back to article CAPTCHAs now run Doom – on nightmare mode

Though the same couldn't be said for most of us mere mortals, Vercel CEO Guillermo Rauch had a productive festive period, resulting in a CAPTCHA that requires the user to kill three monsters in Doom – on nightmare mode. The Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart is a challenge-response …

  1. Ball boy Silver badge

    Complete with cheat code support!

    idkfa

    iddqd

    idclip

    Ah, those were the days!

    1. Mentat74
      Happy

      Re: Complete with cheat code support!

      IDCLEV<level number> was also great for skipping levels...

    2. bombastic bob Silver badge

      Re: Complete with cheat code support!

      I still like playing PRBoom on open source OS's - they have all new maps for Doom I and II and you can STILL play the originals [assuming you have the maps for a licensed copy].

      still FUN after all these years

    3. cyberdemon Silver badge
      Devil

      Re: Complete with cheat code support!

      Interesting.. If I use idkfa and bring out the rocket launcher, which gibs enemies, it doesn't count towards the total and I can carry on playing.

      If I use the shotgun, pistol, chaingun etc then it ends after 3 kills.

      Sadly no plasma or BFG, and not sure if I can open the door, since space is mapped to fire

      And idclev doesn't work either, for fairly obvious reasons

      1. bombastic bob Silver badge

        Re: Complete with cheat code support!

        I did not have much luck with the chainsaw, either

        1. cyberdemon Silver badge
          Thumb Up

          Re: Complete with cheat code support!

          Chainsaw sometimes works if you don't rev it

    4. TeraTelnet

      Re: Complete with cheat code support!

      I just used idspispopd, meself.

  2. KittenHuffer Silver badge

    Wingman Warrior FTW!

    Made circle strafing possible for mere mortals!

    1. MrDamage

      I to, had the Warrior, and proceeded to show anyone who complained "keyboard and mouse are superior" that they were wrong in no uncertain terms.

  3. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
    Windows

    Done it

    I can verify that I have been duly certified human. And in the best possible way... Took me a while to find out that ALT was the strafe key, I'm sure it used to be shift? Trying to work this out got me killed with only two enemies dead on my first attempt.

    Annoyed though. I killed 3 dudes with shotguns at range, using the pistol. And so the game ended before I could get the satisfaction of getting the proper weapon. The chain gun and rocket launcher had their uses, but I usually preferred the shotgun. When ammo was low, there was always time for a bit of chainsaw action too.

    [Is this the correct icon for old git wallowing in nostalgia?]

    1. Brewster's Angle Grinder Silver badge

      Re: Done it

      Shift looks like sprint. I couldn't get away fast enough without it.

      The most annoying thing is I've developed a habit of panning the view with the mouse. I kept finding myself with my hand on the mouse wondering why the camera wasn't moving...

      1. entfe001

        Re: Done it

        Shift was for running and Alt for sideways moving in both Wolfenstein 3D and Blake Stone. Never played Doom (was and still am not very fond of satanic themes) but I guess the keys may be the same.

        1. ThomH Silver badge

          Re: Done it

          In original Doom alt is strafe, shift is run, control is shoot and space is action.

          1. entfe001

            Re: Done it

            So exactly the same keybindings

          2. Sorry that handle is already taken. Silver badge

            Re: Done it

            I still re-map "use" from E to Space and fire using Ctrl in modern FPSes. Sometimes other people have a problem with this, but they should simply understand the history of PC gaming better. Hell, Ctrl was the fire button for PC platformers for years before FPSes became popular.

            And invert the mouse Y-axis thanks to flight sims. That's always a fun one.

            I think RMB for "move forward" also began with Doom.

  4. The Dogs Meevonks Silver badge

    OK, so I did this in less than 20 seconds, with the pistol.

    Move to the left wall, wait... shoot the pistol at anything that moves... capatcha complete.

    If I a middle aged man can do this in seconds... it's not gonna take a bot long.

  5. chuckufarley Silver badge

    You can't kill what you can't see...

    ...and I need a much larger game window to see what's happening here.

    1. phuzz Silver badge

      Re: You can't kill what you can't see...

      There's more pixels there than when I first played Doom, but admittedly they're much smaller.

      You might be able to increase the magnification in your web browser to make the view bigger (works in Firefox)

  6. bombastic bob Silver badge
    Mushroom

    CAPTCHA's days are numbered? PROMISE???

    Since most web users find even the most basic CAPTCHA an annoying hoop to jump through

    It is one of those things we all wish could be UN-invented...

    [it irritates me SO much I cannot comment any further - just see icon]

    1. Andy Non Silver badge
      Mushroom

      Re: CAPTCHA's days are numbered? PROMISE???

      I really struggled with one the other day on the UK land registry website, I needed a copy of title deeds for my property and it took ages completing multiple captchas before it finally accepted I was human. So fracking annoying. I'm sure a bot would have solved them much quicker. When it asks you to click on all squares with traffic lights, does that include squares that have only a tiny corner (a few pixels) of a traffic light? Then it got me looking for bicycles then sidewalks. Then it started swapping out some of the squares as I clicked on them, which caught me out further. A pox on the land registry.

      1. Dave314159ggggdffsdds Silver badge

        Re: CAPTCHA's days are numbered? PROMISE???

        All it's doing is comparing your responses to other people's, so if you aren't sure what it's looking for, ask yourself what the average idiot in a hurry would do.

      2. stiine Silver badge

        Re: CAPTCHA's days are numbered? PROMISE???

        Can you not switch to an audio capture?

        1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

          Re: CAPTCHA's days are numbered? PROMISE???

          stiine,

          There are audio CAPTCHAs. They’re just worse than the visual ones. As someone with perfect hearing and only 5% of normal vision, I still prefer to struggle through the visual ones. I can normally get them - on the 2nd or 3rd try…

      3. Persona Silver badge

        Re: CAPTCHA's days are numbered? PROMISE???

        The same one had me clicking on traffic lights. Some in the foreground covered multiple squares, do you click on the squares with just the coloured lenses, or the boxes as well. What about the supporting poles and gantries. Do humans considered those bits as "part" of the traffic lights?

      4. heyrick Silver badge

        Re: CAPTCHA's days are numbered? PROMISE???

        Were you in private mode? I got that the other day and I was certain I was getting the answers right. After five or six fails it switched to the changing pictures type and I passed it on the first try. I suspect the normal captcha is just incompatible with privacy options.

    2. UnknownUnknown

      Re: CAPTCHA's days are numbered? PROMISE???

      Well mocked in Wallace and Gromit - Vengeance Most Fowl.

      I’m still waiting for a disaster, Bond or Fallen like film to have a CAPTCHA interfere with the disarming of a Nuclear Bomb. Would make a very different 60 seconds until detonation sequence.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Boss walks over

    what are you doing playing games!!!

    no sir, its the captcha for logging into the SIM portal

    BS You're Fired!

  8. Manolo
    Joke

    But what is it training?

    The first captcha's were used to make OCR better.

    The newer ones to train image recognition algorithms.

    So presumably this will be used to train autonomous fighting robots?

    Where is the ROTM icon?

    1. Korev Silver badge
      Terminator

      Re: But what is it training?

      > Where is the ROTM icon?

      Here?

  9. Mage Silver badge
    Flame

    CAPTCHA are evil

    Culturally biased.

    Awkward for humans.

    What exactly is the point of them AFTER you've signed in.

    An additional 3rd party privacy issue.

    They need banned.

    1. jvf

      Re: CAPTCHA are evil

      screw captchas

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Doom was good

    But Duke Nukem 3D was better.

    “Your face, your ass, what’s the difference?”

  11. Jason Hindle Silver badge

    Why bother with Doom?

    Just get the user to identify the squares with effing traffic lights twenty effing times as I found when I wanted to change the password to my rather important* AOL account. Can modern AI really not prove it is not a robot with the current tests?

    * My iTunes and later full on Apple ID from the turn of the effing century onwards. One of life's regrets.

  12. ravenviz Silver badge

    Exception thrown, see JavaScript console

    Oh well, dailymail.co.uk it is.

    1. FirstTangoInParis Silver badge

      “Click on the pics of today’s minor celebrity that we’ve got some gossip about. Oh and the odd actual news story too”.

  13. M.V. Lipvig Silver badge

    Nope!

    Doom gave me horrible headaches when my eyes worked fine. Not doing that now that things are a bit fuzzy.

  14. Blogitus Maximus
    Devil

    Plugin?

    "...bots written for the purpose of beating CAPTCHAs can do it much quicker and more accurately than humans these days."

    I eagerly await the creation of a browser plug-in that can leverage AI to solve CAPTCHA puzzles.

    Finally a use for all those useless AI PCs?

  15. GNU Enjoyer
    Angel

    The origional DOOM is not "open source"

    >Only id Software's Doom game engine is open source,

    It's hard to say what license it is released under, as files in that repository list;

    "// This source is available for distribution and/or modification

    // only under the terms of the DOOM Source Code License as

    // published by id Software. All rights reserved."

    But there is no "DOOM Source Code License" in the repo, just the; GNU General Public License version 2.

    README.TXT states; "The DOOM source code is released for your non-profit use.", which contradicts both the GPLv2 and section 6 of the OSD; https://opensource.org/osd but I figure would correspond with the "DOOM Source Code License", if that exists.

    Although, at the bottom of the readme it states; "Licensed under the GNU General Public License 2.0", but that still doesn't state if it's GPLv2-only or GPLv2-or-later (it could even be argued that such README.TXT is the only file licensed under GPLv2-ambigious).

    As a result, it's either source-available proprietary software, or free software.

    It's quite sad that John Carmack did the wrong thing (assisted attacking people's freedom with proprietary software) and then went to finally do the right thing, but (intentionally?) failed to unambiguously do so by unclear licensing and also kept the game data proprietary.

    >the game data – maps, textures, sprites, etc. – are not

    He really should have used Freed∞m, as both the engine and the game data are under a free license.

  16. Sceptic Tank Silver badge
    Devil

    The web is becoming unusable

    I can totally see my 90 y.o. mother authenticating to websites way.

  17. Luiz Abdala
    Joke

    Modern versions...

    ..will use Fortnite OG where you must build a ton of walls and jump over them to hit a bot. Or use GTA or Minecraft.

  18. Luiz Abdala
    Unhappy

    I like reCAPTCHAs

    using the random mouse movement typical to humans is nice... until the bots can imitate that. Which they probably do now.

  19. Neoc

    If memory serves (it's been a while) EVERYTHING required to run the first level (maps, weapon data, monster data, etc) was made available in the Demo version of DOOM. But if you wanted to play subsequent levels, you had to purchase the full version.

    Heck, even the level editor mentioned you could create freely-distributable maps without a licence so long as they only used items found on the first level.

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like