In a system and method for the generation of attack-resistant, user-friendly, image-based CAPTCHAs (Completely Automated Public test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart), controlled distortions are applied to randomly chosen images and presented to a user for annotation from a given list of words. An image is presented that contains multiple connected but independent images with the borders between them distorted or otherwise visually obfuscated in a way that a computer cannot distinguish the borders and a user selects near the center of one of the images. The distortions are performed in a way that satisfies the incongruous requirements of low perceptual degradation and high resistance to attack by content-based image retrieval systems. Word choices are carefully generated to avoid ambiguity as well as to avoid attacks based on the choices themselves.
Image-based CAPTCHA generation system