What is the point in captcha tests?

Question

If you don't know what captcha is, it's those things you get before joining a website.

Type: JX54sDa

That sort of thing.

What is the point in them?

Answer 1

the point is to prevent automated site registrations. Those are done by malicious programs to spread spam advertising. The way it works is that the picture is readable by a human, but not a computer.

more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captcha

Answer 2

in one word spam

its to stop bots registring to websites to spam the forums