小和--Introduction

With the prevalence of digital communication networks, increasing amount of information is being generated and exchanged electronically.To effectively address the growth in data quantity, automatic processing ‘bots’ or ‘agents’ have been developed to aid human user in filtering or summarizing raw materials. With the introduction of new web standards such as XML and semantic web [1], it is expected that search, exchange, and interaction across different platforms will become more convenient and precise.

While we celebrate and enjoy the convenience of automation, it should be cautioned that abuse of technology can result in undesirable consequences. For example, scripts to register for free e-mail accounts in quantity have proliferated to such an extent that major portal sites have adopted certain anti-automation strategy to counter-attack.Automated playing ‘bots’ in the form of plug-ins can seriously interfere with the normal operation of online games and thus take the fairness and fun away from the whole experience. A simple and effective approach to automatically tell humans and machines apart will prove valuable for the aforementioned scenarios.

隨著網路通訊技術的普及，數位化的資訊也越來越豐富。為了幫助人們能更有效率的分析與整合這些資料，所謂的＂機器人＂或是＂代理人＂程式也因此應運而生。透過XML或是語意網路等新一代的網路技術，不同平台間的搜尋、交流以及互動將會更加方便，也更加準確。

當我們對自動化的方便感到慶幸的同時，不可諱言的，我們也必須要正視自動化的濫用將可能導致的恐怖後果。舉例來說，利用自動化程式大量註冊免費郵件帳號，導致入口網站禁不起流量的激增，只好設計出反自動化程式加以反制。作為外掛的自動化遊戲機器人，則會妨礙正常的遊戲方式，進而嚴重影響遊戲的公平性與趣味性。最簡單而有效的方法，便是提出一個能夠自動分辨人類與電腦的程式，來防止上述情況的發生。