I live in China and use a VPN for all my otherwise blocked sites - including Yahoo. The sign-in process on my laptop has become a total nightmare the last few days as a 'robot' continually requires me (a human) to prove I am not a robot. Tapping on hydrants, cars, bikes etc and knowing I am getting every single one correct I get told I have used too many attempts and 'come back tomorrow'. This is the most inefficient and time-consuming (for a human) system going. I have used others more efficiently. I have used Yahoo for 20+ years as my primary email address, gmail is my secondary one. And... I check my Chinese work address once a month.

Your online help was no use but I was able to work around the problem after a few hours, reset my password and recover the use of my email on my laptop. But now, on my mobile, I have to sign in again as my password has changed. And... I need to prove I am not a robot.

Can I please request that a genuine human being delves into whatever useless AI system Yahoo is using (HAL9000 possibly) and get this circular problem (and it is a computer loop problem) sorted.

I will be moving back to Thailand before the end of the year. And as Yahoo has been my primary email address for so long I do not want to switch to gmail. However, if I continually have to prove to an AI robot that I am a human being and fail I will be forced to. If anybody (human that is) wishes to contact me via email I am prepared to provide snapshots and so on of the failing steps of the process.

Yours Nigel Hywel-Jones PhD