Having Trouble with Security Challenges?

Duotrope, and our submission manager Duosuma, use different types of security challenges to keep the site as safe as possible and to reduce the risk of bots causing mischief. No security measures exist that ensure perfect security, and no security measures exist that don't have false-positives in identifying bots versus humans. We do our best to have a balance between security and a good (human) user experience.

I'm getting challenged a lot. What should I do?

Most human visitors to Duotrope/Duosuma should rarely be challenged. If you are being challenged frequently with Q&A challenges and/or full-screen challenges, that indicates that there is something unusual with your requests. If you go through all the steps in the following checklist, it should reduce the frequency of security challenges:

1. Run a virus scanner on your computer or device. It may be infected.
2. When logging in, use the "Keep me logged in longer" option if it is safe to do so (if you aren't using a public computer).
3. If possible, don't use a VPN (or Tor) to access Duotrope. That makes your requests look very suspicious, especially if they appear to come from different countries in a short period of time. It can also look like you are a bot visiting from a web host.

If you have done all that and you're still getting a lot of security challenges (more than 2 per 24 hours), you can contact Technical Support. In your message, please include the following:

• Describe the challenge presented to you.
• How often do you see it?
• Are you able to "solve" it and continue with what you were doing?