Authen::Captcha and GD::SecurityImage are two of the modules that do this. You may find code posted at Re: Authen::Captcha Segmentation Fault Under mod_perl useful. Related threads are Image Verification Program and Code to Block Scripts/Harwesters (GD based?)

There are issues with the visually impaired that bear thinking about. Another approach (can be complementary) is to log access time and IP and limit each IP to so many accesses per minute/hour/day as applicable. Like capthchas this too has some issues, most notably with lots of users behind one proxy. You can make life very hard for screen scrapers using bot tools with creative use of redirects, small javascript widgets and cookies. These measures may cause issues with the search engines which is yet another consideration.

cheers

tachyon


In reply to Re: Stop Form Hurling by tachyon
in thread Stop Form Hurling by awohld

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":



  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.