I already mentioned earlier today that I like to use the JDownloader software to download files from file hosting services. It is more convenient, especially since it saves the download queue so that downloads can be resumed at any time. Captchas on the other hand still need to be filled out. That’s a problem if you need to leave the computer for a longer period of time, or if you do not want the captchas to disturb you from other computer activities.

Ghacks reader KoalaBear suggested to use the plugin Captcha Trader for automatic captcha solving. The service is offered as a plugin for JDownloader, MiPony and a handful of other popular downloaders. It basically allows the user to either buy credits or solve captchas in advance so that captchas in JDownloader are resolved automatically by the plugin.

Here is how Captcha Trader works.

• Visit the Captcha Trader website and create an account.
• Switch to the Plugins directory on the site and download the plugin for your software and operating system. I’m going to demonstrate how to add the plugin to JDownloader. Readme files are included that explain how the plugins are installed.
• Extract the folder and copy it to the \JDownloader\jd\captcha\methods\ folder.
• Edit captchatrader.properties with a text editor and add your username and password to the file.
• Restart JDownloader.

The plugin will not show up in JDownloader. It won’t work right away since you do not have any credits in the beginning. That is, unless you have bought credits on the site. 10000 credits on the site, good for at least 1000 solved captchas cost $6 Dollars.

Instead of paying, users can earn credits by solving captchas on the Captcha Trader website. A click on Earn Credits displays a captcha every 50 or so seconds. Solving the captcha correctly will award credits to the account.

Users earn seven credits for text recognition captchas, and three for image recognition captchas. It costs ten credits to solve text captchas, and five credits to solve image recognition captchas.

It is furthermore possible to cash out at anytime. 10000 credits equate $1.

Once you got enough credits, captchas are automatically resolved in the software you use to download files from file hosts. The captcha should not pop up anymore which is great if you need to work full screen.

The captcha is made up of characters and animal images and the user is asked to fill in the four letters that have the image of a cat attached to them. The problem with that captcha however is that the animal images look really alike and it is damn hard to tell if you see a cat, a dog, a donkey or some other four-legged animal with a tail.

If you concentrate you can identify the cats and fill in the form. The problem is that a wrong answer will load yet another capture with and you have to start over again. I’m all for protection and anti-spam measures but this one is going to far in my opinion. There are better ways to implement captchas. What’s your take on that new captcha ?

In a form of an online service, reCAPTCHA offers exactly that. After signing up for the service, you’ll be able to place a captcha module on your website and avoid automated abuse while helping to read and store books of the past. With this special type of captcha engine, users are besides writing an already known word correctly into the widget’s field also required to recognize an additional word gathered by digitizing books which the OCR system wasn’t able to recognize due to various defects in characters.

Besides an obvious advantage of this service that makes real use of captcha, there are other great advantages to it. It’s easy to install thanks to plugin support for major CMS like WordPress, it’s accessible for eyesight-disabled people and it is based on high security standards that make it nearly impossible to penetrate. Moreover, the whole system can be quickly updated whenever a vulnerability is found without the webmaster having to worry about it. It’s also capable of IP filtering.

Should you wish for a great, free, customizable service with its own API that transforms waste of time into a useful and valuable activity while protecting your website against the dirt of spam? Here you go.

After clicking Start Play the image of a women on the left side and a captcha on the right is displayed. The program asks the user to enter the captcha to see another picture of the woman with less clothes on. After entering the captcha correctly and clicking on enter the Trojan loads another picture and captcha asking the user again to type the correct code to see Melissa strip even more.

You might have already guessed that the captcha is actually the captcha of another website, Yahoo for instance, and the Trojan uses the help of users to enter those captchas correctly on those websites. Captchas are used to tell human users from bots apart and make it more difficulty to create automatic process to signup or submit data.

The Trojan does not seem to cause harm on the users system. It simply uses him to create correct responses to captcha codes that are used to create accounts on websites like Yahoo Mail.

Trend Micro reports that the Trojan most likely arrives as a file downloaded by other malware on the system. It could also be send as an email attachement.