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submitted 3 days ago by who@feddit.org to c/privacy@programming.dev
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[-] massacre@lemmy.world 27 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)
  1. There's no way this can be abused. Ever.

  2. There's no way a bot (AI or human built) could be used to simulate a human.

This is a perfect solution!

[-] DarkCloud@lemmy.world 21 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

This has always been the way captchas work, I guess they're expanding it to be always-on.

[-] GreenCrunch@piefed.blahaj.zone 17 points 3 days ago

my understanding is Google's recaptcha has been doing this sort of thing forever, tracking mouse movements (as well as browser fingerprinting, IP address, and probably a million other tracking methods) to score a client as more or less likely to be human, and it's only when it's suspicious that it escalates to "pick the images that contain x"

I always thought the pick the images was just an excuse to get training data because it’s never “choose images that contain a bear frolicking in a meadow” it’s always “choose images of motorcycles, busses” or “locate the Abram’s tank hidden in the tree line”.

[-] Redkey@programming.dev 16 points 2 days ago

This made me laugh out loud.

"Click or tap on all pictures of ARMED INSURGENTS TAKING COVER IN RUINED BUILDINGS until no more are left."

[-] SavinDWhales@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

"follow the man with your mouse cursor until the light flashes" will be the next step in crowd sourcing for the army...

[-] Beacon@fedia.io 4 points 3 days ago

Por que no los dos?

[-] NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

They do that as well, but its so annoying they probably just hold it back unless extra verification is needed.

[-] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 16 points 3 days ago

...and probably can tell what you're typing.

[-] Deebster@infosec.pub 16 points 3 days ago

It does not capture the actual keys being pressed, according to the company. It studies the timing and rhythm instead.

That is addressed in the article. Because it's JavaScript, we can verify this, and I'm sure that people will be scrutinising every revision of the code to check.

[-] treadful@lemmy.zip 20 points 3 days ago

Because it’s JavaScript, we can verify this, and I’m sure that people will be scrutinising every revision of the code to check.

Have you ever seen obfuscated JS? I'm not saying it's impossible, but de-transpiling it into something for a human then analyzing it is not trivial work.

Don't bet on something not being terrible just because someone with the skill could maybe spend a lot of time doing the work.

[-] canihasaccount@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago

Deobfuscators are fairly good IME. I haven't checked this code in particular, but I've never seen obfuscated JavaScript that was uninterpretable following deobfuscation

[-] treadful@lemmy.zip 1 points 3 days ago

Congrats on being awesome at code analysis. Have at it for everyone, then.

[-] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 10 points 3 days ago

But you can tell what a person is typing by their timing and rhythm. I don't have time right now, but there are articles on that.

[-] Deebster@infosec.pub 10 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

True, people should search for "keystroke timing attacks". It's more effective if you include things like accelerometer data and audio.

We can see what Cloudflare's code is measuring and reporting to find out if those attacks would be possible.

[-] IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago

Akamai has been doing this for years now. Cloudflare is just playing catch-up. I first saw an Akamai demonstration of this at one of their developer conferences about 10 years ago.

[-] VitoRobles@lemmy.today 3 points 2 days ago

Yeah I thought that was common knowledge?

[-] Maerman@lemmy.world 8 points 3 days ago

Well, that's terrifying.

[-] Deebster@infosec.pub 8 points 3 days ago

Cloudflare's blog post about it has more information about how it works.

[-] who@feddit.org 6 points 3 days ago

Indeed. It's linked in the third sentence of the article.

[-] Maeve@kbin.earth 8 points 3 days ago

That may sound preferable to clicking every square containing a traffic light, but it also means Cloudflare is gathering a much broader picture of how visitors behave on a website.

Traditional bot protection tends to focus on specific moments. A visitor may face a challenge while logging in, creating an account, or completing a purchase. Once that challenge is passed, the rest of the browsing session may receive less attention.

Edit: a lot of popular Lemmy instances use cloudflare instead of annubis. I'm not sure what this specific instance uses.

[-] YoSoySnekBoi@kbin.earth 6 points 3 days ago

The product in this article (Precursor) is not the same as what Lemmy instances use (Turnstile). Turnstile uses the same cryptographic proof-of-work puzzle as Anubis and does not track any of these other metrics. If you see a CAPTCHA-style "Verified" message with Cloudflare's logo, you're seeing Turnstile, not Precursor.

[-] Maeve@kbin.earth 6 points 3 days ago

It's an enterprise product, for now. I suppose that depends on how deep pockets are.

[-] damnthefilibuster@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago

Great! Can it work over VPN?

[-] AntiBullyRanger@ani.social -4 points 3 days ago
this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2026
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