This is all 100% correct. People have already written captcha-bypassing bots for lemmy, we know from experience.
The only way to stop bots, is the way that has worked for forums for years: registration applications. At lemmy.ml we historically have blocked any server that doesn’t have them turned on, because of the likelihood of bot infiltration from them.
Registration applications have 100% stopped bots here.
I’m an admin for a small FB group, because of spam issues, we added an application process: literally just the question "are you human?" and it stopped 100% of spam. Of course that won’t always work, but it can be very easily finetuned.
Though I wonder how well it works once you let GPT4 answer. This needs some work, like a list of big communities in the prompt, I went with my first prompt idea ;)
I'd like to join Lemmy.ml to engage with like-minded individuals, share ideas, and learn from others. I'm particularly interested in participating in communities centered around tech, science-fiction, and movies. I chose the username AltmanLover as I am a big fan of Robert Altman, a renowned film director, and I enjoy discussing his work and legacy.
“are you human?"
Heh, stupid AI can't even be more smarter than me
Btw, what's the deal with your instance? I noticed you're from one of the original servers from 4 years ago. Do you know why it was founded or can you direct me to some information?
I'm from the reddit migration, although a bit more experienced than most (having been here over 2 weeks makes me a unicorn on my server).
I'd like to spread some more knowledge among my fellow newbies about the history of the platform and what kind of different servers are out there. Problem is, I don't have any knowledge! Help!
Uh, I also only joined with the reddit migration :D I joined 15 days ago. just like ypu.
I looked at join-lemmy, did not want any of the huge instances, thought one in Europe would still be a good idea. Tchncs sounded interesting and more English than Feddit (I’m German but prefer English :D). They host a lot of federated things, including my favorite federated network XMPP/Jabber and have been for years, so that seemed like a great pick :)
Ah, I see. So tchncs.de hosts other federated platforms, and someone probably decided to set up a Lemmy site when it was originally created 4 years ago. But it was likely pretty empty until the past couple weeks.
Ok good to know, I don't really know about XMPP/Jabber but I like what I see on wikipedia. Thanks!
I think until recently it also was in "unstable/testing" and not intended for serious use.
XMPP is amazing, open federated chat protocol for over 20 years. There was a time when I could chat with people on Google Hangouts or Facebook Messenger from my XMPP client (before they disabled federation). I host my own server, but have so far not gotten around to hosting bridges. That actually became less interesting when my client (Gajim) on desktop decided to follow the shitty (for me) UI of Discord, Signal, Matrix, et al., XMPP clients don’t have the breadth they used to have, so there’s not much choice left :(
Wait what's the difference between the suggested auto block and you historically blocking instances without applications? Is there other criteria you use to determine the block?
Not saying I know the answer, just curious.
You're right that captchas can be bypassed, but I disagree that they're useless.
Do you lock your house? Are you aware that most locks can be picked and windows can be smashed?
captchas can be defeated, but that doesn't mean they're useless - they increase the level of friction required to automate malicious activity. Maybe not a lot, but along with other measures, it may make it tricky enough to circumvent that it discourages a good percentage of bot spammers. It's the "Swiss cheese" model of security.
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