Re: computer-go: Authenticating the identity of a remote go-playing computer program

[Don Dailey <drd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Mark,

I am  in total  agreement  with you.  I  have  been a participant,  as
author of a sucessful chess program, for many  years in computer chess
tournaments and I would not trade one of them for any number of online
tournament.  The whole point is to get together and exchange ideas and
socialize.

Unfortunately, there are   issues  about potential cheating  that  can
happen whether   you  are there  in  person or   not.  As  I mentioned
earlier,  I   have seen "authors" come    in  with commercial programs
belonging to  someone else, and  I know  of  cases where  cheating has
taken place against my program during the  actual live tournament.  In
one case the operator was able to excercise some control over WHEN the
computer moved.  In chess, this is a really big advantage and yet it's
quite easy to pull off.  This operator  was strong enough to know when
the move was sound  or best and  by making his  program play  it right
away, he could  gain a serious advantage on  the clock, which in chess
is a big  deal!  It turned  out  that this  was  one of  the very best
programs  out there, and I know  for a fact the  author would not have
approved, but the author was not the  operator.  As things turned out,
in any of the cases I was aware of  my program was fortunate enough to
win despite the cheating but  as a result  I am very interested in any
methods  that   have  some  chance   of  verifying  "move authorship".
Unfortunately, this appears to be  extremely difficult to actually  do
right.  I don't   view this as something   cool to do  just because it
might be possible,  in the best  case I would  view it  as a necessary
evil and hope that there are better ways to discourage dishonesty.

Mark, do you know what truly amazes me?  I really can't understand why
anyone would want to come in with  someone elses program and represent
it as their own.   I know there is an  ego thing involved, but on  the
internet  chess server  there are  tons of  "Crafty clones", that  are
operated under various names running 24 hours a day by non-programmers
who totally relate to the program, and think  of it as "their program"
as if it's a direct extension of themselves.


Don 



   From: "Mark Boon" <tesuji@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

   Here a different point of view: making a Go program is a lot of work.
   Organizing or entering a tournament is relatively very little work. I'm
   happy to fly to the other side of the world and put in the moves by hand, if
   only I don't need to program communication protocols or other, non Go
   programming related, requirements which take away time I could spend
   improving the program.

   Actually, I never really understood people who wish to automate computer-Go
   tournaments just because they can. In my opinion it takes a lot of the fun
   away. Do you really expect someone to work for several years, only to enter
   a tournament which is run remotely or automatically? So that a few days
   later he gets a message: "Dear Sir, your program finished 5th, we will
   e-mail you the game-records promptly. We hope you'll be participating again
   next year." On the contrary, these events should be used as a rare
   opportunity to get the best Go programmers together in a single place and
   have them share their ideas.

       Mark Boon