Hacking feat spots ghosts in Snapchat's new verification tool
Thursday, January 23, 2014 - 18:20
in Mathematics & Economics
(Phys.org) —Chat service company Snapchat this week announced it was further nailing down its security with a new identification verification system, beyond fancy font-annoying CAPTCHAS, that could seal the deal in telling humans apart from information harvesters and malicious bots. With the new tool, site visitors are shown nine picture tiles, some with Snapchat's ghost mascot and some without. Users need to differentiate among the pictures, to choose the ones showing the ghost, to prove the users are human. Interestingly, Lance Whitney of CNET, reporting the new tool, praised it as " a step in the right direction" but also asked, "But how long will it take an enterprising hacker to find a way past this latest security measure?"