8. CAPTCHAs

Hi, I am Greg and I want to grumble about CAPTCHA. You may not recognise the name, but it stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart. Now that name alone should tell you something of the complexity of the beast, but in less formal language, CAPTCHAs are those bloody annoying text and number patterns that you have to enter on an increasing number of websites before you can post online messages or sign up to services.

I’m sorry, maybe my brain is not abstract enough, but sometimes I just can’t see letters in the patterns, or the letters are so distorted that they could be any of 3 or 4 different ones. So I sit there reloading the screen until I get a set of letters and numbers that I can actually read. And I am told that the audio versions are no less confusing.

Now given that I have spent the last seven weeks grumbling about elections and matters of national importance, you might think that issues with CAPTCHA are a bit trivial. Well, if you have a vision impairment or are using one of the various programs designed to assist you to read online – and therefore to connect to the digital world, guess what, the very secure CAPTCHA system just blocked your participation in that world. Ditto if you have a learning disability like dyslexia. You won’t be able to sign up to basic services like gmail and skype, comment on that article that everyone else is talking about or do that business transaction online. Ah, I think that’s called discrimination!

And what does it say when a device that is designed to tell humans from non-humans, excludes someone with a vision or learning disability from the category of “human”. Would we accept any real person saying that someone with a disability was not human?

It is not even clear that CAPTCHA is needed for security purposes. I am sure it wasn’t needed (but it was there) on my online inquiry last week about whether a particular caravan park had a vacancy at the end of the year. Even on more serious transactions, there are several alternative methods of proving web users are human rather than spamming computers. Some of these also have drawbacks, but as a spam-busting device, the discriminatory CAPTCHAs are not necessarily “bot-proof” and can be defeated by equally smart non-humans.

Now it is not just me grumbling about CAPTCHA. The leading telecommunications consumer voice, ACCAN, which is the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network – has begun a campaign to “kill CAPTCHA”. They are calling on organisations with websites using CAPTCHAs to phase out the skewed and confusing text devices. There is also an online petition which asks for their phase out. Sound good to me.

Let’s kill CAPTCHA – but until then, I am Greg and I am grumbling. 

This Grumble can be heard online or by podcast at https://radio.adelaide.edu.au/gregs-grumbles-8/ 

First Broadcast: 24 September 2013

4. Transportism

Hi, I’m Greg and I want to grumble about transportism.

Transportism is a little-understood problem in our society. Just as racism is discrimination on the basis of race, and sexism is discrimination of the basis of sex, so transportism is discrimination and disadvantage on the basis of one’s mode of transport.

Transport is important because it allows us to participate fully in society. Lack of access to transport or discrimination on the basis of transport means we can’t fully participate

If you drive a car, you have to have a licence, but it does not get checked every time you get in car. But when I catch the train home from work, I have to show my ticket to get on to the platform, walk 50 metres and show the ticket again when I get on the train, and then have a guard come by 5 minutes later to check that I have a ticket. That is petty transportism.

When I combine a bike and train trip home, only to get to the station to find that I can’t get home because “buses have replaced trains”, that is transportism. And when there is just no public transport available in many regional areas, or when the city transit system is built around office commuting and barely provides a service outside of that, that is transportism as people are disadvantaged because they rely on a particular form of transport.

Every time someone in a wheelchair can’t get into a building, or has to wait way, way longer than anyone else for a taxi because there are too few access cabs, that is transportism. People are being disadvantaged because their mode of transport is a wheelchair rather than by foot.

And then there is transportism in our immigration policy. Unfortunately in our world many people are forced to flee violence, dictatorial governments, religious intolerance or persecution. If they can fly to Australia they may ask for asylum and be treated with some respect and be offered support and protection. But if they arrive by boat, they will get shipped off to a tropical prison never to return to Australia. Their trauma, their claim for asylum and their need for protection may be equally as valid as someone arriving by plane, but different rules apply simply because they arrive by boat. They suffer discrimination and vilification and are denied equal protection under the law simply because of their mode of transport. That is transportism. I mean, really, what else could it be?

I am Greg, and I am grumbling.


This Grumble can be heard or downloaded at https://radio.adelaide.edu.au/gregs-grumbles-4/
First Broadcast: 27 August 2013