UPPEGARK THEORY

I'm sure most everyone has seen it. If you've ever tried to buy tickets to a concert or sporting event online you'll get the infamous "type the words you see in the box". This is used to make sure that an actual person is buying the tickets and not some computer program a scalper uses to buy up the tickets before the general public can get to them, and then sell those same tickets you were trying to get at several times face value.

It's called a CAPTCHA, meaning Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart. OK, great, I understand the need for it, and the examples shown so far are the easier ones to read. What I don't get is when they make it so difficult to read you just about go blind trying to figure out what to type.

 gcvedst thesr??? Is that what that is? Does it really have to be that difficult?

Good luck with any of those. Again, I get the need for it but I don't get why it has to make your eyeballs pop right out of your head. Why can't these things at least be legible like the first couple of examples above? And even those have that hazy, out of focus look. And what are you supposed to do with this one:

OK, Mr. CAPTCHA programmer, you show me how to type that one in the box and I'll buy you a ticket.

And what about these? These are all real. Are you supposed to turn the keyboard upside down? Do you spell it backwards, forwards? That's getting a little ridiculous right there. But that's not all. If that looking through Coke bottle glasses feel isn't enough for you, these next examples are just going to make you say, "screw it, I just don't need to go to this concert."

Yeah, good luck getting those tickets.