry will be met with an immediate ban
- 2. This community is about technology. Offtopic is permitted as long as it is kept in the comment sections
- 3. Although this is not /c/libre, FOSS related posting is tolerated, and even welcome in the case of effort posts
- 4. We believe technology should be liberating. As such, avoid promoting proprietary and/or bourgeois technology
- 5. Explanatory posts to correct the potential mistakes a comrade made in a post of their own are allowed, as long as they remain respectful
- 6. No crypto (Bitcoin, NFT, etc.) speculation, unless it is purely informative and not too cringe
- 7. Absolutely no tech bro shit. If you have a good opinion of Silicon Valley billionaires please manifest yourself so we can ban you.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS