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Towson University Gets Patent For Technology to Help Blind Internet Users

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From: Clark, Michelle - NRCS, Washington, DC
Date: Nov 4, 2014 6:07AM

This came from the Maryland NFB newsletter. I found it interesting and hope it is for those of you out there working on the woes using the internet can bring.



Michelle





Towson University Gets Patent For Technology to Help Blind Internet Users





Team creates audio CAPTCHA



Editor's Note: The following article from the Baltimore Sun shows that

thanks to the efforts of Jonathan Lazar and his students at Towson

University, we are making slow, but steady progress in eliminating the

CAPTCHA barrier to navigating websites. Many Federationists participated in

Dr. Lazar's CAPTCHA sound study. He has been a champion of an accessible

Internet for the blind for many years. We look forward to seeing the

SoundsRight CAPTCHA being widely adopted.





Description: Anne Taylor and Dr. Jonathan Lazar



(caption for image) Anne Taylor, Director of Access Technology, Jernigan

Institute, National Federation of the Blind, uses braille and QWERTY

keyboards in the International Braille and Technology Center for the Blind.

Dr. Jonathan Lazar, professor of Computer and Information Sciences at Towson

University, is working with her on a technology that makes CAPTCHA, a

website security feature, accessible to blind people. (Kim Hairston,

Baltimore Sun / April 14, 2014)





By Carrie Wells, The Baltimore Sun



April 27, 2014



While blind people can browse the Internet through a variety of means, there

is often one thing that stops them cold-a security feature known as a

CAPTCHA that's designed to distinguish human users from robots.



CAPTCHAs, in which a user must identify the letters in a distorted image,

are commonly used to block automated bots from grabbing up all the tickets

for an event, signing up for thousands of email addresses in a short period

of time or unfairly swaying the results of an online poll. They have drawn

criticism from advocacy organizations for the blind for being too difficult

to use, but last month, Towson University

<http://www.baltimoresun.com/topic/education/colleges-universities/towson-un

iversity-OREDU0000148.topic> secured a U.S. patent for a new kind of

CAPTCHA that's intended to be easier for those with limited or no eyesight.



With Towson's SoundsRight CAPTCHA, users listen to a series of 10 random

sounds and are asked to press the computer's space bar each time they hear a

certain noise-a dog barking, a horse neighing-among the other sounds. The

developers say it is superior to Google's

<http://www.baltimoresun.com/topic/economy-business-finance/computing-inform

ation-technology-industry/google-inc.-ORCRP006761.topic> current audio

alternative CAPTCHA, citing studies showing that version's failure rate of

50 percent for blind users.



"Blind people are capable of doing everything that a visual person can on

the Internet," said Jonathan Lazar, a Towson professor who has led a group

of graduate and outside researchers on the project. "We just try to come up

with some equivalent features that make it easier."



"Some people are unaware that blind people can use the Internet," Lazar

added.



The SoundsRight CAPTCHA is still in a "beta" version, Lazar said, and the

developers are hoping a real-world rollout will help identify any necessary

tweaks.



The Towson researchers worked closely on testing with the National

Federation of the Blind, which is headquartered in the Riverside

neighborhood of Baltimore. Anne Taylor, the Federation's Director of access

technology, said there are several types of software available for blind

users to read the text on a web page aloud. Taylor, who is blind, said not

being able to use visual CAPTCHAs could impede a blind person's ability to

enjoy the benefits of the Internet and hurt their ability to hold a job.



A sighted person could help a blind user with the visual CAPTCHAs, she said,

but the blind want to be independent on the Internet. Further, since many

CAPTCHAs are on web pages that ask for personal financial information, she

has concerns about privacy.



"The Internet is such an important and integral part of our daily lives

now," Taylor said. "Just think of how many hours you spend on the web as a

sighted individual. Would you really want to have someone with you all that

time?"



CAPTCHA, which stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test

<http://www.baltimoresun.com/topic/science-technology/computing-information-

technology-industry/alan-turing-PEHST00000279.topic> to tell Computers and

Humans Apart, was introduced as a concept by computer scientist Alan Turing

in 1950. The term was coined in 2000 by researchers at Carnegie Mellon

University who developed an early Web page test program for Yahoo. The

CAPTCHAs protect from automated hacking programs that can also leave spam

comments on blogs, attack protected passwords and send junk email.



Tim Brooks, the chief software developer on the SoundsRight project since

2010, said the audio CAPTCHA can be embedded into any Web page and

customized by the webmaster. Brooks said its script could be tweaked to be

used in any number of different languages or have users identify any number

of sounds. An organization for train enthusiasts, he said, could potentially

have users identify the sounds of different types of trains.



The SoundsRight CAPTCHA is just as secure as the traditional visual

CAPTCHAs, he said. Sighted users can use the audio CAPTCHA as well, or a web

page could give the option of either a visual CAPTCHA or the SoundsRight

CAPTCHA, he said. The only potential downside to the technology is that it

takes about 30 to 40 seconds to complete, versus less than 10 seconds for a

visual CAPTCHA, Brooks said.



"A lot of people don't have that kind of patience," he said.



The Towson CAPTCHA project was the brainchild of then-undergraduate student

Jon Holman in 2007 as a class project, Lazar said. In a 2007 focus group,

blind users identified visual CAPTCHAs as the biggest impediment to their

using the Internet independently. Several other students, faculty members

and outside researchers have assisted in developing the technology since the

project began.



"We've always done the evaluation with blind users at every step," Lazar

said. "This was research that was done because blind users were telling us

this was important."



The project was partially supported with a $50,000 grant from the Maryland

Technology Development Corp., Lazar said. The researchers went through

several different prototypes, rejecting those that weren't found to be

secure enough.



The SoundsRight CAPTCHA is in use on the National Federation of the Blind's

website, and the organization is working to encourage various groups and

businesses to adopt it.



"We are all one step away from a sudden disability, so why not make the

Internet an inclusive place for everybody?" Taylor said.









Thank You,


Michelle Clark
Information Technology Specialist
Section 508 Coordinator
Office of the Chief Information Officer
USDA / Natural Resources Conservation Service
1400 Independence Ave. SW.
Rm. 1669-S
Washington, DC. 20250

O: 202 2609014
E-mail: <EMAIL REMOVED> <mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> >
To learn more about Section 508, go to www.section508.gov<;http://www.section508.gov>;.

"Because your own strength is unequal to the task do not assume it is beyond the powers of man; but if anything is in the powers and province of man, believe it is within your own compass also!"

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus





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