166
Google will now verify if you're a human by turning on your webcam and asking you to wave your hand
(docs.cloud.google.com)
Guess I'm not a human anymore
this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2026
166 points (98.8% liked)
Technology
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The fuck it will
Jokes on them. I run Linux on a 2017 MacBook Air and the camera doesn't work
Don’t have one.
Are webcams that ubiquitous nowadays? My monitors never had one, and I could never be arsed to buy an external one, but perhaps I'm the weird outlier here.
You're an outlier simply by being a desktop computer user instead of a laptop, phone, or tablet user.
The fuck it will
I don't have a child, but if I a did have one, and they walked naked in front of the webcam, could I go after Google for CP?
Iirc child nudity isn't enough for something to be considered porn. It has to be gratuitous. Not sure if that is the same for transmitting online or not.
It's fakin weird by today's standards though and is probably handled very differently from one place to another
I'll wave my ding dong
Your Tralala?
Do Google employees actually do anything other than sit around thinking of ways to make things worse? In the last few years we've had web environment integrity (thankfully that one seems to have been dropped), gutting the AOSP to the point where it's practically unusable on its own, Android developer verification, play integrity, QR code captchas and now this
Think I'll finish migrating away from google this weekend.
Yes this hand gesture
I will not do this. Whatever services require this i will not use.
If I have to do this to log into my email one last time as I'm migrating out, I will write off all emails there as lost. If my phone makes me do it to unlock it, I will go out and by an iPhone on the spot. That makes me want to puke typing that out, because I hate iPhones, but I'll do it.
Shit what am I gonna do about email
I signed up for tuta, but have yet to actually migrate. I've been on Gmail for over 20 years, so it's tough to get everything moved over as far as having used that for accounts.
Linux phone. It'll be painful, but maybe less painful þan an iPhone.
Whenever I need to send a selfie picture for whatever fucked up reason, I always give them a photo of my middle finger
Fuck these websites, fuck you Google
The fuck they will
The videos are never associated with a user's identity and are deleted after the verification process. Audio is never recorded.
I actually believe them. It's gonna start out this way. But in a year or two, they'll quietly slip in a provision stating they will hold on to the images for a short time for security purposes, then they will say that they will associate your image with your identity to make it more secure, then Google's AI will know everything about everyone (and sell the info to the highest bidder)
It should be considered a universal law of corporate behavior: any information that has theoretical value will eventually be sold.
Even if current management has no intention of exploiting it, they’ll be replaced by the board, or the division and its data will be spun off and sold for its IP—that’s how corporations work by nature (i.e., the purpose of a system is what it does).
~~Don't be evil~~
I believe them as well from a very literal perspective. The video will be deleted but the metadata that is created from the video will not.
That’s just v1. At some point they’ll realize that bots can deepfake a human waving and they’re going to want to truly verify it’s you by verifying the position of moles on your body… Then they’ll have to save your data… to secure your account!
Soon they’ll realize to get good mole data they’ll need you to show more skin, as some people don’t have much on their face and their clothing could be hiding those juicy datapoints.
That’s when v2 hits. Flash google your titties to secure your account, don’t worry it’s super secure and we never share your titties with law enforcement agencies unless it’s required by law!
You’ll be walking through your local library because tech has gone to far and you need to unplug but as you walk by the rows of shared computers it’ll all be old people flashing their titties at the screen to continue watching ads on YouTube.
This will be like the proof of age face scans. Yes, the VIDEO is deleted, but the unique biometric code describing your face sure as hell won't be deleted. Focusing on deleting the video has got to be a deliberate distraction
Hahahahahaha nope.
Calling it: In the future we will learn that they have been using it to gather face recognition data and have been using it to track their users in the real world by partnering with the likes of Flock.
we will learn that they have been using it to gather face recognition data
They already have all that with the trillions and trillions of photos people willingly backed up with Google photos.
The video gets deleted, they say. But they don't say what happens to the data derived from that video. Training models and such.
Reasonable bet if they didn't already have root on devices in people's pockets, with cameras pointing at their faces for hours per day. Along with GPS, cell, WiFi and Bluetooth location services.
"Rest assured, the video is TOTALLY deleted, bro... but we will take about 120 still screenshots per second as a backup."
"Oh weird, if you look at these screenshots real fast it's almost like they move, haha, fun!!"
The only hand gesture I'm giving Google is:
🖕
Do they have any idea the sheer volume of penis helicopters they are going to record by doing this?
Headlines in a year from now "Google's Contractor for Recaptcha Video Analysis suffering PTSD after seeing so many dicks and assholes"
It says in the docs:
"## Accessibility
For users with accessibility needs who cannot use hand gestures to complete the challenge, reCAPTCHA continues to provide visual and audio challenges, and develop more accessible and secure alternatives."
So it seems you can just do a different task if you don't want to do the hand thing anyway.
Edit: obligatory F google still of course.
For now.
Also the last time I tried using the audio option on recaptcha it felt like a psychotic break.
🖕
I need that goatse image to show them when they ask. Maybe I can get Gemini it animate some of the fingers moving.
Better yet, make it so you can see a hand giving the middle finger inside the cavernous space.
For users with accessibility needs who cannot use hand gestures to complete the challenge, reCAPTCHA continues to provide visual and audio challenges, and develop more accessible and secure alternatives.
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