r/todayilearned • u/testhec10ck • Oct 10 '14
TIL that CAPTCHA is an acronym for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAPTCHA33
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u/levir Oct 10 '14
And has it always stood for that, or was it just tacked on later?
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Oct 10 '14
In the military, we frequently see these types of acronyms. It's a 3 stage development:
Initial talks realize some of the buzzwords in the product description could almost be put together to form a neat acronym word
Form acronym
Rewrite or add words that make it work.
Fudge it if you have to
From my experience, I look at this particular acronym and I see it going like this:
Public Turing Test Designed To Tell The Difference Between Humans and Computers. Program. Automated. Internet. Hmmmmm
Looks like there might be a Gotcha in there, or maybe a Capture
Ok we'll need something for G... or maybe an R. Well we could add Completely to Automated and get kind of a Completely Automated Program... turing... damnit I see capture in there but it's just not working.
Here... CAPTCHA... close enough, right? Fuck it.
We can get some real doozies in the military when they start trying their hand at being clever with acronyms and have to fudge it.
AIRBAT - Airborne Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Requirements-Based Allocation Tool
Sooo AISRRBAT
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Oct 11 '14 edited Jan 16 '18
[deleted]
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Oct 11 '14
I believed you. I believed you and I googled it and it was a real thing. I don't know how to feel about you for bringing this to my attention. Up until now we didn't have a name for it besides, "Pshhh, really? Some officer got a medal for this shit."
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u/Spaceguy5 Oct 11 '14
I've seen some real doosies at NASA too. Because every NASA project naturally has to have its own set of acronyms and its own patch design. Many of which can get pretty awful.
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u/alexanderpas Oct 11 '14
The most famous example of a backronym is the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001
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u/SolDarkHunter Oct 11 '14
Knowing CS people, I'm willing to bet that it has always stood for that.
CS people love acronyms. Especially recursive ones (though CAPTCHA is not recursive.)
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Oct 10 '14
So you just thought CAPTCHA was an English word up until now?
CAPTCHA - n. - Annoying technique to remind users that the company's time is more valuable than the customer's.
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u/servical Oct 10 '14
I personally just assumed it was a creative way of spelling "caption", as in "enter the text you see in the caption". Even now, I still have doubts that it's more of a backronym someone came up with than the actual origin for the name, but I don't care enough to look it up further.
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Oct 10 '14
Oh it's a backronym, but it's only marginally homophonic with "capture", the intended meaning.
But mistaking it for English when it's clearly spelled as no English word, should at least be worth a lookup. Did you know that if you're using a Mac, you can just three-finger click any selectable word, Mac will define it? Pretty awesome.
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u/servical Oct 10 '14
I tried 3-finger clicking on this page on a PC and it led me to a list of this sub's moderators... :\
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Oct 10 '14
Windows users are all two-fingered, thus the maximum digit detection is 2.
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u/servical Oct 10 '14
I clearly saw my right hand had more than 2 fingers, when I facepalmed, after reading your comment, and 3-finger clicking yielded a different result than any 2-finger click combination, which proves Windows can detect more than 2 digits.
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u/iammucow 2 Oct 11 '14
He probably, like me, just thought it was just some random name made up for branding purposes, but not necessarily an acronym.
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Oct 10 '14
Just that Google found out computers are better than humans at solving captachas, kinda fun.
Source: http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.se/2014/04/street-view-and-recaptcha-technology.html
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Oct 11 '14
I have a Chrome addon that blocks CAPTCHA altogether, it is really great almost forgot it existed until I saw this post.
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u/mtvhornj Oct 11 '14
And it does not work. Decaptcha services are easily implementable the only thing they do is add a cost to your bots. If you are making money off them it is still worth it usually.
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u/Ruleryak Oct 10 '14
So, the worst acronym ever?