Why am I being asked to answer an arithmetic question?
The math problem on this page is a logical CAPTCHA. Most of you will probably be familiar with CAPTCHA's in the form of a Picture CAPTCHA.: Pictures CAPTCHA's small images that contain a series of numbers and/or letters. On many sites, you are asked to enter those numbers and letters into a text box. The form will only submit if you enter the letters and numbers correctly. CAPTCHA is a security measure that helps to protect websites from certain types of attack. This allows us to provide better security and continuity of service to our site users.
Why do you use a math question or Logical CAPTCHA instead of the Picture CAPTCHA?
There are several problems with a picture CAPTCHA. First and foremost picture CAPTCHA's are unable to be read by a text reader. This means that CAPTCHA's block many visually impaired users from using forms. Many CAPTCHAS attempt to alleviate this problem by putting in a second CAPTCHA which is scrambled audio which reads the numbers and letters. These are normally very difficult to understand. Secondly many users have a very hard time with reading picture CAPTCHA's. Finally Picture CAPTCHA's are not as secure. These CAPTCHA's use an algorithm to scramble the text to make it unreadable by BOT's. The problem is the more complex we as web developers get with these algorithms the more complex the attacks that are meant to beat CAPTCHA's get. Also as a Picture CAPTCHA gets more complex the level of difficulty for the user reading the CAPTCHA increases.