to the author of Spark and Bright

[PawnStormZ]

   Firstly, I am new to this forum, and I apologize if these questions have been asked before, or if I am completely wrong in my conclusions. I am using Win 7 64 bit on an I7.

   I downloaded both engines today.  I was inspired to get Spark after seeing some postings where it found the solutions to positions when other engines were having a tough time.  I found Bright from your link on the Spark page.

   Regarding Spark 0.3a, I am having difficulty using the mp version in the Aquarium 3.1.1 GUI. Even though I have set the "threads" to 4, it uses only 1 when analyzing.  I see an entry in the error.log file that says "Option not supported: threads".  I tried a test in console mode and after I set the option for threads to 4, it did still use only 1.  However, if I set the option using Threads (a capital letter T) it works in the console using 4 threads---or should I say Threads  It seems that Aquarium tries to set the option using threads (small t) and it is not accepted. Is this a known issue?

   Regarding Bright 0.5c, when I unzip it or try to use it, I get a virus alert from Comodo saying "UnclassifiedMalware".  Of course, I am not accusing you of putting in a virus, but I wanted you to be aware of the issue, if you are not already.
 

[PawnStormZ]

   Has anyone else received the virus warning about Bright 0.5c from Comodo, or some other AV program?

   If you have the mp version of Spark 0.3a working in Aquarium 3.1.1 please let me know what I need to do to get it working here.

   Thanks

[swami]

   Has anyone else received the virus warning about Bright 0.5c from Comodo, or some other AV program?

Hi Pal,

No, I didn't receive any virus warning. I think perhaps you should use better Anti Virus program instead of Comodo which btw is bit outdated. I hate anti virus programs giving lots of false alerts. I have AVG and it's doing better than expected.

[Zagalo]

   Has anyone else received the virus warning about Bright 0.5c from Comodo, or some other AV program?

If your in dout, just upload the file to http://www.virustotal.com to check it with about 40 antivirus programs

[PawnStormZ]

   Has anyone else received the virus warning about Bright 0.5c from Comodo, or some other AV program?

If your in dout, just upload the file to http://www.virustotal.com to check it with about 40 antivirus programs

   Thanks Zagalo. That is a good link for future reference.

   I want to clarify that there are 2 exe files in the Bright archive: one for regular Chess: bright-0.5c.exe, and one for Fischer Random: bright-0.5c-frc.exe; they both generate the alerts.

   The above site had 3 positives for both files, from Comodo 4087, F-Secure 9.0.15370.0, and TrendMicro 9.120.0.1004; and McAfee-GW-Edition 6.8.5 for the regular chess file.  As I said, I am sure that the files are fine, but maybe the author would like to know this so that he could "fix" the issues.

[Zagalo]

I uploaded my 'bright-0.5c.zip' and got only 2/41 (2 positives from 41 AV programs) 4.88%. Comodo : "UnclassifiedMalware" and TrendMicro : "PAK_Generic.001". And both dont mean a virus

The Virustotal Result of 2/41 (4.88%) is Definitely Not a Virus. You should only be worried if you get something like 30%+

The .exe files maybe packed by UPX to make them smaller and thats what generated the warnings

More info from virustotal.com :
------------
Additional information
File size: 315746 bytes
MD5...: a249ead9e87dcbc3da3810de9dc96d4a
SHA1..: 0f26cdd9698437faff15859bce98b7be9fc2b0cb
------------

You should have Identical info as above for the 'bright-0.5c.zip' file

[Allard Siemelink]

Hi Pal,

Thank you for reporting these issues, they're both new to me.

Regarding Spark, indeed it treats all option names as case sensitive.
According to the UCI protocol specification it appears that it should not,
so I will fix this in the next release.
Most probably, the other options (such as Hash) are affected too.
As far as I am aware, the problem does not surface with other gui's except Aquarium.

Regarding Bright, assuming you downloaded it from my website
(http://members.ziggo.nl/allard.siemelink/bright) it should not contain any virus or malware.
The executable is compressed by upx (http://upx.sourceforge.net/)
Presumably this causes a false malware warning from Comodo.
Does Comodo still issue warnings after you uncompress the exe with upx?

   Firstly, I am new to this forum, and I apologize if these questions have been asked before, or if I am completely wrong in my conclusions. I am using Win 7 64 bit on an I7.

   I downloaded both engines today.  I was inspired to get Spark after seeing some postings where it found the solutions to positions when other engines were having a tough time.  I found Bright from your link on the Spark page.

   Regarding Spark 0.3a, I am having difficulty using the mp version in the Aquarium 3.1.1 GUI. Even though I have set the "threads" to 4, it uses only 1 when analyzing.  I see an entry in the error.log file that says "Option not supported: threads".  I tried a test in console mode and after I set the option for threads to 4, it did still use only 1.  However, if I set the option using Threads (a capital letter T) it works in the console using 4 threads---or should I say Threads  It seems that Aquarium tries to set the option using threads (small t) and it is not accepted. Is this a known issue?

   Regarding Bright 0.5c, when I unzip it or try to use it, I get a virus alert from Comodo saying "UnclassifiedMalware".  Of course, I am not accusing you of putting in a virus, but I wanted you to be aware of the issue, if you are not already.
 

[Allard Siemelink]

   Has anyone else received the virus warning about Bright 0.5c from Comodo, or some other AV program?

If your in dout, just upload the file to http://www.virustotal.com to check it with about 40 antivirus programs

Good link, I should remember to check my future releases here before I upload!

[PawnStormZ]

Hi Pal,

Thank you for reporting these issues, they're both new to me.

Regarding Spark, indeed it treats all option names as case sensitive.
According to the UCI protocol specification it appears that it should not,
so I will fix this in the next release.
Most probably, the other options (such as Hash) are affected too.
As far as I am aware, the problem does not surface with other gui's except Aquarium.

   Thanks for your response Allard.

   I am glad that my report about the UCI options was helpful.  I look forward to your next release so that I will be able to use Spark "at full strength" using all 4 of my cores in Aquarium.  

[jwes]

You should be able to contact the virus checker websites and tell them that your program is not malware and have them put in an exception for it. Check their websites.