Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 13:39:48 01/25/99
Go up one level in this thread
On January 25, 1999 at 14:16:00, KarinsDad wrote: >On January 25, 1999 at 13:10:06, Robert Hyatt wrote: > >>On January 25, 1999 at 10:06:04, KarinsDad wrote: >> >>>On January 25, 1999 at 08:34:38, Jürgen Hartmann wrote: >>> >>>>The German Newsmagazine "Der Spiegel" today reports a funny story: Mr. >>>>Allwermann, an Elo 1925 amateur of age 55 has won a nine-round 2h/40 swiss >>>>tournament and achieved a performance of 2630. >>>> >>>>Organizers and competitors got somewhat suspicious when the guy announced a mate >>>>in eight in the decisive final round game against grandmaster Kalinichev! >>>> >>>>"Der Spiegel" writes that Mr. Allwermann's moves are reproducible with >>>>Fritz5.32. While nobody understands how he has done it, there are rumours that >>>>he formerly worked in the 'electronics business'. Moreover the German chess >>>>magazine "Schachmagazin 64" not only points out the fantastic attacking >>>>combinations but also some typical Fritz 'no-clue' moves like Bf4 in a closed >>>>French Winawer as White. >>>> >>>>Seems like we will need airport-type security checks in tournaments in the >>>>future. >>>> >>>>Jürgen >>> >>>Not only is this interesting that someone has actually done this, but a bigger >>>problem comes in on how to detect and stop it. You cannot analyze all of the >>>games played by the winners of tournaments, can you? Opinions on how to stop >>>this kind of thing guys? >>> >>>I'm sure almost all of us has fantasized winning a big tournament this way since >>>we are all interested in computer chess, but the majority of us are either: >>> >>>1) principled individuals >>>2) chicken >>>3) do not have a friend who would also be willing to cheat at this level (being >>>successful without having a co-hort to handle unexpected crashes of the >>>computer, etc.) >>>4) are not technical enough to setup some form of radio system (do not do this >>>in a casino tournament guys, you WILL get caught) >>>5) are not smart enough to do this without getting caught (announcing mate in 8, >>>what was he, nuts?). >>> >>>KarinsDad >> >>The solution is easy: to prevent it, play games in a room lined with a wire >>mesh. IE in Orlando Florida, there is a retirement housing project where people >>that are avid radio-controlled model airplane fans can buy a home. Since you >>often work on your model in your home, and need the transmitter turned on to >>tune things, and since the houses are within 1/2 mile of the model airport folks >>fly at, they provide a RF-proof hobby room in each house that prevents RF >>broadcasts from getting out of that room using the mesh I mentioned. > >Easy, but not practical. > >> >>Another idea is to blanket the playing area with white-noise RF. But that >>would be unpopular with anyone close by trying to watch a TV. :) > >Again for your reason and others, not practical. > >> >>What _I_ would do is buy a high-quality frequency scanner that can cover the >>spectrum up thru 1ghz or so, and run it in the tournament hall. There _must_ >>be a transmitter (probably one of the new micro-CCD video cameras connected to >>it) to get the moves out of the tournament site to the computer where the >>operator is assisting. You could definitely find that signal with no problems, >>and then a simple DF antenna could point the finger right at the person doing >>the cheating. Were I doing it, I'd try to discover their modulation technique >>and 'intercept'... and then overpower his receiver with my more powerful >>transmitter and give him a couple of blunders to play. :) >> >>This will become more common as microelectronics continue to shrink. You'd have >>to see some of the small CCD video cameras to believe them, but a camera the >>size of a pencil eraser is easy to get, and hard to detect... >> >>And if the guy supposedly wears a hearing aid, that's a natural place to include >>the receiver to get the moves back... > >How would you handle burst transmissions ( < 1 millisecond )? Hard to pick up >with a standard frequency scanner. > first, very unlikely. very expensive for the possible 'gain' in the tournament. But one day, not so expensive. >And if I was really getting tricky, I would encode my next frequency into the >transmission and have redundancy checks, etc. I would have a transmitter in my >shoe and receive binary responses back between shoes (3 bits from square, 3 bits >to square) and I would send the move back to verify that it is correct (same >with when the computer makes a move). All of this could be done with one quick >burst per communication and the "local" electronics could slowly give the >information back to the human. No cameras, no hearing aids, nothing visible. > No problem... I'd bug a couple of friends of mine up at NSA, borrow some of _their_ 'evesdropping' hardware and catch that millisecond burst with no problems... :) >More effort than it is worth, but doable. > >KarinsDad :)
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