I found something very strange

Captain Trek · Post by **Captain Trek** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 8:37 pm

At least I thought it was... I discovered this on the weblog of a man named Robert Anderson, a Star Trek vs Star Wars debater...

http://www.st-v-sw.net/weblog/

If you go to the "comments" section of one of his posts (any post will do), you'll note that it has a version of the now ubiquitous word verification system, where you're shown a picture with words on it and must type those words in exactly as they appear in order to sucessfully post your comment...

However (and this is the strange thing), next to the blank field where you type the letters in, there is a clickable image of a disabled person symbol. One would assume this is a system where by a voice synthesizer reads the letters to you...

But instead of that, I get three loud high-pitched reverbating pings, followed by indistiguishable nattering from what sound like multiple voices, accompanied by the single, clear voice of a man (and it's always been a man the times I've tried it) with a variously vauge and clear European accent (that is, sometimes the accent is clearly European, specifically British, and other times it's vauge) calling out a sequence of single digits, saying "once again" and then repeating the sequence...

I for one found this extremely creepy and when I questioned mr. Anderson about it he never responded...

So I ask, what do you think about it? What do you think it is and where do you think it came from?

Post by **Arcalane** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 8:53 pm

Moved to Etc. because this is not BSF related.

ArcaneDude · Post by **ArcaneDude** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 8:53 pm

It contains hidden messages meant to convert you to satanism.

In short, I got no idea. But creepy is the right word, yeah.

Captain Trek · Post by **Captain Trek** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 9:31 pm

Arcalane wrote:Moved to Etc. because this is not BSF related.

Opps... sorry...

ArcaneDude wrote:It contains hidden messages meant to convert you to satanism.

In short, I got no idea. But creepy is the right word, yeah.

According to RelicNews forums, it's an audio version of what is known as a CAPTCHA... Apparently, you see visual CAPTCHAs all the time... they are the distorted and otherwise "messed with" letters you have to de-cypher and type in to prove that you're a human when making a comment on a weblog or signing up for a forum these days...

http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread. ... ost3416536

Lizzie · Post by **Lizzie** » Sun Mar 08, 2009 8:25 am

I hate these systems because most of the time I end up with the ones that can't be read no matter what you do. Even refreshing the image doesn't help that much. I actually got locked out of a hotmail account over this stupid crap.

Captain Trek · Post by **Captain Trek** » Sun Mar 08, 2009 10:16 am

Lizzie wrote:I hate these systems because most of the time I end up with the ones that can't be read no matter what you do. Even refreshing the image doesn't help that much. I actually got locked out of a hotmail account over this stupid crap.

Indeed... sometimes I can't read them either...

Verminator · Post by **Verminator** » Sun Mar 08, 2009 6:50 pm

I get them wrong from time to time. Still, I guess it's worth it if it keeps the spambots away from whatever you're tyring to look at.

Exethalion · Post by **Exethalion** » Sun Mar 08, 2009 9:48 pm

If you listen, you can hear a number sequence being read out, which repeats after you hear 'once again'. I suppose this is an alternate verificaton code, though it isn't explained anywhere.

T-002 · Post by **T-002** » Wed Mar 11, 2009 2:03 am

Reminds me of UVB-76. I'm still trying to track down the third recording.

It's probably unrelated, but it just flagged up in the back of my head. About as weird/creepy as this.