Six Australian lawmakers have called for warmer relations with Taiwan during a visit to the self-ruled island increasingly threatened by Beijing

Australian dealmakers are battling to rescue A$38 billion ($24 billion) worth of mergers that have been terminated or

Sofyan Amrabat has completed part of his Manchester United medical in Italy ahead of travelling to Carrington to finalise his move.

'RHOC' star Emily Simpson was accused of taking Ozempic after she flaunted her drastic weight loss

The Senate Judiciary Committee will vote Thursday on a new ethics code for the Supreme Court, an attempt to respond to recent revelations about justices’ interactions with wealthy donors and others

Bots are better and significantly faster than humans at cracking Captcha tests, according to a comprehensive new study that inspected the security system deployed in over 100 popular websites. Automated bots pose a significant threat to the internet because they can masquerade as legitimate human users and perform harmful operations like scraping content, creating accounts and posting fake comments or reviews, as well as consuming scarce resources. “If left unchecked, bots can perform these nefarious actions at scale,” warned scientists, including those from the University of California, Irvine. For over two decades, Captchas have been deployed as security checks by websites to block potentially harmful bots by presenting puzzles that are supposed to be straightforward for people to solve – but very difficult for computers. Earlier forms of Captcha, for instance, asked users to transcribe distorted text from an image, but with advances in computer vision and machine learning, bots soon caught up to recognise the text with near perfect accuracy. Engaged in an arms race with bots, Captchas have since evolved into an annoying presence on the internet, becoming increasingly more and more difficult to solve for both bots and humans. However, the new yet-to-be peer-reviewed research, posted in arXiv, finds bots are able to quickly crack Captcha tests with ease, suggesting global effort users put into cracking these puzzles every day may be more trouble than it’s worth. In the study, scientists assessed 200 of the most popular websites and found 120 still used Captcha. They took the help of 1,000 participants online from diverse backgrounds – varying in location, age, sex and educational level – to take 10 captcha tests on these sites and gauge their difficulty levels. Researchers found many bots described in scientific journals could beat humans at these tests in both speed and accuracy. Some captcha tests took human participants between nine and 15 seconds to solve, with an accuracy of about 50 to 84 per cent, while it took the bots less than a second to crack them, with up to near perfection. “The bots’ accuracy ranges from 85-100 per cent, with the majority above 96 per cent. This substantially exceeds the human accuracy range we observed (50-85 per cent),” scientists wrote in the study. They also found that the bots’ solving times are “significantly lower” or nearly the same as humans in almost all cases. Since current Captchas do not meet the required security goal of keeping bots away, researchers have called for better and more dynamic approaches to protect websites. Read More Shock for millions of voters as details exposed in hack – which went undetected for a year AI-driven cyberattack can now steal your passwords with near 100 per cent accuracy, study warns More than a million NHS patients’ details compromised after cyberattack ‘Billions’ of computers potentially affect by huge security vulnerability AI breakthrough could dramatically reduce planes’ global warming impact Earth hit by powerful ‘X-1’ solar flare, after fears of ‘cannibal’ blast

Protesters say the 30-hour blockade stopped over half a million tonnes of coal from leaving Australia.

Jordan McCloud hit Kaelon Black with a 10-yard tuchdown pass with 55 seconds to play, capping a fourth-quarter rally and James Madison beat Virginia 36-35, spoiling the Cavaliers’ first home game since three players were fatally shot last November

Newcastle midfielder Joelinton has revealed he received racist messages following last month’s Premier League defeat to Arsenal. The 26-year-old spoke about the subject while on international duty with Brazil, saying “many things need to be changed”. Newcastle were beaten 2-0 by the Gunners at St James’ Park on May 7. “It’s an important moment to speak about racism,” Joelinton told a press conference. “We have been talking about it for a long time. “Still, many things need to be changed. We talk about a combat against racism but we didn’t have much of a change. “This (racism) is not something happening now, but for a long time. “And, in the 21st century, we still see things like that. It’s hard to accept and believe that we are evolving when things like that still happen.” Asked if he had suffered racist abuse, the player replied: “Not on the pitch, no. “But after that match against Arsenal playing at home, I have received some messages with racist insults. But it’s gone, it didn’t affect me.” Joelinton, who is in line to win his first cap for his country in upcoming friendlies against Guinea and Senegal, received a message of support from his club. A post on Newcastle’s official Twitter account read: “There is no room for racism. Anywhere. We’re with you, Joe.” Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live

Pope Francis is shaming and challenging world leaders to take concrete action to slow climate change before it’s too late

Johnny Depp's 'Jeanne du Barry' kickstarted the Cannes Festival and received "seven minutes" of standing ovation

Israeli troops have pushed into the Gaza Strip’s largest city along a key coastal road on the Mediterranean Sea as part of their war on Hamas