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

[Don Dailey <drd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

   I see two possible problems with this.

   The smaller problem is that this method is likely to introduce delay,
   on the order of a millisecond on a LAN, or hundreds of milliseconds on
   the Internet. Even the LAN delay is a significant nuisance compared to
   what you can do with a local real-time clock (polling on every
   position you examine, or just arranging for a timer interrupt when
   your time runs out). And it's a particularly annoying nuisance for
   people who are writing programs primarily to entertain human
   customers, because any engineering effort you put into dealing with
   the delay of a networked clock is completely useless when playing
   against a human customer.

But  all you are saying  is  that this is  a  nusiance.  I don't think
anyone denies this.

I  believe there  are methods which   are  good approximations of  the
protocol  "wait until x amount of   time passes, and  make the current
best move (or variations   of)"   that are deterministic, and    don't
require a network protocol.  

Don