How serious is World Chess Live about cheating?
Does their invasive software work?
Has any one been caught in the Speedtrap ?
“Now Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! On, Cupid! , on Donner and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!”
-Clement Moore
Is it accurate to describe their software as invasive, or is that just a derogatory comment about it?
I found no results posted for the individual who complained about G/3 being rated:
12731380: BRIAN R MCCARTHY
There are no tournament results for this member since Jan. 1, 1991
You have the wrong player. You need to type “Mc Carthy” not “McCarthy” in the MSA. His ID# is 11060871, which you can confirm by looking at the upper right corner of any of his posts here.
– Hal Terrie
With over 700,000 current and former members in our database, multiple members with similar if not completely identical names are getting to be fairly common.
Is it accurate to describe their software as invasive
Good question Nolan. At 7 megabytes it has a lot of stuff in it . While they claim to have humans checking for computer cheating , they fail to mention what tools they use. We have had invasion of privacy concerns before. Has anyone checked the software before we put our stamp of aprovel on the Quick Rated online tournaments ? Can it find that copy of Greenblatt running in the background?
And of course they don’t want to say what the detection algorithm is because it would aid at least some attempts at circumvention. “Security though obscurity”, not a good solution but for this task there is nothing better and can never be anything better.
I have little confidence in cheating detection for our purposes because it will not be foolproof and if you want to catch anyone, you will run the significant risk of catching some people wrongly. Bogner says some people have been caught wrongly on ICC. So you have to decide what to do if you believe you’ve caught somebody. ICC suspends membership rights with no further appeals, I think. Is USCF willing to do that?
Any approach to detecting computer cheating would be less effective for USCF than ICC for two reasons:
Whatever happened to the " Game of Kings and Gentlemen". Is it just a sad commentary on our times.
World Chess Live is a for profit enterprise that desires our 70,000 members at $ 50 dollars a head. In past incarnations GamesParlor lost money. We need to know what steps are being taken to protect the USCF members and their ratings. We know that in the past players like Kasparov have used the accounts of others. How do we handle on line cheating?
It is a sad commentary on our times, though I’m not sure that people are much different than they have always been. The temptation to cheat is greater now than it has been. The anonymity of online play combined with the strength of chess-playing computers presents both the means and opportunity to cheat. For many, the cheating is a satisfying game in itself. Sad … yes.
Over the board, cheating is more difficult … and if money weren’t involved, the motivation would be removed. There once was a time when the question of money in sport was a serious question: the “amateur” status was seen as honorable and desirable; now it is seen more as pathetic. The “pro” is universally admired … but that means money, which means the temptation to cheat.
But it is good that cheating is not more prevalent than it is, and it’s good that online clubs and OTB TDs do their best to prevent and punish cheating.
There are over 85 million entries for cheats on the Internet.
What leads you to believe that World Chess Live does not allow cheating in USCF rated events?
There are over 148 million entries for ‘honest’ on the Internet.
What makes you think World Chess Live is not honest?
A clear example of this is Olympic Baseball. The IOC has just decertified Baseball as an Olympic sport because the quality of play was too low, and it refuses to recertify the sport until Major League players are on the teams!
The Olympics used to be about amateur competition. The change could not be more complete than this.
What makes you think World Chess Live is not honest?
Their honesty is not the question.
It is how they prevent computer-aided or communication-aided cheating. The software is able to detect same computer cheating , but is unable to detect other computers not connected to the Internet or the strong player in the room. In an over the board tournament using a laptop or talking to a friend during the game would be frowned on.
WCL Implicitly Collected Information
For each session on a WCL server, an entry is made in a permanent connection log. The following information is recorded in that log:
The time of the connection and disconnection
The name of the interface that was used
The IP number of the connection
The Handle name
The Machine ID of the computer from which the connection was made
The Machine ID is a string which uniquely identifies the computer on which this connection was made. This allows us to very reliably determine if two different sessions used the same computer.
In addition, while you’re playing on an WCL server, several other pieces of information are made available to the server. The WCL client program notes when you switch from the client program to some other program and vice versa. The WCL client and server are also able to determine whether or not you currently have a chess program running on your computer. This information is used for the sole purpose of identifying people who are cheating by using a chess engine. The Admins and a few other people who help catch computer cheaters are the only ones who have access to this information. (Read “help computers” for more information on the WCL’S computer policies.)
WCL’S software does not monitor any activity nor access any data beyond what is listed above, or what is obviously needed for the functioning of the software. For example, it does access the profiles and PGN files it needs, but it does not access your email file.
It this just FUD or not?
Those chess programs must look much different than other programs. Let’s see they use CPU, they use memory, … . Does WCL run with sufficient permissions to see what the names of the other processes are, assuming the user hasn’t renamed them? Or does it just look for fluctuating CPU availability, so you would catch someone who was playing some other video game simultaneously?
Play at FICS and don’t wory about WCL or ICC or $50 fees! 
Free chess - Good! 
Pay Chess - BAD 
FICS is a great place to play chess. The BabasChess interface is 5.4Mb with lots of features.A person would have no reason to cheat there as no money or USCF rating points are available.
We have partnered with ICC and World Chess Live and would like to know what they are doing to detect other computers not connected to the Internet or having a strong player in the room.
Have we taken a proactive stance or will we wait until it blows up?
How much cheating was noticed at the World Open this year?
[quote=“xplor”]
FICS is a great place to play chess. The BabasChess interface is 5.4Mb with lots of features.A person would have no reason to cheat there as no money or USCF rating points are available.
[quote]
I know, I said that as a sarcastic joke. But as a casual player I have enjoyed playing chess there (FICS) for a little more than a year. I started playing there when US Chess Live closed down to become WCL. I Signed up with WCL this summer with thier free membership program for USCF members this summer I have enjoyed some of the features that Dasher has instead of BabasChess but I still play most of my games at FICS and won’t renew the WCL thing when the 6 month promotion is over. But I will keep Dasher on my Laptop.
I havent l played a tourney since '02. I pay my $41 dollars USCF dues so I don’t feel there is any need to join ICC or WCL since I dont play competitively. And I don’t care if some one cheats at FICS b/c the ratings aren’t that important at FICS. Also, it is a much better chess community than something like Yahoo or POGO.
The biggest deterrent to cheating seems to be the fees and long term commitment required at World Chess Live. The fact that the Dasher software collects marketable information is not an issue. The only report of the possibility of cheating at World Chess Live is when the payoff exceeds the norm, like the Miami qualifier. Other sites like Yahoo and POGO are content with gaming the programs and the high turnover of players.
Who has a Internet chess cheating story?
Oh, boy, Mike - do you really think that can be discussed under the current AUG?
Though frankly, just the history of the software and the people involved which is documentable is pretty ugly. This ranges from spyware in the software, to reading window titles and revealing information learned from the titles of windows of other open programs, to collecting USCF memberships and refusing to turn over the monies collected, whilst having the chutzpah to tell USCF to issue the memberships. 