Anti cheating idea for chess servers.

[Cubeman]

Recently I have been using the Chess Tactics Server to practice my tactical ability and at the end of the session it gives you a rating.It is quite hard to cheat at this since the position is delayed by a move and then your time gets started and your rating depends on if and how fast you solve that position.
Every so often the big chess servers such as ICC, Playchess, FICS could ask you to do a selection of these positions to get a rough idea if you are performing to your rating and if there are major decrepances then you may be watched in the future and aksed to explain yourself.

[bob]

Recently I have been using the Chess Tactics Server to practice my tactical ability and at the end of the session it gives you a rating.It is quite hard to cheat at this since the position is delayed by a move and then your time gets started and your rating depends on if and how fast you solve that position.
Every so often the big chess servers such as ICC, Playchess, FICS could ask you to do a selection of these positions to get a rough idea if you are performing to your rating and if there are major decrepances then you may be watched in the future and aksed to explain yourself.

you are aware there are applications that can grab a chess diagram and feed it directly into an engine without human input? The human would just watch the screen and report the best move as if he had found it by himself...

[gerold]

Recently I have been using the Chess Tactics Server to practice my tactical ability and at the end of the session it gives you a rating.It is quite hard to cheat at this since the position is delayed by a move and then your time gets started and your rating depends on if and how fast you solve that position.
Every so often the big chess servers such as ICC, Playchess, FICS could ask you to do a selection of these positions to get a rough idea if you are performing to your rating and if there are major decrepances then you may be watched in the future and aksed to explain yourself.

you are aware there are applications that can grab a chess diagram and feed it directly into an engine without human input? The human would just watch the screen and report the best move as if he had found it by himself...

Are these applications used a lot in Freestyle chess.

[Cubeman]

Recently I have been using the Chess Tactics Server to practice my tactical ability and at the end of the session it gives you a rating.It is quite hard to cheat at this since the position is delayed by a move and then your time gets started and your rating depends on if and how fast you solve that position.
Every so often the big chess servers such as ICC, Playchess, FICS could ask you to do a selection of these positions to get a rough idea if you are performing to your rating and if there are major decrepances then you may be watched in the future and aksed to explain yourself.

you are aware there are applications that can grab a chess diagram and feed it directly into an engine without human input? The human would just watch the screen and report the best move as if he had found it by himself...

No, I wasn't aware of this posibility, that probably explains some of the high ratings on the CTS.What are some of the applications that can do this.I suppose that the dedicated cheater would use this method,but your average cheater probably could not be bothered since they are lazy so the system could still deter cheating to an extent.

[DeJaBe]

Most chess servers either have a popular interface or a single interface that a person can only log onto. Most of the time (ie: playchess) That software can detect taskswitching and the administrators have the abilitiy to see all background processes on a user's computer (without their permission). I know that this is what Playchess uses to detect cheaters as well as ICC's Dasher and Blitzin, FIC's Babaschess and other forced interface websites. Although some interfaces are available which are free, for example, Thief, which didn't have this code implemented into it so its unavailable, thusly those users are watched more carefully if they are suspect to cheating.

[bob]

Recently I have been using the Chess Tactics Server to practice my tactical ability and at the end of the session it gives you a rating.It is quite hard to cheat at this since the position is delayed by a move and then your time gets started and your rating depends on if and how fast you solve that position.
Every so often the big chess servers such as ICC, Playchess, FICS could ask you to do a selection of these positions to get a rough idea if you are performing to your rating and if there are major decrepances then you may be watched in the future and aksed to explain yourself.

you are aware there are applications that can grab a chess diagram and feed it directly into an engine without human input? The human would just watch the screen and report the best move as if he had found it by himself...

Are these applications used a lot in Freestyle chess.

Who knows? I wrote my own in a day, so that I could have Crafty observe a game and give analysis on ICC. I could just as easily use that to have crafty watch a game I am playing, and get continual suggestions with zero loss of time. Bruce Moreland and I had a discussion about our interfaces years ago, and decided to not release them as it would probably encourage this, when it is really easy enough to write your own anyway...

[bob]

Recently I have been using the Chess Tactics Server to practice my tactical ability and at the end of the session it gives you a rating.It is quite hard to cheat at this since the position is delayed by a move and then your time gets started and your rating depends on if and how fast you solve that position.
Every so often the big chess servers such as ICC, Playchess, FICS could ask you to do a selection of these positions to get a rough idea if you are performing to your rating and if there are major decrepances then you may be watched in the future and aksed to explain yourself.

you are aware there are applications that can grab a chess diagram and feed it directly into an engine without human input? The human would just watch the screen and report the best move as if he had found it by himself...

No, I wasn't aware of this posibility, that probably explains some of the high ratings on the CTS.What are some of the applications that can do this.I suppose that the dedicated cheater would use this method,but your average cheater probably could not be bothered since they are lazy so the system could still deter cheating to an extent.

I have an interface that is a few hundred lines of C. Took about a day to write it. I did it at the request of an ICC admin that wanted Crafty to observe games during major human tournaments and provide analysis in real-time to those observing the games. It is not that hard to write one, and it opens a lot of doors for cheating on chess servers....

[bob]

Most chess servers either have a popular interface or a single interface that a person can only log onto. Most of the time (ie: playchess) That software can detect taskswitching and the administrators have the abilitiy to see all background processes on a user's computer (without their permission). I know that this is what Playchess uses to detect cheaters as well as ICC's Dasher and Blitzin, FIC's Babaschess and other forced interface websites. Although some interfaces are available which are free, for example, Thief, which didn't have this code implemented into it so its unavailable, thusly those users are watched more carefully if they are suspect to cheating.

If I wanted to cheat on Playchess, I would cheat on playchess. I could write an interface that emulates their interface, but supplies false information when they try to "peek" at what is going on on my computer. I'd bet this has already been done, because it would probably not take a week or two to figure out what they are doing since it is easy to snoop packets and decode them.

[Ovyron]

If I wanted to cheat on Playchess, I would cheat on playchess.

Quoted for truth. Trying to stop cheaters is like trying to stop piracy, as bad as it is, it's impossible.

[towforce]

If I wanted to cheat on Playchess, I would cheat on playchess. I could write an interface that emulates their interface, but supplies false information when they try to "peek" at what is going on on my computer. I'd bet this has already been done, because it would probably not take a week or two to figure out what they are doing since it is easy to snoop packets and decode them.

If they wanted to, they could make it difficult for you in some reasonably obvious ways. If I was in charge, and I wanted to make it difficult, my first thought would be to implement public-key cryptography (click here) in a java interface - and I would further complicate matters by modifying the decryption algorithm on a regular basis.

I think that this might well be an important issue for poker websites - otherwise, people would simply write (or otherwise obtain) programs, hook them into poker websites, and have them harvest large sums of money.