What is this ShieldSquare business?

[BoomerD]

I don't get the picture captcha on my android fone, just the check box "I am not a robot."
On my iPad, "file not found" and I have to grab my fone, complete the process, then close and reopen at least one Anandtech tab.

 

[gorobei]

i get it seemingly every morning. when i complete the captcha it doesnt register and just keeps repeating. i have to switch to a different computer with a different browser to work around it.

it is extremely obnoxious.

unless it is there to stop some sort of spamming bot attack it isn't helping the forum.

 

[shortylickens]

It just happened to me. First time.

 

[corkyg]

I got it once yesterday - checked box and Go. Nothing since

 

[nakedfrog]

I got it once yesterday - checked box and Go. Nothing since

Every single time I get it, I check the box, then I have to click pictures of objects, hit verify, and then it brings me back to the same thing, where the exact same process happens again, and again. I've never completed it more than three times in a row, I just give up and load a new tab where it lets me in.

 

[Spacehead]

Just got it again.

The last post about anything official on this was May 20, 2019 Post #15 from jsimenhoff (Staff member - Administrator).

So far for me it's not a huge deal, i just click thru the pictures & verify & all is OK.
I have the forums set so i stay logged in, i only have this one computer & same browser & Verizon is my ISP. No VPN & the only FF add-ons i run is NoScript. When i get the captcha i do have to let a few sites run scripts. Google for sure & i think gstatic & newrelic, if that helps. I'll look better next time.

Also, should we merge this thread into this one?
Captcha error?

 

[Amol S.]

I've been getting these quite a bit lately. In fact, I was getting them just going into various sub-forums to read posts (I wasn't even posting).

Twice again. I'm not petty enough to stop visiting this site because of something like this, but I'm definitely not going to complete the stupid captcha constantly just so I can browse a few sub-forums. It appears this thing is popping up more lately and I don't know why.

I have been getting them alot lately. Never got them before September.

really odd.

Question... Has there been any sort of increase in the amount of traffic or activity on the forum pages than usuall since August or September. There could be a chance that the server or IPS/IDPS is detecting this increase as a spam attack or a small scalled DDOS attack, as a false positive.

I suggest that the IT staff at Future PLC contact tell their Network Security Administrator to check and see if that's the case. It might be something simple as that even that is triggering the Square Sheild prompts.

The reason why I am thinking the above is the reason for this issue is because the only thing disruptive a page load can do, is if there are many of them at the same time. IDS or more of the time IDPS are usually used to prevent such attacks from happening, and they usually determine if based on whether or not the current activity on the network is above a certain normal activity threshold. Thus, if there is an unusual increase in user or page load activity, even if it is not malicious at all, the IPS or IDPS could interpret this increase as a spam or spam DDOS attack. The solution to the problem could be increasing the allowed threshold of normal activity by a little bit.

 

[balloonshark]

I just got the recaptcha thing. I hope this doesn't happen a bunch. I usually move on when a site becomes a pain to use.

 

[JEDIYoda]

The recaptcha thing is just a mild inconvenience and as long as they are not asking for money. I have no issues!!

 

[zinfamous]

Yep, confirmed still not a robot...for the 36th time this year.

 

[VirtualLarry]

The recaptcha thing is just a mild inconvenience and as long as they are not asking for money. I have no issues!!

I'd rather a small monthly donation via Paypal rather than deal with reCAPTCHA.

 

[Stg-Flame]

Why are we having to prove we're not human? I haven't seen any massive spamming and given how slow this site usually responds, I highly doubt anyone could even pull it off (all the bots would just get the timed out error). Getting really tired of how bad this site has been getting lately. With the constant issues of trying to simply load the forums and now I'm being required to prove I'm a human, it's getting to the point where I'm not even trying to log on regularly anymore.

 

[WelshBloke]

I've asked to white list all of you. I'm also working with the developers to prevent this from happening in the future.

Ummm. Shouldn't all registered members with more than a certain (say 100) posts and, say, 6 months of membership be already white listed?

 

[Ajay]

Ummm. Shouldn't all registered members with more than a certain (say 100) posts and, say, 6 months of membership be already white listed?

Makes sense, unless existing accounts are being hacked also.

 

[memory]

I just had this square shield thing pop up today. It asked me to click I am not a robot, I was a little worried about checking it thinking maybe a virus. I opened up a new tab and it went away for now. I am not on a vpn.

 

[olds]

I just had this square shield thing pop up today. It asked me to click I am not a robot, I was a little worried about checking it thinking maybe a virus. I opened up a new tab and it went away for now. I am not on a vpn.

This

 

[JEDIYoda]

I just had this square shield thing pop up today. It asked me to click I am not a robot, I was a little worried about checking it thinking maybe a virus. I opened up a new tab and it went away for now. I am not on a vpn.

This

 

[DooKey]

I get the reCAPTCHA thing just about every other day. Annoying. Not on a VPN.

 

[allisolm]

Now I'm getting the captcha and after I do the "pick all the squares with stop lights" it takes me to a blank page. I can get back by plugging forums.anandtech.com into the url bar, but it only lasts for a couple of page views before I'm back to captcha again.

 

[Lost_in_the_HTTP]

I was assaulted by the Goo once a couple of days ago.

Ban the Goo!!!!

 

[balloonshark]

Maybe we can find a way to annoy whoever decided the captcha was a good idea.

Just curious if any of you all are getting it when you're going back and forth between forums and searching often. I like to keep an eye on a few forums here and it called me out as I was going back and forth between them the other day.

 

[Stg-Flame]

I'm confused. If even the admins are posting about this nonsense, who is responsible for requiring it in the first place? Why does it still exist if it's just causing issues for the normal users?

 

[Lost_in_the_HTTP]

Y'all gots to vanquish this hooey right quick.

 

[DooKey]

Like clockwork I get it every other day. Boo.

 

[Iron Woode]

It's time to turn off shieldsquare.