Some thoughts on anti-cheating systems

[Matthew Turner]

Roger,
Let’s take an average player, but one who is particularly good at remembering computer lines - what would it take for them to get a z score of 4 (everything else being equal)? Well it is something like in 5 consecutive games they remember 8 moves of computer theory that no-one (over 2300) had ever played before and their opponent played down the line they had remembered. Is that really credible?

[Roger de Coverly]

Well it is something like in 5 consecutive games they remember 8 moves of computer theory that no-one (over 2300) had ever played before and their opponent played down the line they had remembered. Is that really credible?

How do we know how much theory the witchfinder programs actually know? Do they really load them with all known games and all known theory?

The evidence of Justin Horton's ban from chess.com apparently for using published theory in a "daily" game points to the chess.com program really not knowing very much more than about half a dozen moves.

Given the various appeal mechanisms, is it not highly unlikely that FIDE would be able to successfully sanction a player purely on the say so of a computer program?

[MartinCarpenter]

I don’t think they can be using 5 sigma right now, else no one in the 4NCL on line would be that near getting banned (on moves alone.).

My slight worry in relation to opening theory overloads would be if you hit a long play game vs someone playing something slightly unsound but off beat and you catch them. That’s pretty unlikely at blitz time limits but actually quite plausible given something more like 4NCL time limits & a known opponent.
(And some of the openings people play.).

[Richard Bates]

I know it’s nothing to do with the topic, but was the opening post the longest ever on the EC forum?

Also - what is more ubiquitous? COVID-19 related discussions on the national news, or online cheating discussions on the ECforum?

Perhaps the time is ripe for Carl to create a new section on the forum to which all such discussions can be contained?

[John McKenna]

I agree that focus is being lost here in General Chat and that it was more to the point when discussion was taking place in General 4NCL Online (see 2 posts, from there, below)

There also exists General ECF Matters ECF Online Chess but I don't think there's been much if any sign of discussing the bugbear of cheating online there. (Edit: I was wrong about that, see next post.)

Should a 4NCL thread bear all the burden or should the ECF thread start shouldering its share now that it is starting to offer more formal County and Junior competitions?

I know Carl & Jack do not like merging ramified topics and that discussion of online cheating may not be confined to, say, General Online Cheating threads that include cheating in both 4NCL and ECF online events.

2 examples of more focused posts from 4NCL Online -

It's like catching a juvenile shoplifter and getting a quick confession, in-store, then saying this is the way to fight crime. The mature cat burglars and other hardened habitual criminals will just laugh, and the innocents caught up in such a simplistic system will just have to cry foul.

This really depends on what you're trying to do with the anti cheating.

If you have lots of people casually cheating on your server, and you want/need to actively deter it then you need the ability to catch cheats like this quickly. In doing that you will inevitably incur quite a high false positive rate.

That would be an utterly fine decision to take, but the services really should admit it to it.

Also, if we're trying to catch hardened, thoughtful cheats when they've got absolute control over their playing environment? Good luck! Incredibly hard. The move statistics will eventually nail them if they simply copy engine moves, some more subtle things would need huge samples.

The form of cheating that I'd actually expect to have been most prevalent in the 4NCL online would have been people looking up opening stuff.

And, this too, is very relevant -

Especially since it isn’t remotely a priori obvious what happened. They don’t need to give out full algorithmic details, just enough to say what they’re actually accused of.

The expected opening book length is of course something else that changes significantly as you move onto 4NCL and longer time limits. Prepare specifically for someone - and many people have the spare time to do that right now! - and you can get a *lot* of computer prep off.

No one does that consistently in blitz vs random people.

SNIP

That's all.

Edit: Not quite...

[John McKenna]

ECF Matters ECF Online Chess actually started with a discussion about cheating -

viewtopic.php?f=25&t=10533#p238167

[John McKenna]

While waiting for decisions based on quantities of big data you might like to try GM Soltis' little qualitative test -

https://new.uschess.org/news/soltis-man ... ing-tests/

[Michael Farthing]

The mathematics is all spurious - mainly because it is not backed by any empirical evidence.
While an orgnisation refuses to justify how it got its evdence and expose its evidence to cross-examination there is miscarriage of justice. Full stop.

[NickFaulks]

David,
Lichess and Chess.com are meeting with a FIDE every week to discuss their anti-cheating policies

Really? If there is anyone on the FIDE side with even a basic knowledge of mathematical statistics, I have been unable to establish the identity of that person.

[John McKenna]

Can't argue much wih Michael F about what he says, above. (Though if we all could check our online anti-cheating credit/debit scores with the various chess orgs it might be a place to start!?)

Continuing with a round up of online cheating threads & posts also see -

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=10775

And -

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7324

(It's probably lurking in other parts of the forum, too.)

What ho, Nick, no maths/stats wizards here(?) -

"There’s also an appropriate regulatory body that deals with the issue – FIDE’s Anti-Cheating Commission (from January 2015) made up of 13 people, two of whom are grandmasters (Konstantin Landa, Rafael Vaganian), two Women’s International Masters (Yuliya Levitan, Salomeja Zaksaite…"

https://chess24.com/en/read/news/how-i-became-a-cheater

[Matthew Turner]

I don’t think they can be using 5 sigma right now, else no one in the 4NCL on line would be that near getting banned (on moves alone.).

Well, like a number of other forumites, I have just come off a 2 hour conference call, and that is simply not true.

[Matthew Turner]

Well it is something like in 5 consecutive games they remember 8 moves of computer theory that no-one (over 2300) had ever played before and their opponent played down the line they had remembered. Is that really credible?

How do we know how much theory the witchfinder programs actually know? Do they really load them with all known games and all known theory?

Because in the case of Ken Regan’s software it Is publicly available information.

[MartinCarpenter]

I don’t think they can be using 5 sigma right now, else no one in the 4NCL on line would be that near getting banned (on moves alone.).

Well, like a number of other forumites, I have just come off a 2 hour conference call, and that is simply not true.

Genuine question - which bit? I was under the impression at least one person had got banned based purely on 2(?),4(?) 4ncl online games.

I really quite strongly doubt if you can reach 5 sigma levels of confidence in that small a data set.

Even if they think they can, with such a small sample, I'd be really worried about things like randomly sampling a game where they got very deep preparation in.

[Geoff Chandler]

Re online cheating.

Could you not insist every member installs a program like 'team player'.
Which is a program a boffin uses to remotely look at your machine to fix it.
They take over your machine as if they are actually sitting at your keyboard.

The chess one works in the same way only visa-versa.

Suppose I play Mathew online. We each have the chess version of team player installed.

We are then using each other's computer to make the moves.
The moves I make come from Mathew's computer, Mathews comes from mine.
It would be impossible for me using Mathews machine to access my copy of Rybka
which is installed on my computer.

And the end of the game. Your computer is back in your control.

Sorted: (I really should charge for solving these problems....this one is a freebie.)

[Roger de Coverly]

Genuine question - which bit? I was under the impression at least one person had got banned based purely on 2(?),4(?) 4ncl online games.

There were players banned after playing just a handful of rounds in the 4NCL league. As neither lichess nor the 4NCL will publish much of the reasons for the bans, it's open season for speculation. It could have been something as straightforward as a spectator with the same IP address following the game. Given that both lichess and chess.com appear to supply the very obvious security risk of live analysis whilst the game is in progress, that could be an explanation.