TOT Mail tracking - rant

[Jimk]

Hmmmm.....

[alan_m]

This time I have some packages to be delivered by Royal Mail and have a couple of tracking numbers and a link to their site.

Since when have they started to use those picture verification grids, why are they all USA pictures, why are they using American terms (example: identify all pictures with cross-walks) and why is such security required on a parcel tracking site? There is no user ID or password involved so ANYONE with the tracking number can get in after jumping through this unnecessary series of hoops.

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

alan_m formulated on Tuesday :

Good question, why indeed - very annoying and the pictures are not always accurately described by the system, so you go around again. All a bit pointless anyway, because the only tracking you generally get is to say its been delivered.

[Dave Liquorice]

'Cause it's a google service?

Basic DoS (Denial of Service) attack mitigation. Stops people writting a script to rapidly submit "tracking queries" to the site overloading it. The recaptcha go/no go is not processed by the main sites server but by google one.

[Bob Eager]

And anything green is a tractor.

[R D S]

I hate that deeply.

You can often get around it by refreshing the page.

Their tracking tends to amount to no more than letting you know when they've delivered an item anyway, so little use to the recipient.

[alan_m]

Even less use

"Sorry, we're currently unable to confirm the status of your item"

[Brian Gaff (Sofa)]

They would be breaking the law in Norway, as inaccessible web devices mean they get finded every week they have no fix.

Its actually illegal here, but the law has no teeth, and its up to the blind person to complain and take them to court. Brian

[Adrian Caspersz]

Apparently, these tiles are live pictures from Google's street view car. It's harnessing you (unpaid and pissed off) to help it train its artificial intelligence to avoid future US self driving cars hitting pedestrians, ignoring road signs, and crashing into fire hydrants.

Them cars are going to be unsafe, here ...

[alan_m]

Its bad enough when not blind to spot some of the items they want you to identify.

[R D S]

It really is, I can't do them.

[R D S]

I was having a rant about Fedex earlier,

If you Google Fedex tracking the first result has the subtitle,

"FedEx tracking provides unparalleled insight into when your package will be delivered"

Unparalleled insight...... "On van, out for delivery"

Still better than Royal Mail though.

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

alan_m brought next idea :

+1

[Andy Burns]

When it asks for pictures of "cars" be sure to include all pickup trucks smarginally smaller than an artic.

[Andy Burns]

pictures from yes, live pictures from I highly doubt it.

[Andy Burns]

Even JCBs, which apparently aren't yellow over there.

[Bob Eager]

That was what I was thinking of.

[Brian Gaff (Sofa)]

Often there is an audio version as well, but due to the huge improvement in word recognition the spammers are aware and can solve them, but then they put background noise in, now they have upset the deaf as well. The true answer is some very well thought out questions which rely on the idiosyncrasies of language to make it harder for a machine to understand. Brian

[Adrian Caspersz]

Live in time, probably not (otherwise, we could cause accidents, hey that would be fun!..), but live as in 'taken from a live camera used on a car', yes

[alan_m]

Possibly by the number of items you don't identify before pressing continue. The other day a round ball on the top of a brick gatepost was the missing statue they wanted me to identify.