CAPTCHAs in the Agentic Era: Solvers That Learn from Every Encounter

📅 2026-09-02
📈 Citations: 0
Influential: 0
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🤖 AI Summary
研究通过结合YOLOv8检测器与开放权重VLM,实现随使用而改进的CAPTCHA求解器,解决传统方法效率低、适应性差的问题。
📝 Abstract
Vision-language models (VLMs) can solve visual CAPTCHAs without task-specific training, but the agents built on them approach every challenge from scratch. For such an agent, the hundredth instance of a familiar puzzle costs as much time and compute as the first. Specialized detectors invert the trade-off, answering in milliseconds but only for categories they were trained on. Neither improves with exposure. We study what changes when a solver improves with use. Our system pairs a fine-tuned YOLOv8 detector with an open-weight VLM behind a confidence-based router, and runs entirely from screenshots and operating-system input events, with no browser automation or DOM access. It reaches 85.4% overall and 84.2% macro accuracy across 16 classes, exceeding either component alone. Every answer VLM produces also serves as a training label, so the detector absorbs categories it was never trained for, typically after one or two encounters and without human annotation. The same loop also repairs it. A CAPTCHA operator can perturb images against the publicly released detector and drive its accuracy to 0%, but the perturbations leave VLM untouched, and its labels let the detector recover. Under a year-long simulated arms race in which the CAPTCHA operator re-crafts its perturbations each month, the solver recovers every round, and a cheap ~70%-accurate open-weight teacher hardens it as effectively as a perfect oracle. Visual CAPTCHA defenses that assume a failing bot stays failing therefore understate how quickly an adaptive solver returns.
Problem

Research questions and friction points this paper is trying to address.

CAPTCHAs
Visual-language models
Adaptive solvers
Innovation

Methods, ideas, or system contributions that make the work stand out.

YOLOv8
Visual-Language Models (VLMs)
Confidence-Based Router
Adaptive Solver
Self-Repairing
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