Definition: CAPTCHA: an acronym for “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart” (source: Wikipedia). It is the word used for those weird, usually random letters and numbers that some websites now ask you to type in when you fill out some form. They are designed to prevent automated systems from using those sites.
The problem is that it can often be hard for a person to do too. Sometimes it’s hard to tell an uppercase I from a lowercase L, or to tell a zero (0) from an uppercase “O”.
In response, some sites are starting to use real words for CAPTCHA challenges.
On a recent visit to the Ticketmaster website, I was presented with the CAPTCHA shown above: “fleeced”
Anyone who has ever dealt with Ticketmaster will understand the irony.