It looks like Time has taken some action to combat the hack of the Time 100 Poll. They are now using a captcha to verify that the voter is a human – the result being that the 4chan autovoters are now being banned.
The new captcha
With the new defenses in place, the delicate balance of the poll results order can no longer be maintained by the /b/tards. The Message is no more:
After just a couple of hours, the Message has decayed from “marblecake also the game” to “mablre caelakosteghamm”.
I don’t think this is the final shot in the war. I suspect that even as I type this the 4chan folks are poking and prodding, looking for another chink in Time’s armor. It will be interesting to see if and when they respond. Still, 4chan has awoken the sleeping giant. They’ve been noticed, and whatever they do, now that the giant is awake and paying attention, it will be much harder for them. But, I wouldn’t bet against the /b/tards yet. It’s like the final moments in Star Wars Episode V. Yes, Han Solo is currently frozen in carbonite, but honestly, you know he’s going to make it out in the next episode.
Music Machinery 
#1 by SpAn on April 17, 2009 - 2:46 pm
I give it a day, max before the channers get back on top of this.
#2 by pruneau on April 17, 2009 - 3:35 pm
I really like the way you guys are kind of passively-aggressively (for lack of better adjective) throwing the gauntlet down to our 4chan friends ;-).
But I tend to side with you guys on the delay, since some of our 4chan friends seemed to imply that he/she (1) was going to get some more computing power in the near future.
Oh, and just do some google search on “captcha automated cracking”.
(1) You did not fall for the over-abused metaphor that the 4chan people are all hairy males working from their basement, did you ?
#3 by Andy Baio on April 17, 2009 - 6:35 pm
I have to admit, I was a bit disappointed that 4chan couldn’t beat Ashton Kutcher to 1 million Twitter followers. They were foiled by the same technique: a Recaptcha on Twitter’s account creation (and, later, IP blocking/timeouts for new accounts). Until they can effectively crack or bypass Recaptcha, they’ll never be able to truly automate the process.
#4 by Jeff A on April 18, 2009 - 12:12 am
Man, way to post the spoiler. Han gets out??
#5 by Nick on April 19, 2009 - 10:20 pm
“Until they can effectively crack or bypass Recaptcha, they’ll never be able to truly automate the process.”
If they copied the Recaptcha images to 4chan and required every post to enter an answer I think that would work…
I guess they don’t really need the help, though, do they?
#6 by Anonymous on April 20, 2009 - 6:10 pm
a way has been found
#7 by Jeff Barea on April 23, 2009 - 8:00 pm
Querer Es Poder.
Where are my keys?
#8 by Anonymous on April 26, 2009 - 8:51 am
mARBLECAKE ALSO THE GAME.
That’s right.