CB: Feedback on the ICGA/Rybka disqualification scandal

[michiguel]

Obfuscating depth's, nodes, main-lines, among them is common practise. Also not displaying the main lines of the first ply, or first few plies. All to protect one's secrets (livelihood).

The question you have to ask yourself is what was the protected secret, Ed. Remember Occam's razor... I'll quote Rick again:

Rick Fadden, Barre, Vermont, USA
(...) People noted that Rybka search looked like Fruit search once the obfuscation was removed.

Now I've always assumed that talented chess programmers would be very logical persons, so your personal crusade is a total mystery to me, Ed.

Of course, I am perfectly aware that I can be wrong, and I often ask myself "am I being logical? Is what I believe based on facts or is it second handed and based on other people's convictions?" and so on, but still my current conviction is that Rybka 1 was derived from Fruit. The main reasons for my belief are:
- the technical evidences. They are pretty overwhelming.
- Vas eluding all difficult questions and refusing to answer them (even pretending to have lost any code prior to R3... Come one!!!)
- the mass hysteria on Rybka forum. If I ever would be inclined to investigate a bit deeper and get the other side of the story, Vas' supporters would drive me away, so absolutely lunatic they look like. (But maybe Talkchess look that way to them too?)
- the ChessBase's article made me lose my last doubts regarding Rybka, so awfully written it was (both style and content).

With time passing, my conviction gets stronger.

So, I'm puzzled that you could still stick to your conviction.

I am puzzled why you are puzzled . You may disagree, but puzzled?

I consider yourself as being honest, and I really think that you genuinely consider Vas as being not guilty. Still, it seems to me that you are driven by passion more than logics (please don't take this as condescendence: I'm younger than you and I respect my elder a lot, especially when they've achieved as impressively as you did, plus I'm 100% sure I'll never be half as talented as you are with coding). The question is: why?

To answer it, I go in myself and remember why I felt sympathy for Vas (that was before witnessing him dodging the questions this week), despite how overwhelming the ICGA report looked like. And I find out that the main reasons come from my feeling of what justice is (add to this that I am a jurist).

I remember I found the ICGA "court" to be very amateurish. Especially because you don't let someone be judged by its competitors.

You don't leak information during the process...
You don't misrepresent who signed the official document (report)...
You don't choose to ignore information in the report that may look good to the accused one...
You don't have leader members who would qualify as plaintiffs...

Is it also why you started to dislike the whole thing and turn to Vas ?

But remember that it's not because someone didn't get the best trial that he's not guilty. Also, the ICGA is a sport authority, and despite they should have let a professional jurist lead the debates, their findings must only be seen as a sport authority's findings, susceptible of confirmation by a court. That's why I hope the FSF will go to court to decide this once and for all: this war must end.

ICGA is also an academic forum that publishes academic articles, and this is not how things are dealt in Academia.

Until then, do you think you could take the time to write a detailed post explaining logically and without passion why you believe Vas is innocent? I (and many others), really need to understand why you think so, because until now we really don't.

If you are a jurist it should not be difficult to understand that is a minor issue whether Vas is innocent or not.

Miguel

[Graham Banks]

Why need a patch ?

Because I was putting to test this assertion :

Rick Fadden, Barre, Vermont, USA
(...) People noted that Rybka search looked like Fruit search once the obfuscation was removed.

Well, I can't replicate this. R's search doesn't look at all like Fruit's search, to me. So I'm waiting for people who support this assertion to back it up, now.

Interesting. Ponder hit stats didn't show a close correlation either.

[h1a8]

Also, this comment is especially interesting:

Rick Fadden, Barre, Vermont, USA

In the News article "A Gross Miscarriage of Justice in Computer Chess (part three), Soren Riis mentions my name and he gives a summary of my contribution. What he wrote is wrong, and this causes a problem.

Correction: The subject of my posts was "Strelka is a reverse engineered Rybka." I was demonstrating that Strelka source code exactly matched disassembled Rybka 1.0 beta. My posts could be interpreted as a defense of Vas Rajlick, because my focus was that someone else had copied from him, with Strelka matching what is in the Rybka binary. So many years later this author interprets my Stelka related comparison as making a false claim related to copying Fruit. Re-read my posts. If I mention the Fruit claims, it is just as a side comment. On that whole Fruit subject I was a spectator not an instigator.

Something else that should be reported though: in looking inside the Rybka 1.0 beta binary I found that Vas Rajlich was lying about how deep Rybka was searching, how many nodes it searched, and the Nodes per second reporting. In the code I point out that Vas includes a lot of code to "obfuscate" and to hide the fact that Rybka was a "fast, deep searcher", not a "slow searcher with max chess knowledge."

So I gave all kinds of supporting evidence that Vas obfuscated within his node reporting logic. I showed for example that when you enter a depth of search limit, Vas changes the input number to keep the limit consistent with his internal logic. (I could describe this in more detail.) So here's what I did to further prove this point: I created a binary patch of Rybka 1.0 beta to remove the math and instructions that hide the actual reported depth of search, and I posted this patch in the forum. With the patch applied to Rybka 1.0 beta the chess engine plays as before, and search proceeds exactly as before, *but* the program then properly displays it's actual search depth, nodes encountered, and nodes per second. (Frankly it's really neat seeing what Rybka is actually doing versus the false impression that Vas intends us to see.) Others used this patch to then watch Rybka play while reporting it's actual depth of search, and *they* noted that once you see the true search things look visibly very much like Fruit's reported search.

Keep in mind there was an initial legitimate question that I posed to Vas in the Rybka forum "Why did you obfuscate search reporting?" Vas reported in his own forum that he likes to think of nodes differently than other people, but everyone reading this weak excuse pretty well figured there was another reason why his code deliberately obfuscates it's search. People noted that Rybka search looked like Fruit search once the obfuscation was removed. Further investigation into possible coping of Fruit, pursued by other people, not me... may have been driven by this exposed blatant obfuscation.

My role was to send out information that I found during my effort to demonstrate that Strelka was a reverse engineered Rybka binary. The search depth obfuscation code that I found in that process bothered me, and I wanted to tell people what was in the code. In the Rybka forum I asked Vas to remove this obfuscation from future versions of Rybka, and Vas replied that he would likely keep this in Rybka. I see that even the latest versions of Rybka still include this search depth and nodes per second obfuscation.

Notice I didn't post anything after giving out my patch. I had written to Robert Hyatt (I've interacted with Bob since the 70's) explaining about this obfuscation built into Rybka, but I did not pursue the topic further. I never participated in an effort to prove that Rybka copied from Fruit.

Ed, if you read this, (plus Vas dodging all the questions in Rybka forum this week), doesn't it shake your conviction (that appears so illogical to me and others...) ?

The fact that Rybka obfuscate search reporting is known from the time that rybka is released(for everybody who tried to test rybka1 beta at depth 1) so it is clearly not news not for me and not for Ed.

It is clear for every programmer that no program can see so much tactics that Rybka can see at depth 1 so probably rybka searches deeper than depth 1 when it reports depth 1.

I do not agree that "People noted that Rybka search looked like Fruit search once the obfuscation was removed."

This is simply not correct.
Strelka that is very similiar to Rybka1 beta without the obfuscation and I never noticed that Rybka search looked like Fruit search based on the output of both engines.

Obfuscation does not change the observed search and I easily noticed that Strelka1.8's search is almost the same as Rybka1 beta search

It is easy to see that there are positions when Rybka's output at depth 6,7,8 is almost the same as Strelka's output at depth 9,10,11

It does not happen with Rybka and Fruit for the simple reason that Rybka is clearly different than fruit.

Note that I also disagree with K I Hyams that Strelka is a fruit clone.
Strelka that is free source code has little in common with fruit.

The move generator of strelka is clearly different and is based on bitboards.

The evaluation is also different(and it is not close to be exact translation of fruit's evaluation).
The evaluation

+1
I guess this post makes so much sense that no one bothered to refute it.
Could it be bias?

[Rebel]

Look Keith, it's not something for me to answer, but Lukas Cimiotti. I already said it is odd.

[Harvey Williamson]

Please can someone delete this posted in error - thx!!

[Harvey Williamson]

Look Keith, it's not something for me to answer, but Lukas Cimiotti. I already said it is odd.

Yes he is. look what he just said to me:



It all came in reply to this



The monkey comment because of this
http://open-chess.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1802

[Don]

I'm not defending Vas here, but it is up to each program how it reports information. There is no law that says you have to do it a certain way and programs are so selective these days that I even think of Komodo as actually doing less real depth than it reports. Yes, I think it's really odd how Rybka does it but it's not real evidence of anything in my opinion.

Losing source code is certainly not odd either. I have lost many things over the years and I do not even have every development version of Komodo and Doch. I use version control and back everything up on 3 different computers but due to my own stupidity I lost a lot of older Komodo source while reorganizing things. I had been using "sync" style backup which makes what I delete get deleted on all the machines (so I have recently changed how I do backups.)

I would prefer keeping every version since the beginning of time, but what I really care about is only the last year or so.

My point is that we should be careful when we make observations that impute motives when we have no evidence for it other than our belief that he is guilty. That is the kind of thing flat earthers do. I'm not too comfortable using my imagination to fill in the gaps. I think we have plenty of facts and real evidence.

[bob]

Also, this comment is especially interesting:

Rick Fadden, Barre, Vermont, USA

In the News article "A Gross Miscarriage of Justice in Computer Chess (part three), Soren Riis mentions my name and he gives a summary of my contribution. What he wrote is wrong, and this causes a problem.

Correction: The subject of my posts was "Strelka is a reverse engineered Rybka." I was demonstrating that Strelka source code exactly matched disassembled Rybka 1.0 beta. My posts could be interpreted as a defense of Vas Rajlick, because my focus was that someone else had copied from him, with Strelka matching what is in the Rybka binary. So many years later this author interprets my Stelka related comparison as making a false claim related to copying Fruit. Re-read my posts. If I mention the Fruit claims, it is just as a side comment. On that whole Fruit subject I was a spectator not an instigator.

Something else that should be reported though: in looking inside the Rybka 1.0 beta binary I found that Vas Rajlich was lying about how deep Rybka was searching, how many nodes it searched, and the Nodes per second reporting. In the code I point out that Vas includes a lot of code to "obfuscate" and to hide the fact that Rybka was a "fast, deep searcher", not a "slow searcher with max chess knowledge."

So I gave all kinds of supporting evidence that Vas obfuscated within his node reporting logic. I showed for example that when you enter a depth of search limit, Vas changes the input number to keep the limit consistent with his internal logic. (I could describe this in more detail.) So here's what I did to further prove this point: I created a binary patch of Rybka 1.0 beta to remove the math and instructions that hide the actual reported depth of search, and I posted this patch in the forum. With the patch applied to Rybka 1.0 beta the chess engine plays as before, and search proceeds exactly as before, *but* the program then properly displays it's actual search depth, nodes encountered, and nodes per second. (Frankly it's really neat seeing what Rybka is actually doing versus the false impression that Vas intends us to see.) Others used this patch to then watch Rybka play while reporting it's actual depth of search, and *they* noted that once you see the true search things look visibly very much like Fruit's reported search.

Keep in mind there was an initial legitimate question that I posed to Vas in the Rybka forum "Why did you obfuscate search reporting?" Vas reported in his own forum that he likes to think of nodes differently than other people, but everyone reading this weak excuse pretty well figured there was another reason why his code deliberately obfuscates it's search. People noted that Rybka search looked like Fruit search once the obfuscation was removed. Further investigation into possible coping of Fruit, pursued by other people, not me... may have been driven by this exposed blatant obfuscation.

My role was to send out information that I found during my effort to demonstrate that Strelka was a reverse engineered Rybka binary. The search depth obfuscation code that I found in that process bothered me, and I wanted to tell people what was in the code. In the Rybka forum I asked Vas to remove this obfuscation from future versions of Rybka, and Vas replied that he would likely keep this in Rybka. I see that even the latest versions of Rybka still include this search depth and nodes per second obfuscation.

Notice I didn't post anything after giving out my patch. I had written to Robert Hyatt (I've interacted with Bob since the 70's) explaining about this obfuscation built into Rybka, but I did not pursue the topic further. I never participated in an effort to prove that Rybka copied from Fruit.

Ed, if you read this, (plus Vas dodging all the questions in Rybka forum this week), doesn't it shake your conviction (that appears so illogical to me and others...) ?

Really now Julien

You don't want to be in the head of a commercial, it's a scary place

Obfuscating depth's, nodes, main-lines, among them is common practise. Also not displaying the main lines of the first ply, or first few plies. All to protect one's secrets (livelihood). Like Rick don't be too disappointed with our kind

I have not seen ANY other program obfuscate node count, depth, and intentionally shorten the PV. Doesn't prove there isn't one, but it DOES suggest that such are few and far between. I think the reason Vas did it is beyond obvious...

[bob]

If R1-R3 are lost, can you come up with an explanation for the reason why Cimiotti and Rajlich were discussing whether or not they should hand over the "non existent" code to the ICGA?

- N/- By Lukas Cimiotti (*****) [de] Date 2011-08-14 10:28
Vas and I discussed whether or not he should give source code to the ICGA. He really didn't like that idea. My idea was removing all comments and maybe changing all names of variables to make the code harder to understand. But as the guys that disassembled Rybka hadn't understood several parts of the code, we agreed it's safer to not give anything to our competitors.
So Vas only defended himself by saying: I did nothing wrong.
http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforu ... ;hl=source

If you can come up with an explanation, I suggest that you offer it to Rajlich because he appeared to me not to have one when I asked him to explain the conundrum.

A strange post indeed.

# Claims that the Fruit clone Strelka contains so much code that is also in Rybka that he was considering claiming ownership of Strelka.

I think Vas claimed ownership at first but later came to some kind of agreement with Osipov. I don't know precisely.

Whether or not Vas and Osipov reached an agreement is irrelevant.
# Strelka is, according to Osipov, a bitboarded Fruit
# Strelka is, according to Rajlich, so close to Rybka 1 that he (Rajlich) could claim ownership.
Put those two statements together and there is a very strong implication indeed that there is Fruit code in Rybka 1.

Mysterious Osipov has hs own agenda, one of the reasons why Zach & Mark started a painful RE job from the R1 executable. If Rybka=Fruit could be proven via Strelka they certainly would have done so.

Completely false. We went to the R1 binary because SEVERAL were saying "we don't know what strelka really is. We know it looks very fruit like. We have Vas' statement that strelka is Rybka 1.0 beta. But can we really trust that?" So there was a demand that we actually compare fruit and rybka 1.0 beta, most likely because those making the demand thought it would not happen. It did, and the rest is history. Only way to show that Rybka == fruit, taking Vas OUT of the equation since his honesty is not to be taken for granted, one HAS to look at Rybka directly. Our only choice was the ASM.

[K I Hyams]

Look Keith, it's not something for me to answer, but Lukas Cimiotti. I already said it is odd.

Sorry Ed, I misinterpreted; I thought that you were saying that my comment was odd rather than that of Cimiotti. Had I realised that you had taken the point and were referring to his post, I would not have repeated it.
Keith.