Implementing Captcha into PHP script

Keywords: Gimp, Gimpy, Captcha 

It's most particularly frustrating when the software's website doesn't
offer a detailed explanation for all features.  Documentation that can
be found is incredibly old (6-8 years) and is quite out of date.

I am searching for a clean cut strategy for implementing Captcha
(Human verification) into PHP.

I've viewed about a hundred results, and have had several competent
users assist in the search, but have found little to anything that was
useful.  At the top of the "useless" list is the " Gungadin's PHP
Captcha Script "

Results including anything pertaining to GD2 (the new Graphics Package
for linux) is out.  The complexity of the upgrade is not feasible at
this point.

Satisfactory results must include:
- Will be expected to produce a result very similar to the Captcha
images found on https://register.passport.net/reg.srf  (
www.passport.net )'s registration page, (Including the 'distraction
threads')
- All search queries used to find the result this answer.
 
Seeking EITHER 
     A.)  Preferred: Gimp as realistic solution:
          1.) Reference PLUS  example of how to utilize GIMP's 
non-user-interface batch, console interface in a manor friendly to php
[without using perl].  The gimp man pages have already been read, and
that data has been taken into account.
          2.) How to setup gimp on a system without access to an X
Terminal (No user interface to run the initial gimp setup)
          3.) it would be nice to know how to take advantage of the
MathMap plug-in - in the batch mode, however using a few of the
'distort' tools would be fine.


- OR - 


      B.) Calling Linux console commands on a Redhat System that does
not have XServer installed that can take a jpg, png, gif that already
has letters placed on it.  And applying this to a 3d transform to
achieve the above described results.

BACKGROUND: 
I have found:
http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/~schani/mathmap/
and http://hans.breuer.org/gimp/pdb/script_fu.html
but don't know how to use the script_fu functions in association with
the batch function.

---

Clarification of Question by davem_webdev-ga on 14 Feb 2004 07:55 PST

I appreciate the 'comments' posted here, however the one thing that
this openSource is missing is documentation, documentation that I
would GLADLY make if i had the knowledge to even start that process.
    Was the 'gd2=flash' a sarcastic remark?  If not, please explain
how the php functions that specificially require GD2 are tied in to
flash.

2. GD2 is specifically requested for the process I'm looking to do.
Fatal error: imagecreatetruecolor(): requires GD 2.0 or later in
/web/test/image.php on line 23

I'm also under a deadline for development, I've not had the pleasure
of working with flash, I also believe in making websites that people
who don't have all the bells and whistles (flash) can still visit, be
that surfing from a handheld, or phone, atleast those can take the
images in.  I would hate to have to implement something special
(flash) just for this one component.

I'm always amused when I hear complaints about an OpenSources free
software not having good documentation. The basic idea behind
OpenSource is if a package doesn't have something you feel it should,
then add it, don't complain about it, especially if you aren't
supporting the creator's work in any way except to benefit your own
website.

The packages you are talking about are not designed to work on a
server you don't own. Not having Xserver available means this is
probably an ISP server, or a dedicated host. Either way, that's not
enough. Second, all of these are experimental, and it says that in the
documentation, and it also says that the upgrade to the GD2 library is
required. Since you read the documentation pages, you know this.

Third... the package you are looking for is called Flash. 

have a great day

webadept-ga

Installing gd2 isn't all *that* difficult. In fact, gd 4.3.x includes
a good distribution of gd so that you don't have to separately install
it. As long as libpng, libz, libjpeg and libfreetype are installed on
the system when you configure and build the latest stable version of
PHP, you should get what you want. And since gd2's purpose is to let
you render things without an X server, and most software relies on it
because it does that job successfully and for free, I must suggest
that you give installing this package another whirl. I'd be glad to
answer specific questions that arise from the process of doing so.