When I was a fifteen year old "internet marketer" I was able to create 60,000 google accounts from residential IP's, despite google's CAPTCHA system. As a fifteen year old kid, that's when I knew google is not an invincible company.
The trick was that google's backend registration logic did not validate the referrer of the signup form, or that the submitting IP address matched the one that downloaded the CAPTCHA. So I cloned the form on my own server, loaded it in an invisible iFrame with all fields filled except the CAPTCHA. Then I served the CAPTCHA to the user, who solved it and clicked "submit". Then the entire hidden form in the iframe submitted and registered a google account with the visitor's IP.
I was surprised that worked, because it was a huge vulnerability. Nowadays I would go for the bug bounty, but back then I tried to sell it for $5k -- unfortunately nobody believed I could do it and I couldn't prove it without revealing the method, so I ended up unable to take advantage of the code.
I did have about 60k accounts from random page views on blogspot blogs, but I never did anything with them. Perhaps that was the only time my inability to finish projects ironically saved me from some trouble. :)
The trick was that google's backend registration logic did not validate the referrer of the signup form, or that the submitting IP address matched the one that downloaded the CAPTCHA. So I cloned the form on my own server, loaded it in an invisible iFrame with all fields filled except the CAPTCHA. Then I served the CAPTCHA to the user, who solved it and clicked "submit". Then the entire hidden form in the iframe submitted and registered a google account with the visitor's IP.
I was surprised that worked, because it was a huge vulnerability. Nowadays I would go for the bug bounty, but back then I tried to sell it for $5k -- unfortunately nobody believed I could do it and I couldn't prove it without revealing the method, so I ended up unable to take advantage of the code.
I did have about 60k accounts from random page views on blogspot blogs, but I never did anything with them. Perhaps that was the only time my inability to finish projects ironically saved me from some trouble. :)