Cheating issues

None of this talk is helping.

All of it is hurting in many different ways; including 'sabotage', where people who love to show off their 'know-it-all-ness' go ahead and inform cheaters how to cheat better.

Legitimate people are mostly busy playing, but the vast majority of cheaters will scan and troll for the loose lips informing them how better they can sink ships.

It's funny how everyone thinks that "if it's true it needs to be shared", but then immediately opt to be quiet and exempt themselves when asked the address of their primary residence.

Not all things need to be shared and discussed.

Won't the Lichess community finally dummy up to this fact?

What I wonder is how can AI detect use of books and databases. Many times I have memorized and played entire opening traps that often run a dozen or more moves without ANY thinking on my part, other than just memory of what i memorized from a book. But how can AI distinguish it from someone simply sitting there with an opening tablebase or an opening book etc.

@diPero @Kusokosla @Onyx_Chess @petri999 @Sarg0n @pawnedge @clousems I think it's limited to focus on AI cheat detection using only board moves for data.

Technology is rapidly improving, getting cheaper and getting smaller. AI can also be applied in other ways if we provide more data inputs.

Surveillance cameras are now extremely cheap (especially as a bulk purchase). Imagine if in order to play rated games on lichess, you must install a 1080hd camera behind you that has clear view of both your screen, your hands and your body. This camera would be activated and record (saving the last 16h to the cloud) when you log on to lichess. It would be accessible only to AI data analysis and lichess moderators. Moderators can read your typed private messages at any time anyway, so there is minimal difference in introducing cameras.

AI could then iterate pattern recognition to learn typical cheater body language. For instance, perhaps 20 stockfish moves in a row are typically correlated with a hunched, restless and angry posture or body language. Then a higher % of cheat analysis resources are automatically allocated to players with this posture. Efficiency goes up significantly.

Early on in the implementation of cameras, when a player is reported, the video footage could also be reviewed, with screen content and head/eyes direction analyzed by a moderator to see what the player was doing. Eventually, more and more of the data will be handled by AI. But at the start, moderator actions would also be useful data points for AI to learn. Just like crashes are (unfortunately) the most insightful data points for Tesla autopilot to learn from.

The only counterpoint is the question of cost. Users could buy them or lichess could buy them. Even the most difficult case of Lichess purchase is easy to justify from an investment standpoint. Lichess generates revenue through donations. Let's say bulk purchased cheater monitoring cameras cost $10 each. Let's say they are a treated as a 3 year investment. Therefore, if the introduction of a $10 camera per user leads to the generation of at least an extra $10 in donations per user across 3 years then this investment is worthwhile for lichess.

I predict that this extra revenue is likely, since lichess would almost completely eradicate both existing and potential cheaters. You cannot deny it if you are caught on camera doing it. There is also the case where lichess automatically publishes the video footage in order to shame cheaters and deincentivize cheating even more, but that is for another discussion. Most importantly, I'm sure most people here would donate $10 to play in a cheat free environment for 3 years. We could also put constraints on the initial investment, such as only sending cameras to users who have previously been marked for cheating or artificially changing their ratings. Since offending predicts reoffending, this is the highest donation yield investment for lichess.

There is also the option that lichess requests that you order a camera yourself (from their store) and set it up in order to access rated games. This would also work, given that most players here are addicted and only play on this site. $10 is a small barrier to entry.

Since camera footage would collect more data points and iterate AI pattern recognition much more quickly, moderator and dev workload would also decrease quickly. This would mean that they can spend more time improving lichess rather than undertaking arduous policing work that should be automated. It benefits everyone and is another incentive for donations. Join me in petitioning for surveillance cameras with AI analysis to be introduced.

🙏 Warm regards, Burrower 🙏

@matar770 exam apps are APPS and they run with system user privileges. You browser I hope does not have such. If browse would know such things let alone tell to the website.... weill there are bugs is sw so there has been occasions when malicious webpage gained access to a web-cam for instance but those are act of criminality hence not tools legimite wepsites

@Burrower someone found and laced your stash. So many things wrong with that idea I don't even know where to start at. Probably with the concept that cheaters won't pay $10 to cheat.

By the way, in March there will the first official internet Blitz championship in Germany. It will be hosted on playchess with its anti-cheating algorithms. Furthermore, revealing your RL name and club in your profile for a couple of days is mandatory. The final tournament will be played at the same place physically i.e. everyone is playing under surveillance.

@OneDummHikk if you read above, one of my proposals was that users are obligated to buy cameras for $10 in order to be able to play rated games (anyone can play casual). If cheaters won't pay $10 to cheat, then the new system is working perfectly to deincentivize cheating. Your comment is evidence that it works.

And let me also remind you, Galileo was mocked for his conception of the heliocentric universe in the same way that you mock me now. I am happy to generate controversy in the pursuit of truth. I am even happy to be burned alive by the mob.

Lastly, your resistance to the idea of having a camera in your room indicates there is something to hide. Honest and transparent men would take no issue to this.

Posts like that make me glad I live in the US where I am innocent until proven guilty. Of course, you can show how well it works by sending me $100 a day to prove you aren't on drugs. If you aren't on drugs you won't have an issue sending me the money to prove you are innocent. When are you planning on beginning to prove your innocence?

@OneDummHikk That's not an accurate analogy. There is no assumption of guilt. It is a precaution, a system that facilitates fast banning, a compassionate way of reducing mod/dev workload and a method of automatically deincentivizing cheating. We all agree to pay $10 in order to create a better environment for all of us.

An appropriate analogy would be everyone paying taxes, then the taxes funding an active police force.

If you pay taxes that go towards 10 police cars patrolling your district, are you paying for them to assume you are guilty? No, on the contrary, they are there to keep you safe. If someone decides to be cause harm to others (or himself), then you want them there. It gives peace of mind.

In this system, it is even less mandatory. You are obligated to pay taxes, but you are not obligated to buy a surveillance camera unless you want to play rated games.

What is up with this obsession with cheating? There are systems in place to catch them, and IMO if somebody is cheating at free online chess server, it's their loss but I'll still gladly accept my refunds and will always be happy to see the community protecting itself. Seems to be like the suggestions in this thread that aren't already being pursued are completely ridiculous and out of place not only for the sake of the community but also completely antithetical to Lichess's mission.