[computer-go] KGS Tournaments: Cheating

[Nick Wedd <nick@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

While KGS Computer Go Tournaments have no significant rewards for 
winning, there is little incentive for anyone to cheat.  I do not 
believe any contributor to this list is going to cheat anyway.  But I 
hope that some day, these events will attract sponsorship, recognition, 
or both.  Cheating at Computer Go has happened in the past, and we 
should do what we can to avoid it.  A sponsor is likely to expect 
effective steps to be taken to avoid cheating.

The easiest way to cheat in a server-held Computer Go event is to enter 
a program which is able to receive "hints" from its operator.

A current proposal for avoiding at least this form of cheating is as 
follows.  Each participating program is sent, as an executable, to a 
"Trusted Person" or TP, who has an appropriate platform to run it on, 
and will run the copy that enters the tournament.  A TP must be trusted 
by the programmer not to steal his code, and must be trusted by KGS and 
the sponsor (and preferably by the other participants) not to cheat. 
Different programmers may trust different TPs.  The TP will receive an 
internet-transaction logger from KGS.  He will close all other 
applications that access the internet, and run the logger, kgsGtp, and 
the program.  At the end of the event, he will sent the log to KGS for 
examination.

Another proposal is that programs must play reproducibly.  Then, if 
there is an accusation of cheating, the accused program can be asked to 
reproduce the sequence of moves.  However, some programs don't play 
reproducibly, and can't be forced to.

Nick
--
Nick Wedd    nick@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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