A Proposal of Four-Panel Cartoon CAPTCHA

A CAPTCHA is a technique that is used to prevent automated programs from being able to acquire free e-mail or online service accounts. However, as many researchers have already reported, conventional CAPTCHAs could be overcome by state-of-the-art malwares since the capabilities of computers are approaching those of humans. Therefore, CAPTCHAs should be based on even more advanced human-cognitive-processing abilities. In addition, it is also important to keep in mind that answering CAPTCHAs is an added annoyance for users, who feel troublesome to prove that they are humans at every Web accesses. So, CAPTCHAs should be enjoyable for users. To cope with these issues, we have focused on the human ability to understand humor which is considered one of the most advanced human cognitive processing abilities, and already proposed the concept of a new type of Turing test that uses four-panel cartoons, which would make CAPTCHAs fun and enjoyable. So in this paper, we carry out experimental studies to confirm the usability of the proposed CAPTCHA.