I have the Solution to stop cheating in Live Chess!

wow that was a loooooooong one

u guys stop fighting with each other

Main Entry:

¹inane 

Pronunciation:

\i-ˈnān\

Function:

adjective

Inflected Form(s):

inan·er; inan·est

Etymology:

Latin inanis

Date:

1662

Not preventing, just detecting.

The idea is that a pattern of application switching between moves could be used as a potential indicator of suspicious activity.

Minimize away -- I still would comfortable that any suspicion of me cheating will end quickly as soon as my horrendous live chess play is taken into account.

(On a side note, if you play at work you're cheating your employer....)

I was not under the impression there was cheating in live chess.

IP blocking is clearly not the way to go but I think it's entirely secondary to the flaws with the detection methodology proposed.  Even if the IP blocking part was dropped in favour of the current process of simply shutting down accounts the idea of sanctioned engine play with the general, unknowing, member base is fatally flawed.

I've got an idea to stop cheaters, let's invent these three dementional pieces that look like the virtual ones. They will be placed on a three demintinal board and then start what we will call "over the board chess", then they can't hide behind the mask of their computer screens, oh wait, they allready have that.

Yeah, or a cell phone.

Okay.  Paul, type a sentence of text into the comment window.  Then, click the first icon on top of the comment box that looks like a chessboard.  It will give you options to choose from.  Choose what you want and click enter moves.  Then enter the game on the chessboard

You do realise that by playing one of the personalities you wheren't playing Chesmaster at it full level, right? You basicly played it on "easy" and you think that's proof that alot of randoms will beat chessmaster on it's full level? There are not alot of people that can do, and even fewer that would do it on "luck", the luck factor in chess is extremely limited, even vs computers.

TheGrobe: Seeing as I know next to nothing about Java, I did a little bit of research on the window.focus command, and it seems you're right. I don't know how easy it would be to incorporate into the current Live code, but I imagine it would be fairly straightforward.

One drawback of this is: surely it would only be fair to have some kind of warning stating that continually switching to other windows might implicate you in cheating? This could be offputting to users.

Also, since a lot of people would switch windows anyway, the staff would have a lot of potential red-flags coming up all the time. I guess they could cut through the chaff pretty easily by filtering out all returns on ratings below 1800, for example.

Maybe that is a workable idea after all. How easy is it to have an automatic input from the Live move list into an engine, so that you could have two half-size windows visible without having to switch between the two? I'm not a programmer (I guess this would be difficult without seeing Live's source code), and that very few people would bother anyway unless there was a generic code on the net.

I don’t know if somebody mentioned this (don’t have time to read all pages of this topic) but one solution to the problem can be scanning target PC for a list of running applications. This is pretty simple task to get a list of all opened windows and running processes on target PC. The only issue that can make this solution difficult is that chess.com programmers may have to write platform specific code for this feature, as functions that work under Windows will simply not work under Linux.

So if you have a list of running applications you can simply not allow a player to start/continue a game if he/she has another application named “Chessmaster”, “Fritz” etc. running. Even if the player is not going to use them for cheating, the live chess should demand to close such applications.

The idea about not allowing players to switch to other windows is definitely bad.

How can you non-invasively scan a remote computer for running applications? I wouldn't want to use any chess server that obtained that information; certainly not without my consent, and probably not if it demanded my consent before allowing me to play. 

that is a rediculous idea. i dont wanna play against computers without knowing it.

>Stop being paranoid about cheaters.. just enjoy the game ! :D

The ideas proposed to detect engine use during LiveChess are hilarious.

The original scheme of introducing deliberate engine use to trap other engine use is fighting subterfuge and deceit - with deceit and subterfuge: seldom a sensible strategy.

Subsequent technological solutions: detecting window minimisation, change of window focus or named processes running are equally ludicrous as indicators of engine use. There are sufficient legitimate reasons for doing any of these activities. And what about members who access LiveChess from public or corporate computers? How can they install software?

Renaming Fritz or ChessMaster processes to masquarade as other processes is not difficult. Consider the effort invested into anti-virus products to detect computer viruses and spyware, the limited success they have and the fact that they are then locked into a permanent war. And don't forget when the engine is running on a separate PC or standalone gadget.

If 10% of the effort currently put into discussing cheating went into chess self-improvement, we'd all be happier and be playing better chess!

My feeling exactly. I don't play Blitz and I'm not very interested in this subject of preventing cheating. But I am very put off by all these accusations of cheating just because someone lost a chess game. I'm also put off by all the sniveling about people who don't resign and people who play slow. I'm put off by complaining in general. Especially when the complainer is doing what they want to do. Probably 90% of the complaining on this site is due to not having enough control over the opponent (both on and off the board). That's what makes it so ridiculous. As soon as technology finds a way to prevent cheating, the cheater is going to find a way to beat the technology. It's an endless cycle. I'm here to improve my chess playing. I play my games seriously and with full knowledge that any game played on the Internet cannot be taken seriously.

Yes -- now that would be invasive, and not readily acheivable via a Java applet.

This is the dumbest idea I've ever heard of. This is like trying to catch murderers by murdering people to get in good with the murderers. The reason cheaters are annoying is because people don't enjoy playing against a cheater. Why should we add to the problem?

I'd be equally annoyed if I got beat by a secret undercover cheater or a unapproved sanctioned cheater.

Very good idea.  Do you think someone without using an engine against the team of engines will draw/win?  I know its very unlikely but would it be possible to win/draw against the engines. 

I see no on including ArtFitz (shame) responded to the lucid post by pod1000 who does agree that cheating here at higher levels is a major problem and needs to be addressed.