-=> Quoting Dennis Haddox to Scott Adams <=-

 DH> Part II

        Tonight the exciting story continues...


 SA>         So to the question of proving cheating....
 
 SA>         Tell me how does one prove cheating?  To our eyes you
 SA> only
 SA>         acuse as so many others have tried in leagues world
 SA> wide.
 SA>         But wheres the proof.  A LC can only do so much to
 SA> investigate
 SA>         and so much to prove this or that.  Its YOUR burden of
 SA> proof
 SA>         to prove the cheating.  Did you?  Not to our eyes
 SA> frankly.
 DH> 
 DH> We never did understand that. That board would go down
 DH> for a week or two at a time, anytime it lost the edge in a war
 DH> down it would go. The attacking boards would in the meantime
 DH> have all their military out and then they would conveniently
 DH> go back up, send multiple gooies, and their growth rate had
 DH> continually grown while they were "down". This proved that
 DH> they were playing the game while they were "down". We
 DH> showed you what their net value was before they went "down"
 DH> and how it had risen substantially while they were "down".
 DH> You or Mark said it was inconclusive, that was a crock of crap.
 DH> They knew what they were doing, we knew what they were
 DH> doing and I am sure YOU knew what they were doing also.

     Belief and proof are 2 things.  We may have our opinion
     on the idea of them maybe up to something.  But proof is
     what we act on.  If we did something about every single
     piece of accusation from as simple as Travel time being
     screwed up to down boards to cheating there would never
     be any boards in my league or other leagues.  That's
     the problem.

     But boards do go up and down.  Porter's on my side of
     the network (not mark's) was infamous for it.  He had
     occasional problems with his system.  He was not a big
     deal in the game so it didn't matter much but that was
     a fact of his problems.  As to the board above I don't
     knwo them personally but I think Mark did so can't
     comment much beyond that.


 DH> 
 DH> All this about settings I clipped because it is irrelevant. If I
 DH> had the time or inclination or desire to be a cheater, all these
 DH> settings could be conformed to and still be cheating my ass off.
 DH> You or anybody else would not know any different. What I find
 DH> a bit amusing is that these guys that think they are so clever
 DH> think they can get away with this stuff and nobody knows
 DH> how they do it. Wrong!

     You dare clip my text! :)

     The above is a bit conflicting at least in 4 spots.
     First you say could "still be cheating" but we'd not
     know about it yet then you say those who do don't think
     we could find out.  First you admit its hard to prove
     then bottom you say its easy to detect?  Confusion.
 
 SA>         * Boards going up and down:
 SA>           I saw you complain to Mark about boards that went up
 SA>           and down.  Guess what that happens ALL the time.  You
 SA>           can't tell me whereever you get fido or other
 DH> 
 DH> Yes that was one of the main complaints. Sure boards might have
 DH> a problem occassionally for a day or maybe even a few days, so
 DH> what? What we were pointing out is EVERY time, I can only 
 DH> remember there was one board that was a main abuser, they
 DH> would lose the edge in a battle they would go down time and time
 DH> and time again. When they went back "up", their networth had
 DH> grown substantially which is a major indicator that they weren't
 DH> down at all. They may have manipulated it so that they didn't
 DH> have any packets to send so as to support they were down but
 DH> they were still playing the game.

     I may be wrong and Dev could jump in here but I believe he
     checked and confirmed the down status a few times.  Beyond
     that unless we poll their phone line every 10 minutes
     again difficult to prove or study.
 
 SA>           Should you unfairly kick a board out for valid
 SA> problems?
 SA>           No.  I definitely disagree with your belief there.
 DH> 
 DH> You never understood then. I never said to unfairly kick a board
 DH> out because they had a problem. I suggested that if a board
 DH> goes up and down and up and down or just down for a set
 DH> amount of days throughout the game period that they be reset
 DH> and not allowed to play the remainder of THAT game.
 DH> This would eliminate in it's entirety the problem being encountered.

     I might agree it could leave to foul play.  But the thing
     is did the board go down or was it a intenret connection?
     I've had problems with connections before and could not
     send packets for 2 days while people play fairly and
     legit.  My network would go up and it would look like
     something fishy.  This situation could and does happen.
     In the above case its been so long i forget the exact
     details.

 
 SA>           I can see your point that a board may 'fake' down
 SA> time.
 SA>           I've seen that once or twice over the years.  But
 SA> bring
 SA>           me the proof.  How? Show me the board is indeed up
 SA> and
 SA>           players are in bre and can login but can't say send
 SA>           mail.  Then we'll deal with that board as a possible
 SA>           cheater.  Till then hard to prove.
 DH> 
 DH> That is NOT hard at all to do. That is exactly what we did and
 DH> you and/or Hoover ignored it. You did not have the balls to
 DH> enforce a rule that would eliminate that form of cheating.

     Did you prove a board was fiddling with mail or such?  No.
     It was simply text in a post.  We couldn't prove it
     nor could you.
 
 SA>         * Packiet Holding:  Probaly the top #1 problems of so
 SA>           been in.  Those are somewhat easy to track due to
 DH> 
 DH> Very lame and yes, VERY easy to detect.

     Only through poll logs but that doesn't mean anything. (see
     above).  Unless you have some other wisdom beyond calling
     a board running a test attack to X board and showing
     the activity in term captures there is no easy way
     to detect it.
 
 SA>           and events itself.  But did you get online and show
 SA> any
 SA>           captures of such discrepacies?  No.  unfournately not
 SA>           to my knowledge.
 DH> 
 DH> Yes, I did per your request. Apparently it was a waste of my time.

     BBS logins and screen captures?  I don't recall anything.
     I could go back in the echo and check but never saw it here
     so maybe it never got off your board?
 
 SA>           the case.  Lost attacks have been shown for years to
 SA> be
 SA>           hit and miss.  During the early days of this very
 DH> 
 DH> Yes that does happen. It does not happen very frequently but yes
 DH> I have seen that happen. It is so infrequent though unless there
 DH> is a major malfunction with the board's mailer that it usually 
 DH> does not cause much of a difference.

     I see it pretty commonly like the TT bug.  Supposedly me
     and mark have a 13 hour TT which is bull since we poll
     and transfer mail packets for the games every other hour.
     So the game stats are not perfect.


... "My duty is to heal" - Doc Franklin  "Then heal
humans" - Gen Franklin
--- Fringe BBS