cmon chess.com

https://support.chess.com/customer/portal/articles/1444849-why-did-the-clock-times-suddenly-change-the-clocks-seem-broken-

Screenshot them confessing.

Not buying it mate.  Much more likely was a disconnect that you didn't notice.  You think the clock is ticking down, and it is on your computer.  Problem is your opponent has already made his move only you didn't get the move.  When you reconnect, suddenly the clock jumps on your computer back to the "real" time.  You complain in the chat and your opponent has a little fun at your expense.

Is it possible to hack into a browser based app?  Sure but the level of sophistication necessary to accomplish this is well beyond the scope of a casual chess game.  Or so I've read; I don't know sh#te about computers. 

Good idea.

OP, what you're describing is technically impossible. Get it? it's out of the realm of possiblilities.

Nottin is impossibru

Jadulla wrote:

Nottin is impossibru

I object.

Can you fly? Are you faster than an average cheetah? Can you be 1000 metres tall? If your answer is no to any one of the above, your statement is refuted.

If you climb the Burj Dubai and then jump, you'll probably accomplish all your requirements.

It is certainly possible to hack the clocks if chess.com does not keep everything server side, or if their code is too "forgiving" of bad clock data coming back from the client browser/app.

That is unlikely to be happening here, though.  Although chess.com seems to have a history of "loose" coding that allows things like forced friendship requests, etc. and can't seem to fix their TinyMCE embedded editor issues, so who knows...

A long time ago Erik had a standing $5,000 reward for anyone who could successfully hack chess.com.  Remember there's no client software on anyone's computer to hack here, the only way to do it is to somehow intercept the actual signals (I think they call them packets?).  To make a long story ignorantly told short, some MIT types took him up on the challenge, and using a second dedicated computer on some kind of a shared local area network, were in fact able to intercept the packets and essentially "time hack" the system.  Don't think Erik still offers a $5,000 reward.

Think your opponents have access to an MIT level hacking squad?  With a dedicated computer on a very specific kind of network?  All this to steal some precious rating points from you?  And multiple instances of this from different players?  I suppose it could happen...

My answer is yes to all of them, so your argument is invalid.

Yes, packets would be the word...chess.com could still stop that type of time hacking if they kept both player's clocks completely server side and ignored input from client browsers/apps that tried to tell the server "hey, I made this move 45 seconds ago, but you are only receiving it now..." and the like.

Of course, the result of this would be that people with bad connections/lag would be suffering even more...so chess.com must have some sort of fudge factor that they allow for, and such things can be exploited.

I'm not saying there is cheating going on, but, packet manipulation is far easier than you suggest here. 

If they had the level of sophistication and intelligence to do this (hacking Chess.com/intercepting packets etc.)... wouldn't they simply be capable of... just playing better chess without assistance!

That assumes that hacking and playing chess are similar skills, they aren't really.

From time to time we hear accusations of clock hacking, etc. And if our clocks were managed client-side in the javascript, sure, I would understand that. But our clocks are sync'd on server. We allow up to 1 second max lag. So, potentially someone COULD hack and get a little less than 1 second of extra advantage each move to think. At MOST. But the complaints we get generally boil down to lag somewhere.