Laskos wrote:Don wrote:oreopoulos wrote:The problem is how does he do it.
There was a similar case here in Greece too. A complete patzer, playing all houdini's 1-2nd choices. And on top of that he refused to analyse with the opponent after the game ended every single time
There is no question in my mind that the player i am talking about was cheating, because when he was confronted he said some terrible excuses that will make every single human being laugh.
The problem is how does he do it.. Before taking action, someone has to find the trick. With current tech, and camera's at the size of a button, you need an accomplish and very little tech to do that.
The problem is that the laws protect him. It is illegal to do a search without his consent and even with a court order you are required to give notice that there will be a search. Isn't that all pretty silly? It completely defeats the whole purpose of doing a search.
There are some clues however according the to the video. He may have been wearing some sort of contact lens - I don't know what the state of the art is on this but they say there were camera's visible in the playing hall but he refused to look at them and he kept his head down constantly. He may have had a contact lens of some sort that assisted him and he did not want people looking at him too carefully. But that is all speculation.
So they are in a situation that even if they knew EXACTLY how he was doing it they would not be allowed to do any kind of search to prove it. They would not be allowed to go to his room or anything else and the only possibility would be to intercept whatever transmission possible which probably also would be a privacy violation (and would be a bit expense for them.)
The current solution seems to be workable, players are making up their own minds and refusing to play him which makes it impossible for him to steal prize money and also allows these players to protect their ELO ratings from unfair losses.
Should be something transmitting on electromagnetic frequency from 1 MHz to 10 GHz. Jammers could be used in places he is playing. Jammers are often used in high ranking meetings and such, to prevent communications and leaks (usually mobile phone taps).
I think a little detective work could go a long way. It was reported that he was playing very quickly in all the games, about 10 seconds or something like that. So the hypothesis is that Houdini is playing the moves and it's set to play at a fast level or perhaps even infinite mode where whatever move is currently on top is played.
So to determine if a transmission is involved, and they have a jammer, it could be switched on in the middle of one of his games and then his behavior could be observed. The observers would get a "baseline" to see what his typical pattern is and then switch on the jammer for a few moves. We would not only want to observe his behavior but the quality of his moves. We could even get the cooperation of the GM who is playing him - who would signal the right time to turn on the jammer. He would choose a time that coincided with his belief that the next few moves would be quite difficult to play.
However this works, it HAS to involve a computer somewhere, the only 2 possibilities is that the computer is on his person or it isn't. I think there was also speculation that the games were broadcast over the internet and that this solved the problem of transmitting the move - the tournament did that for him. I don't know how likely that is because it seem like it would be unreliable to depend on the Internet but it's certainly plausible. Involving other people also seems like something that decreases the reliability substantially and would require some dedication and probably reward to be split up. If the agreement is to split the prize money, how much prize money is there to be had? The expected payoff split 2 or 3 ways and amortized against the possibility of not always winning would make this a very difficult way to make a buck unless the money is pretty substantial (or the people involved have little employment options.) On the other hand many criminals work hard at stealing and take far more risks that would doing something honest to make a living - which often would pay more.
If the bionic eye contact lens is involved it might be pretty easy to get information from a helper. What is the state of the art in hidden audio receivers? Can you hide a receiver in your ear?
I know that if I were trying to come up with a cheating system I would use a PC set up in my hotel room and arrange some sort of direct interface not involving a second person. I would try to wear the receiver in my shoe or my ear - an ear receiver can be super low power - a crystal radio needs NO power to operator except from the signal itself and that is with a sensitive headphone on the outside of the ear.
The transmit unit can be be a toe tap device in your shoe, perhaps as simple as a spring loaded contact switch you tap out with your big toe.
There are probably sophisticated solutions available to the military or big governments including even internal implants. I'll bet the "mission impossible" episode where Roland Hand beats the top players could easily be pulled off by the US government with much greater sophistication and stealth these days.
Capital punishment would be more effective as a preventive measure if it were administered prior to the crime.