Can you run your own reCaptcha service, in your own web app? - captcha

Is the backend used by reCaptcha open source? Is it a simple web app that can be deployed in a given container?
Thanks,
LES

It's a web service. It is supplied by a third party.
You can integrate it into your application, but as far as the source code goes, no. Its value is not in the source code but in the images that are supplied. They're not randomly generated but come from books from those parts an OCR system failed to process. So by solving reCaptcha people are actually helping scan books. Somebody takes care of the scanning process and supplied a constant flow of new challenges. Hard to beat.

Running reCaptcha on your own server would be very cumbersome, as it requires a constant supply of image data (scanned books) to work. Also it would kind of beat a part of the purpose, that is digitizing books for the common good. Besides, I don't think it's even available.

This should be able to answer all of your questions for you: recaptcha

Related

Kimono Desktop Stopped Working?

Anyone having trouble building API's with the new Kimono Desktop app. When I click create API the browser just stays on create API screen loading but nothing happens.
I even tried building an API that is the same as one I built when Kimono was still in business and no luck.
My existing api's still run and pull data fine.
Working just fine here.
Just a shot in the blue...did you install the new extension specifically for the desktop app? The old one can't work anymore since Kimono disabled the online service.
You can't build new APIs I think - only existing ones. :( Said something like it was not the acquiring company's policy to provide this publiclu available service but since they did not know how many businesses depended on their APIs they decided to allow existing APis to run.
You can also use their software for replace the online API. But it's an abandonware.
It's working great but on some website I can create new API because of an error.
I just find a possible (free) product that can replace Kimono : Datascraping.co.
They will include an REST FULL API within few days / weeks, as they said here.
It's a good software, but comparing to Kimono Desktop it's a little much more complicated.
Kimono got bought out and it's not working anymore.
Import.io is good but it kinda expensive for me. I've tried the free trial before but see the price starts from $249, so... https://www.import.io/standard-plans/
I don't have any progamming skills so I know very little about some web scraping frameworks like Scrapy.
You may want to look at this new web scraping software called Octoparse.
In case you want to know, here is the link:http://www.octoparse.com/
It takes a little time to begin. But they have rich tutorials on the website. Plus it doesn't require programming skills.
They provide cloud-based scraping service and API access.
You can use it to create API but you have to pay for the service. Free version doesn't have the API and cloud service.
I've been using it for 2 month with the Standard plan $89, which a lot cheaper than import.io. So far so good.
Hope it would be helpful for you.

Xcode - Web services and my confusion

I am having a problem here. I am totally new to this concept of servers and web services and being able to get data uploaded and retrieved on different devices, but I want to learn it, say if I want to create an app like Instagram.
But that is EXACTLY what I dont want, a link to a long tutorial on the internet on how to create the most complex app ever, I want to start slow. After doing extensive power searches on Amazon there are basically no books that will help me. So I want to start slow, here is my goal:
Get a great understanding of how web service backends and servers work and be able to apply it in other app ideas I have and want to start developing
I would like to start by being able to create an app that allows a user to enter some text into a field, it uploads to the server, another device can press a button to retrieve the text and display it in a text view.
I do not know php, and every single tutorial I have entered on this website is literal mindeff, the reason for this is because everyone has a different solution, sync web service backend with Core Data, MySQL, parse, Rails and it truly overwhelms me because I do not know which one to pick! And even worse some people provide code but I have no understanding whatsoever, and its like looking at a totally new language!
I am not asking for code, in fact that is the exact opposite. I am asking for someone to really lay out their knowledge, how does it all work? What is the best tool? Some resources and links. Nothing too complex...
I hope you can truly understand my extreme confusion and frustration. I think the reason might be is I might not be ready yet for all this, but I want to push forward and carry out my app idea!
Thank you...
Update:
I have finally decided on a web service I would like to use, it is the Amazon S3 web service, I am still not fully comprehending the full process though, any help or ideas!?
Since you wanted to create an Instagram-type app, look at this: http://www.raywenderlich.com/13511/how-to-create-an-app-like-instagram-with-a-web-service-backend-part-12
This is a good link to servers: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC71D7CFB6AF935E6&feature=plcp. Watch the list to get an understanding of servers.
Maybe you want to read up on sql. Understanding sql will help.. Again: http://www.youtube.com/course?list=EC32BC9C878BA72085&feature=plcp. Watch the list to get an understanding of sql...
I can pass you the link and you got to do the work....
Hope this helps...

Running MTurk HITs on external website

I am implementing a website on which the recruited MTurk workers will perform tasks. I plan to recruit workers using MTurk tasks, using which I will redirect them to an external website for actual work. I have the following questions relating to this plan.
Is there any foreseeable problems with this approach of running HITs? If so, how can we mitigate them?
how should I implement the authentication procedure on my external site? For example, how can I make sure the people who come to the website to perform a specific task are indeed the same group of people recruited earlier for this particular task on MTurk?
when the workers finish the task, how should I integrate the payment procedure with MTurk based on their performance? For example, say worker is owed $3 after finishing the task on my external site, is it possible for me to tell MTurk to pay him/her this amount programmatically?
The external site will be built using Python, if such detail matters.
Any suggestions and comments based on your experiences and insights in using MTurk would be much appreciated!
I am thinking through this for a similar project of mine. I've experimented as a worker myself. Here is my plan, I hope it is of use to you. (I have not implemented it yet. It is based on an academic HIT I participated in as a worker.) Here goes:
A. Create a template that has language something like:
1. Please open this web site in a new browser window:
http://your-url.xyz.blah/tasks/${token}
2. Read and follow the instructions there.
3. After completing the task, you will receive a confirmation code. Paste
it here: [________]
B. Create some random tokens for your Mechnical Turk data file:
1A1B43B327015141
09F49F2D47823E0C
B5C49A18B3DB56F4
4E93BB63B0938728
CCE7FA60BFEB3198
...
(Generate these tokens from your app; it needs to cross-reference them.)
C. Your app extracts the token from URL, looks up the task, and does whatever it needs to do. I personally don't worry about people stumbling onto a URL, since it is a one-time use token.
D. After a user completes the task on the external web site, the external app gives a confirmation code. The confirmation code should be random and opaque. Only your application will know if any particular code corresponds to a correct or incorrect answer. In fact, if you want, the correctness may not even be determined in real time -- it could be the result of an aggregation and/or comparison across multiple submissions.
E. Write some code to interact programmatically. Take the token and confirmation code supplied from the MTurk result and make sure they match with your external app. If they don't match, reject the HIT. If they match, check the correctness in your external app and approve or reject. You might consider a bonus pay structure.
So, to answer your particular questions:
I don't anticipate problems with the approach I described. That said, Mechanical Turk is both an art and a science. Perhaps more art. Writing good questions and paying Turkers appropriately is something you have to figure out with a combination of common sense, market research, and experimentation.
See (C) above. A token is designed to only be used once. Use long enough tokens and the probability of collision becomes very low.
See (E) above. The Mechanical Turk Developer Guide is a good place to start.
Please share your results back. Or have the Turkers send StackOverflow hundreds of postcards. :)
Notes:
I'm currently exploring qualification tests. I suspect they can be very useful.
I want to get a Turker's Worker ID in my external application, but I haven't figured that part out yet. I'm reading up on it; for example: Getting workerId by assignmentId
I am thinking about using the ExternalQuestion feature from the API: "... you can host the questions on your own web site using an "external" question. ... A HIT with an external question displays a web page from your web site in a frame in the Worker's web browser. Your web page displays a form for the Worker to fill out and submit. The Worker submits results using your form, and your form submits the results back to Mechanical Turk. Using your web site to display the form gives your web site control over how the question appears and how answers are collected."
You might also find PsiTurk to be useful: "PsiTurk is an open platform for conducting custom behvioral experiments on Amazon's Mechanical Turk. ... It is intended to provide most of the backend machinery necessary to run your experiment. It uses AMT's External Question HIT type, meaning that you can collect data using any website. As long as you can turn your experiment into a website, you can run it with PsiTurk!"

How to make a Tag cloud app that post on a website?

I want to make an app where the users can post messages that will be displayed on a website. The users would need to create a username and password to be able to post.
The app would be like a twitter, but only be able to post through the app and read the last few posts and not be able to write private messages.
The website would function like a huge cloud of thoughts where everyone could go and read what others have written. Once the post hit the cloud, they can't be deleted. Only me could delete posts.
All posts would have different color and font size, it would look like a huge tag cloud on the website.
How do I make an app and a website like this?
David H
The tutorial application for Google Application Engine is an unstyled version of what you describe. They'll even host it for you for free (up to a non-trivial level of usage).
The tag cloud creation is not so very hard but without knowing your preferred language it is hard to point you to helpful libraries (there are plenty out there).
Getting people to use it will be the hard part.
added in response to comment:
Good luck on your endeavor. I would be surprised if you weren't able to learn everything you need to know and have a working web app by the time school starts. I found a simple stand alone web cloud creation library that explains what it does and will run on GAE. So now even that part is in place for you.
I'm tempted to make some pathetic reference to the sorts of computing that I did prior to high school, but I expect that you probably have SD data cards have more computational power than I had available to me. Kids these days! ;)

JIRA SOAP API : link an issue to another

I'm working on a tool in C# that interfaces the JIRA SOAP API. I have read the documentation but I can't find what I'm looking for. Does anyone know if it is possible to link an issue to another one via this api?
PS : Actually, my real need is to convert an issue as a subtask of an issue...
Last time I looked, JIRA's web service wasn't really actively supported or encouraged by Atlassian. It's very much a second-class citizen compared to the web front end, with very basic operations.
Also, it's not a WSI-compliant web service (it's an old Axis-based RPC_encoded service), and so modern web service stacks won't even bind to it. You might want check that your client can perform basic query operations before diving into the depths of the API.
You can actually go pretty far with Jelly scripts, but converting an issue to a subtask then linking it as a subtask... I'm not positive that you can go that far.