captcha & challenge intel

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one card per challenge system: the mechanic, the score model and its polarity, the gate escalation ladder, and how it is solved. read the polarity before the score: a 0.9 means human on recaptcha and a near-certain bot on hcaptcha enterprise. drag the score, watch the gate flip, and use the status-code identifier to name who blocked you.

  • google
  • intuition machines
  • cloudflare
  • arkose labs
  • geetest
  • amazon
  • datadome
  • akamai
  • kasada

recaptcha v2

google · image grid · confirmed · as of 2026-06-15

type
captcha-widget
mechanic
image grid

score model + polarity

binary pass/fail on the i'm-not-a-robot checkbox, escalating to an image grid.

threshold convention

no numeric score; a passive risk read decides whether the checkbox passes silently or pops a grid.

no 0..1 score axis: the gate is a pass/fail solve or a marker, not a tunable number.

score → outcome

recaptcha v2 has no numeric 0..1 score to drag; its gate is a pass/fail solve or a marker, not a tunable score. the escalation ladder above is the model.

escalation ladder

  1. checkbox passes silently (low risk read)

  2. image grid challenge (suspicious read)

  3. harder / repeated grids on continued suspicion

solve approach

legit: click the checkbox, solve the grid. automation: solver farms ship the grid to human workers or a vision model and post back g-recaptcha-response.

which vendor blocked me?

pick the status code (and the tell) you got back; the catalog maps it to the systems that gate that way. a bare 429 with no captcha is the kasada drop.

status code

datadome serves a 403 with a dd{} json that redirects to captcha-delivery; akamai 403s protected routes while _abck stays ~-1~.

likely vendors · 4