[tor-talk] Tor and Google error / CAPTCHAs.

[Dave Warren]

On 2017-02-09 23:40, grarpamp wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 5, 2016 at 8:11 AM, Alec Muffett <alec.muffett at gmail.com> wrote:
>> a) I like the idea of Google giving you "one free search" and from that
>> trying to determine whether you are an "asshole" after which it lightens up
>> with the oppression
> That's fine, if implemented well, because the 'one free' is the
> same as 'account creation', everyone gets a chance, then
> there's other metrics applied after you're in to continually
> evaluate further addition / subtraction of oppression.

I like the idea in theory, but in practice in the case of Tor where all 
users are intentionally identical and any user can become a new user any 
time, the difference between "one free" and "all free" is clicking the 
"new identity" button (or more likely, just dumping cookies).

 From an abuse handling standpoint, it becomes nearly impossible to 
identify whether user is on their first "free" shot or not. Worse, this 
is a feature, not a bug.

The only real fix is to apply a cost to making the first-free, be it an 
account creation/login, captcha, or similar, which I think takes us full 
circle and defeats the point?