The two players don't connect to each other. They connect independently to the server. Your IP isn't shared with the opponent. There is no possible way he could affect your connection without taking over the chess.com server. And if he could do that, why would he waste his time stealing a few rating points when he could be stealing all the credit card info that paid members use to pay for their accounts?
Your suspicions are just paranoia.
Well they need to fix how that works then. It's pretty crappy to let someone's time run down when it's their servers that are dropping the connection.
Well they need to fix how that works then. It's pretty crappy to let someone's time run down when it's their servers that are dropping the connection.
Well they need to fix how that works then. It's pretty crappy to let someone's time run down when it's their servers that are dropping the connection.
Someone else dedicated a whole thread to their connection being dropped when their internet was fine awhile back so it's not just me. I think they should pause the clock for 15 seconds or something in case it's an intermittent issue or an issue on their side, not just blindly run the clock down while the person scrambles to figure out what's happening.
Well they need to fix how that works then. It's pretty crappy to let someone's time run down when it's their servers that are dropping the connection.
Someone else dedicated a whole thread to their connection being dropped when their internet was fine awhile back so it's not just me. I think they should pause the clock for 15 seconds or something in case it's an intermittent issue or an issue on their side, not just blindly run the clock down while the person scrambles to figure out what's happening.
Pausing the clock would allow players to purposely disconnect to gain more time on moves. That is something the site probably won't do.
A disconnect can be caused by a number of factors independent of the actual quality or stability of your connection to your ISP. Other traffic on your network, other processes on your system, traffic congestion at your ISP, small network issues at any of the hops between your ISP and the chess.com Live servers ... any of those can cause disconnects.
There are some things that can be done to minimize disconnects:
https://www.chess.com/blog/News/how-to-adjust-your-live-chess-connection
Well they need to fix how that works then. It's pretty crappy to let someone's time run down when it's their servers that are dropping the connection.
Someone else dedicated a whole thread to their connection being dropped when their internet was fine awhile back so it's not just me. I think they should pause the clock for 15 seconds or something in case it's an intermittent issue or an issue on their side, not just blindly run the clock down while the person scrambles to figure out what's happening.
Pausing the clock would allow players to purposely disconnect to gain more time on moves. That is something the site probably won't do.
A disconnect can be caused by a number of factors independent of the actual quality or stability of your connection to your ISP. Other traffic on your network, other processes on your system, traffic congestion at your ISP, small network issues at any of the hops between your ISP and the chess.com Live servers ... any of those can cause disconnects.
There are some things that can be done to minimize disconnects:
https://www.chess.com/blog/News/how-to-adjust-your-live-chess-connection
https://support.chess.com/customer/en/portal/articles/1444918-my-internet-connection-is-fine---why-am-i-getting-disconnects-
Oh yeah good point :/. I had no idea you could choose that stuff manually. WebSockets are supported by every browser these days... there's nothing new about it anymore and that would obviously be the best method in most cases. I'll try changing that and see if it helps with the issue.
Sure, it's not impossible to hack into chess.com and find the IP of a player you're currently playing... but... it's probably never happened even once.
@optimissed How would someone write code to find their opponent's IP address? All players are randomly matched. You don't have information about the person you are playing.
Incidentally, I've just been thinking about this question for another 30 seconds and I've realised that at least hypothetically, the O.P. could potentially be correct. I'm not a computer engineer or software programmer and I emphasise that this is hypothetical. However it occurred to me that it wouldn't take much code for a chess player to write a programme that discovered the address of the computer used by an opponent. Then, all he would need to do is to bombard that particular computer with some kind of input that would take over its processing capability, but it would not be a virus in that it would not embed itself in the target computer software.
If they sent you a link to a device they control and you click the link they could get your IP. With the site server acting as a connection router, they would have to compromise the site to get your connection details. As @mariners234 says, it probably isn't impossible, but the likelihood someone has done that to win a few online games is extremely low.
The two players don't connect to each other. They connect independently to the server. Your IP isn't shared with the opponent. There is no possible way he could affect your connection without taking over the chess.com server. And if he could do that, why would he waste his time stealing a few rating points when he could be stealing all the credit card info that paid members use to pay for their accounts?
Your suspicions are just paranoia.>>
To be fair, his suspicions are probably misplaced. I too have lately been experiencing an increased likelihood of losing my connection on the "live chess" and it seems to happen at what are probably busy periods, so I think more than likely that it occurs due to a combination of factors, some of which are at the Chess.com server end of the connection and some of which are at mine.
It may be that "in a tight game", the O.P. is moving faster than normal and it's at times like that when a connection is especially vulnerable, if it's like many connections which drift in and out and off and on. However, I think that a blanket disclaimer of any type of odd response by the connection is not to the point. Several years ago I became aware that one of my opponents had connected his move generation to a fast computer and I mentioned it in public, only to have my fears rather scathingly dismissed by a number of people and blamed on "lag". In fact, the alacrity with which these fears were dismissed rather confirmed their truth because no-one was interested in the logical process by which I had arrived at the conclusion that there was no other way this effect could have been achieved and it was clear that no-one was interested in the evidence. It seems to be a perfectly reasonable assumption that a computer programmer could have found a way to do this without detection.
Being a software developer with a masters degree, and 8 years of experience in web development, my assumption was that they may have a weakness exposed in their api. Perhaps an api call you can make that signals that a certain player has disconnected, which is normally only made by the client but which could potentially be made by anyone. Of course I haven't looked into it because it doesn't happen *that* often and I have better things to do lol.
The suggestion made by Optimissed is more rational though. That someone could find a way to interrupt your connection through some information that chess.com exposes accidentally.
And if he could do that, why would he waste his time stealing a few rating points when he could be stealing all the credit card info that paid members use to pay for their accounts?
Not say what OP said is legitimate, but to be fair, chess.com doesn't store this information, nor ever should it. Payment is done through a third party. Chess.com only uses verification, same for passwords. In general, no one except your bank knows your credit card number.
There are hackers out there. It's horrible, utterly horrible...and fascinating. Look at Baltimore.
There's a thread on this subject in the Cheating Forum: https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/on-hacking-the-interface-clocks-etc-possibilities-and-practicalities
In theory, it would be possible, but someone would have to compromise the server, which is beyond the ability of a random script kiddie. And anyone who did manage it would be looking for financial information, corporate secrets, something they could blackmail chess.com with, etc.; winning a few games wouldn't be high on the priority list.
Furthermore, there are millions of site members, and while not all of them are active, for you to be running into it on a regular basis, there would have to tens of thousand people all hacking into the server on a regular basis for the sole purpose of winning a few games. Sorry, that's not credible. There is no vast army of super-hackers trying to win a few games of chess; if someone wants to cheat, there are much easier ways of doing so.
The far more likely explanation is a connectivity issue somewhere between your computer and the server.
I should know.... I'm one of them. Most of my code is just copy/pasted stack overflow instead of proper logical instructions to complete the task.
Also it's really not possible in theory unless chess.com has a vulnerability, and 99% of vulnerabilities are caused by criminally negligent programming practices.
Also holy crap what's with all this misinformation about trying to find banking information or corporate information on chess.com. A website is essentially a poster, the chess.com company does not upload its financial information onto chess.com. Someone getting admin access to the website would just be able to spam the forums or change the rules of chess or something. Basically, look at what you can do by pressing F12. Someone who has root access to a website can do any of that except for real. There's nothing more there. Websites containing sensitive information would be horrible design.
There's a thread on this subject in the Cheating Forum: https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/on-hacking-the-interface-clocks-etc-possibilities-and-practicalities
In theory, it would be possible, but someone would have to compromise the server, which is beyond the ability of a random script kiddie. And anyone who did manage it would be looking for financial information, corporate secrets, something they could blackmail chess.com with, etc.; winning a few games wouldn't be high on the priority list.
Furthermore, there are millions of site members, and while not all of them are active, for you to be running into it on a regular basis, there would have to tens of thousand people all hacking into the server on a regular basis for the sole purpose of winning a few games. Sorry, that's not credible. There is no vast army of super-hackers trying to win a few games of chess; if someone wants to cheat, there are much easier ways of doing so.
The far more likely explanation is a connectivity issue somewhere between your computer and the server.
I've ran into it under suspicious circumstances about 5 times over a few thousand games. So it's not common, but just far too coincidental with the timing, since I *never* drop my connection in other games. Every time my connection *does* drop, which is rare, it's near the end of a challenging game where I have the upper hand. It feels a bit suspicious.
Are you sure you never drop your connection in other games? I smell confirmation bias.
Also let's do some Bayesian analysis. What percentage of your games can be described as "Challenging, where you have an upper hand at some point"? I would imagine this describes well over 90% of your games, under which case, 90% of random disconnects should occur during these games.
I should know.... I'm one of them. Most of my code is just copy/pasted stack overflow instead of proper logical instructions to complete the task.
Also it's really not possible in theory unless chess.com has a vulnerability, and 99% of vulnerabilities are caused by criminally negligent programming practices.
Also holy crap what's with all this misinformation about trying to find banking information or corporate information on chess.com. A website is essentially a poster, the chess.com company does not upload its financial information onto chess.com. Someone getting admin access to the website would just be able to spam the forums or change the rules of chess or something. Basically, look at what you can do by pressing F12. Someone who has root access to a website can do any of that except for real. There's nothing more there. Websites containing sensitive information would be horrible design.
It would be horrible design, but it's perfectly easy for most sites to get away with horrible design because of how few people are software developers, specifically in the web discipline.
Here's something interesting. Try entering https://api.chess.com/int/player/optimissed/notices into your browser. Yeah, you can see the notifications for another player. Who's to say there aren't other exposed API calls that simply escaped the developers, or that the developers were simply lazy about and left exposed?
I noticed that sometimes when I'm winning handily my connection will suddenly drop even though my internet is fine, and I'm starting to wonder if certain players have figured out how to game the connection stuff. I definitely didn't actually drop my connection and it's happened 4 or 5 times. I have to open it up on my phone and enter the game id as fast as possible to not lose time and it can end up causing me to lose in tight games where time is getting low. It really sucks when you lose a game because the website claims you dropped your connection when you didn't, especially when you're playing a really good game against a higher rated opponent.
Why is it, that anytime someone claims to be hacked, lagged, poor connection, etc. Its always during a "crushing" win? Its never during a loss.
I noticed that sometimes when I'm winning handily my connection will suddenly drop even though my internet is fine, and I'm starting to wonder if certain players have figured out how to game the connection stuff. I definitely didn't actually drop my connection and it's happened 4 or 5 times. I have to open it up on my phone and enter the game id as fast as possible to not lose time and it can end up causing me to lose in tight games where time is getting low. It really sucks when you lose a game because the website claims you dropped your connection when you didn't, especially when you're playing a really good game against a higher rated opponent.
Why is it, that anytime someone claims to be hacked, lagged, poor connection, etc. Its always during a "crushing" win? Its never during a loss.
Because who cares if you lose your connection when you're losing? I'm not going to complain that chess.com drops my connections when I'm in a totally losing endgame being crushed by my opponent lol.
That'd be like complaining about the meal service while your plane is crashing.
I noticed that sometimes when I'm winning handily my connection will suddenly drop even though my internet is fine, and I'm starting to wonder if certain players have figured out how to game the connection stuff. I definitely didn't actually drop my connection and it's happened 4 or 5 times. I have to open it up on my phone and enter the game id as fast as possible to not lose time and it can end up causing me to lose in tight games where time is getting low. It really sucks when you lose a game because the website claims you dropped your connection when you didn't, especially when you're playing a really good game against a higher rated opponent.