Levy's interview on Chessbase about ICGA/rybka

[BubbaTough]

I think this was all proper. This IS in fact an internal matter.

Just to nitpick, being internal does not imply it was proper. Legal sure, but the idea that the set of internal things is a subset of the set of proper things is clearly ridiculous.

Note, I am NOT trying to be critical of the report, or the investigatory process. My opinion was privately asked for at certain points, and I declined to give it because I was simply unwilling to put in the work to have an informed opinion in the matter...thus I am not in a position to criticize those that dedicated significant time and effort (I might do it occasionally, but I try not too).

I do however, indulge in the occasional nitpick of either side when I see reasonable people make unreasonable statements, however .

-Sam

[bob]

I have not read it and do not know what was cited and what was not.

Here it is http://www.personeel.unimaas.nl/uiterwi ... thesis.pdf

I doubt Ed has read it either but he is very happy to accuse the ICGA and particularly Jaap of wrong doing.

Made no accusation, from the document I quoted:

Reul - For the persons who continuously supported me some words of gratitude are appropriate. In particular, I am grateful to my supervisor Professor Jaap van den Herik who brought me with firm guidance to this success. He stimulated me to continue the R&D of my computer-chess engine Loop Chess and motivated me to write this thesis. In addition, he set up the contact to the company Nintendo in 2007 which implemented my source codes successfully in their commercial product Wii Chess.

And if the sources are not Reul, but Fabien there was a cheating thesis under Jaap's supervision, right? And a financial scandal also. As things are now Jaap's status is victim, a professor betrayed by one of his pupils, but surely Jaap's role should be investigated as well. And as I previously said, you can find Reul via Nintendo. Already tried ?

And the ICGA investigating the ICGA is a bad idea. But I understand it's the way it's going to happen anyway.

+++++++++++

Harvey something else, how about some more transparency? People keep asking me about those (still) hidden Panel discussion. Can they be made public? I can ask all Panel members who participated one by one of course but it's now 8 months after so why not make them public yourself?

What is a "cheating thesis"? People have done a thesis based on Crafty. Aphid as an example? There are others. Only issue would be if he copied Fruit and claimed that was original and a part of his thesis. In reading it, that does not appear to be the case...

The ICGA has absolutely no interest in academic degree things. Only in the ICGA tournaments and Journal... There is nothing to investigate on that point.

[marcelk]

I cannot imagine Ken Thompson, the Bell creator and world renown computer scientist and Unix creator being sucked up into a purposeful lie for example.

I'm not excluding the possibility anymore that that might have happened, maybe with the word 'purposeful' removed and 'lie' replaced with 'confusion'.

I didn't see that coming during the process, while I was thinking I was specifically looking for that pitfall at the time. As it happens, there is a potential hole in the investigation, which I now regret I haven't addressed properly a year ago. Actually I recall I have addressed it briefly but for some reason I didn't follow it to the end while I should have, and I don't know why.

The point that is that the letter of rule 2 as formulated in 1977 is quite clear. But the spirit and how it evolves over time, with exemptions made verbally in players' meetings and what has been accepted historically is not so. The contents of older application forms and prior rulings relating to rule2 are the only tangible manifestations of that spirit, and these were not extensively discussed within the panel. Ken would be as unaware of them as are newer members and outside experts.

Assuming that the 1977-spirit of that rule exactly equals its wording, VR violated rule 2. Not by code copying, but by writing code that was derived from Fruit's design.
But the spirit evolved/refined and the wording was never updated.

For example: Deep Thought's design was based on Belle's (1) but not copied at implementation level (2). This happened with knowledge and consent of Thompson (3), and it was 'known' at the time (4) and Belle didn't compete anyway, so it was ok (5). But was this relation with Belle actually -written- on the DT's entry form? I don't know and I want to see it. Because one can argue that the same case applies for VR: Rybka was based on Fruit's design (1), but not copied at implementation level (2). This was public knowledge by VR's statements on his forum (4), with consent of FL (3) (indirect permission: by open-sourcing Fruit. The GPL license that Fruit came with only protects distribution, but playing in a WCCC is not distribution. This is precisely why long time ago Crafty's license was changed: because the GPL didn't prohibit this. But Fruit has GPL, not Crafty's license). And Rybka didn't compete at the same time with Fruit (5).

That, combined with one of the secretariat member's explanation that he only considers literal reading of words but that in his opinion gut feeling is enough to recognize a clone, while the ICGA journal clearly writes that rule 2 only has a meaning in historic interpretation, pushes a 'reset'-button with me. Maybe the panel was unknowingly directed too much into one line of thinking, a literal one. I was part of it and I can't answer that question.

[bob]

Harvey something else, how about some more transparency? People keep asking me about those (still) hidden Panel discussion. Can they be made public? I can ask all Panel members who participated one by one of course but it's now 8 months after so why not make them public yourself?

Go ahead and ask them as the only way we could make them public would be to ask all to agree to change the rules they signed up to. So you can do the work not me.

However you do not care about rules as you decided to break them and publish votes here.

You ICGA guys are funny people, you break your own rules. Here 3 days after the verdict Mark Watkins:

http://www.open-chess.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1466

Then the next day the leaking is endorsed by Lefler, same thread: Thanks for providing this extra information about the process.

I see NOTHING in the ICGA wiki that says someone can't discuss what THEY personally contributed. When a jury is dismissed by a judge, they are often approached by the press and asked how they voted, what they thought of this piece of evidence, etc. Happens all the time, and some choose to answer, some do not...

Mark is not quoting others without their permission. And he doesn't need permission to quote himself...

[bob]

you should not have been given by Levy in the first place.

big yawn

As said, problematic.

No it is not. As I said above the only way the case could be reopened is for Vas to make a direct appeal. You can make as many posts as you want they will change nothing.

No sorry. Unless Levy doesnt come crawling on his four limbs and begging Vas to come back there is no chance to stop this ICGA bashing.

Keep it up. You are just dragging Vas through the mud, over and over. With friends like you, he doesn't need any enemies...

Can you spell with me the word "irony"?

What I meant was that Vas shouldnt do anything but that David soon could get a motivation to contact Vas. Because as I said, the ICGA needs sponsors, however with that scandal nobody would be interested. While the multitimes World Champion Vas doesnt need sponsors. His products will sell on the spot like butter and bread, everybody needs it. Actually Houdini 2 is strongest!

David tried to contact Vas, Vas refused to participate. I don't see David asking him yet again, after the case was stamped "closed, file in archives"

[bob]

Not really.

It was beyond flawed. A member of the Secretariat has been notoriously and publicly biased from the get go. That is unacceptable. He was the same who has declared that "guts" are good to detect clones (in other accusations), the same member who has been leaking information in a process that is supposed to be confidential. Another member of the secretariat is not even a programmer and he is a member of a direct competitor team... To make things worse, at the very moment that rybka 1.6 was found to have Crafty in it, Bob should have recused himself on the spot. That is the same silliness as having Fabien in the secretariat, in charge of writing the report. In addition, the final report misrepresented who signed and who did not and was written... and was not even circulated for final approval. Was it? and do not get me started in how the report was written.

I bet most (if not all) of the members of the panel had good intentions, but the behavior of the ICGA was, at best, incompetent. Several rules that you may expect to have in a cheating investigation were violated.

The only thing I ask myself is... Why do I freaking care.

Miguel

It seems that you are primarily addressing me, so how about getting a few things straight if you want to use my name or imply something about me...

Of course, I told you before you should have recused yourself.

1. I have NEVER said "guts are good to detect clones." Not one time. "gut feel" might be the thing that causes one to look, as in the similarities reported between early Rybka 1.0 beta versions and Fruit. But that does NOT "detect clones" and I have never said nor written such a thing. An outright lie.

http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... 3&start=36
You smeared 1/4 of the CCT entrants for no other reason than your gut. That is not a lie. By the way, nothing came out of that empty statement.

Stop with the gross exaggerations. Tell me EXACTLY which entries I "smeared"??? You claimed that I used my "gut" to detect clones.

I do not claim, you claimed. You said that. Your words.

I simply challenge you to indicate exactly WHICH programs I claimed were clones with no evidence. Just one will do. Not a "general statement" (which was most likely true) that does not identify a single program. As I said "distortion piled on hyperbole."

Irrelevant, the point is you said "guts are rarely wrong", so I did not lie. And by the way, you cannot come and tell that fraction of programs are not legit because you spread doubts to everybody. It is totally tasteless.

So you want to play semantic games? Fine, you can play with yourself, there. (there's a subtle semantic game from me, in fact.)

2. I was not "notoriously biased from the get-go." Another OUTRIGHT LIE. You can find early posts by me on this subject dismissing it as very unlikely. Until Zach and Christophe began to show me evidence, until I looked at Fruit, and Strelka, and then the Rybka 1.0 beta binary. After looking at the evidence for quite a while, THEN I became convinced. So can you PLEASE get something right, at least every now and then, if you want to imply things about me?

Irrelevant what you thought years ago. At the time the process started, you already had formed an opinion already. That is a fact, not lie and it is unacceptable for someone who is responsible for leading the investigation and writing the final report.

When police investigate, and they reach the point where they are convinced that "A" did the crime, should they recuse themselves to get unbiased officers involved instead? Not the way things work. The "judge and jury" were unbiased, everybody else in the room is on one side or the other of the case.

You were not "the police" (despite you truly think you were). First, you denied you were biased, now you said it is ok because you were like the police. This was more like an academic investigation on dishonesty.

I said two things.

(1) The charge of the panel was to investigate the complaint and provide all credible evidence to the ICGA. That, we did. Nothing left out. Nothing fabricated and included.

(2) I think any person on the panel could look at the evidence in an unbiased manner. If you can't, that is YOUR problem. I can see both sides of the issue, and make up my mind, and be completely fair during the process. Again, if you can't, your problem - not mine.

Our goal was to collect evidence for and against Rybka. We asked Vas specifically to provide anything he wanted in his defense. He was free to ask anyone he wanted to help. He refused at every attempt to get him involved. That was HIS problem.

Two outright lies in one post.

None.

TWO

You admitted in this post that you had a formed opinion at the beginning of the investigation, and you admitted you said guts are good ("rarely wrong") in detecting clones.

Since you want to play semantic games, I did say "my gut feel" is pretty accurate. But I did NOT say that was sufficient for clone detection. Not ever. Otherwise why would I (or anyone) gone to all the effort put forth in the Rybka investigation? Cops start with a suspicion. But that is just the beginning, it proves nothing. Same here. So you are simply trying to be disingenuous, much as Ed did in the ChessBase interview discussion.

You may disagree, but I did not lie.

To continue, we didn't discover the Rybka 1.6.1 stuff until the investigation was nearly completed. It would be foolish to back out at that point.

You knew this before March 2nd
http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... 405#397405
when the discussion was starting. At the end of the post you even say
"This investigation is not going to be rushed...."

Miguel

??? Do you know when the panel started the investigation? Was it before or after that post? I know the answer. Do you?

In a court case, there are PLENTY of biased people involved. Guarantee you the cops and the district attorneys believe the accused is guilty as sin. The defense attorneys believe he is innocent. Vas just refused to provide any defense. His mistake. Would it have made any different in the final conclusion? Almost certainly not. In the final punishment? Possibly. But district attorneys and police do not recuse themselves if they become convinced of the guilt of the accused. The judge/jury listen to what is presented and come up with a verdict and punishment. ICGA board did just that.

Several certainly assisted us in the final report. Mark Watkins for one. You were not asked since you didn't participate. Should we have sought you out? You have any idea how the final report WAS produced? The final report was developed right on the wiki...

Irrelevant, there was plenty of investigation coming in after that fact was known by you. Just reading the post it become obvious. You should have recused right there.

Miguel

I see absolutely no reason to recuse. I had been involved from the beginning. My opinion did not "change" by that discovery. My opinion was already clearly formed, as you have already claimed. So if I was predetermined to vote "copy" why does it make any difference about the Crafty copying? Seems like an easy contradiction in thinking to me...

[bob]

http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... 3&start=36

You smeared 1/4 of the CCT entrants for no other reason than your gut. That is not a lie. By the way, nothing came out of that empty statement.

Confirmed.

Please "name the CCT entrants that were smeared". SPECIFICALLY. Program names or author names will do equally well.

waiting...

[marcelk]

http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... 3&start=36

You smeared 1/4 of the CCT entrants for no other reason than your gut. That is not a lie. By the way, nothing came out of that empty statement.

Confirmed.

Please "name the CCT entrants that were smeared". SPECIFICALLY. Program names or author names will do equally well.

waiting...

For what purpose? It is YOUR statement (click the link above), so if YOU need the names for some purpose you might ask YOURSELF that question. Did or did you not write

I would not be surprised in the least to discover that 1/4 of the cct-12 programs are not original.

Any burden of proof is on YOUR side. Naming would be a nice start. Evidence is next. Waiting...

[Dan Honeycutt]

I would not be surprised in the least to discover that 1/4 of the cct-12 programs are not original.

Any burden of proof is on YOUR side. Naming would be a nice start. Evidence is next. Waiting...

"I would not be surprised . . ." is not an allegation.

Best
Dan H.

[Graham Banks]

I would not be surprised in the least to discover that 1/4 of the cct-12 programs are not original.

Any burden of proof is on YOUR side. Naming would be a nice start. Evidence is next. Waiting...

"I would not be surprised . . ." is not an allegation.

Best
Dan H.

Casts a slur of suspicion though.