June 8, 2007

Web Security Device Is Used to Preserve Hard-to-Read Texts

By JOSH FISCHMAN

A security device developed to protect Web sites is now being used to help preserve the texts of thousands of important books.

Those stretched and distorted letters on Web-page log-ins that the user must decipher and retype to gain access are there for safety: to distinguish between people and malevolent programs with hacking on their robotic minds.

Computer programs have trouble doing the translation, but humans don't.

Luis von Ahn, the computer scientist at Carnegie

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