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Yes, pick the cat is what Rapidshare used to use (http://www.geeksaresexy.net/2008/04/24/rapidshare-captcha-will-drive-you-crazy/). I have to say that being able to pick the cat is beyond most humans so having a computer doing it is quite impressive. Yahoo’s CAPTCHA has been “broken” since January of this year where broken is about a 35% success rate. The 35% may seem low but when you are sending spam or using a computer, 35% is more than enough to accomplish your goal.
Actually, I think this fact proves the failure of captchas. If a captcha is beyond most humans but breakable by a computer, then it hasn't really done anything to filter in the humans and out the bots. Instead, ironically, it's filtering in the bots and out the humans. That really defeats the purpose of having a captcha. You won't prevent spam; you'll attract it and prevent legitimate users from accessing the site.
Now, I can't really think of any better solution to this, but certainly the captcha solution isn't working nearly as well as advertised. Yahoo's captcha has indeed been broken for a while.
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