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Subject: Re: About control and authenticity of data in computerchess

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 07:07:09 06/28/00

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On June 28, 2000 at 07:56:09, Hans Gerber wrote:


>
>
>You would say that if something irregular had happened the DB team must have
>realised it? Absolutely in accordance with your verdict that they had total
>control?

One more time, I said that _if_ some sort of 'cheating' had gone on, someone
on the DB team would have had to be involved.  Because the general public didn't
have access to the SP hardware to install some sort of remote access device for
cheating.  And the general public would not be able to decypher the DB source
code and install cheating hooks into the program.  It would take an "inside
man"...




>
>It is not that I wanted it, it is a question of how you could exclude doubts
>about the output of the machine. A basic question for computerchess and science.
>Could you explain what you meant? What is the important aspect? Why should it be
>impossible to make valide and reliable data recording?
>

Because a human could influence the program to make a different move, _and_
doctor the log file in less than a minute.  Even if the log files were copied
and saved at the end of the game, it would be too late.  Write the log files
to non-erasable storage (like a CD?)  The logs could be doctored _before_ they
were written, as doctoring would take only seconds.




>
>How do you interprete the relation to their testing person when they at first
>agreed and then suddenly denied to give him the logfiles? What is your term if
>it was not a psycho war? Remember please that it all happened after game two,
>not just after game five or six.
>


I interpret it as something they were pretty well forced into answering "yes"
because Kasparov sprang the request on them in public.  Then, after thinking
about it, and hearing from the legal and marketing types at IBM, the decision
was overridden.  Happens all the time.



>
>Why should it be possible to observe a cheating by video, but it should not be
>possible to observe if no cheating had happened? If the video would be recording
>the relevant process? I do not see the principal difficulty.
>
>


You read everything in an inverted way.  I said that _if_ an act of cheating
were caught on video, that would be proof that it happened.  If it was not
caught on video, that would _not_ mean that no cheating happened.  Stores have
video cameras all over the place.  They _still_ get ripped off by shoplifters
day in and day out.  So you could prove someone _did_ shoplift if you catch
it on video... but you could not prove they didn't shoplift, just because you
didn't catch it on video.  Again, you can't prove someone didn't do something.




>
>
>Please give more details about the astonishing fact that you have _total
>control_ over your setting, but still you can't make the setting "controllable".
>Perhaps I miss a lot because I am not familiar with the English?
>
>

This is trivial.   Just look at what is going on at the main US nuclear
weapons lab at Los Alamos.  Things are misplaced.  Foreign agents sneak in
as contractor employees.  If _they_ can't prevent such activities, then who
can?  There is no "sure-fire anti-cheating impossible-to-get-around" approach
to solving the problem.  If there was, I am sure that the department of energy
would have such a miracle 'fix' already in place at Los Alamos and every other
weapons facility in the US.







>
>Hans Gerber



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