LinkedIn has recently deployed the use of CAPTCHA for security login verification. I am not an expert in this area but my knowledge does tell me this is the wrong tool for the job. CAPTCHA is to assure that a computer is not creating a new account. (Ticketmaster also uses CAPTCHA to make sure a computer is not purchasing event tickets in mass.) Once the account is established, use of CAPTCHA at every login is very inconvenient and does little, if anything to prevent hacking or phishing. Banking and investments sites utilize user selected security images to prevent hacking and phishing and it is intuitively more effective and does not carry the inconvenience of CAPTCHA. If you agree, I ask you join me in requesting LinkedIn to rethink there approach on this.
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I have had a couple of exchanges with LinkedIn customer support over ongoing CAPTCHA issues. When CAPTCHA was first initiated by LinkedIn, the screen would frequently appear without any letters. When it did appear, there was about a 1 in 5 chance that I’d get the letters and punctuation marks right, and be able to log in. Now I regularly get the screen, with the letters, but CAPTCHA only thinks I’ve typed the correct string about 10% of the time. Going through the exercise of being forced to re-enter my login credentials repeatedly is very frustrating. I use other sites which employ CAPTCHA and have not encountered problems of this severity.
Today, I tried for about 20 minutes ( maybe 30 attempts) to get CAPTCHA to accept what I type in. I sent another message to LinkedIn customer service this morning. I’m guessing that my account has been locked due to too many attempts. For me, a once useful service (LinkedIn) is no longer accessible.
I’ve been using the site for years, but I need to be confident that I will be able to access the application when I need it. I no longer have this confidence. What other alternatives are out there that provide a similar service? I’m guessing that I’m not the only individual with this problem, and that competitive sites will be getting a surge of new customers due to the difficulties associated with CAPTCHA.
Thank you for your comment J Kanas. I did ask a friend of mine who is a CIO at a healthcare organization for his thoughts. His response as to why they might have elected to use CAPTHA is that “…LinkedIn allows other tools/clients to interact with it (Twitter, TripIt, etc) so it’s likely they use a CAPTCHA check as an added precaution to make sure one of those interfaces isn’t being exploited.”
I still believe that have selected the wrong solution. It is very inconvenient.
I have the exact same problem now, how do you get around it?
Hi Matt,
In the heading on my screen, it appears your comment is directed at J Kanas. If I may throw in my two cents, it is interesting that you have that you are experiencing the problem today. Within weeks after that post in August, and after several back and forth communications with LinkedIn, the use of CAPTCHA on my LinkedIn sign-in page went away. I don’t take any credit for this, I just thought enough people pointed out their misuse of CAPTCHA so they stopped using it. If you, today, still are seeing their use of CAPTCHA, I am shaking my head in amazement. Have you tried a “remember me” button on the page?
Perhaps J Kanas may be able to provide more.
Regards,
Matt
I agree that Linkedin’s use of CAPTCHAs for each login is misguided. It is also extremely inconvenient and has me seriously considering moving my social networking to another site.
Thank you for your comment Gary. I did ask a friend of mine who is a CIO at a healthcare organization for his thoughts. His response as to why they might have elected to use CAPTHA is that “…LinkedIn allows other tools/clients to interact with it (Twitter, TripIt, etc) so it’s likely they use a CAPTCHA check as an added precaution to make sure one of those interfaces isn’t being exploited.”
I still believe that have selected the wrong solution. It is very inconvenient.