Dennis Dennis...(shaking head)

        First let me start this by saying me and you dpearted the
        ways relatively easy going and straight forward.  I even
        as far as a couple months ago ICQed you to say hi and such
        and you were cordial.    I enjoyed your stay In AdventureNet
        as a poster above all else.  I was saddened to see you leave.

        But now i see this tirade and have to speak up.  But keep
        in mind anything i say in this post is not a personal attack
        or a slam/flame.  Its just facts and opinions i have to set
        in defense of things said.  I'd have not said anything if
        it was not stated and started her first.

        I don't know paul or bob(?) or their leagues directly so
        I can't speak for them or comment on them.  I have heard
        rumors about them for years but that's it just rumors and
        heresay.  But when I see Mark and in a indirect way me
        and my network (and his) slammed I must speak up.  Not
        to cover up things but to speak up in defense only.

        Where to start....

        Up to this point I actually had some thought deep in the
        back of my head that you may be right on the cheating before
        but then I see your posts attacking 3 or 4 leagues here.
        That's a pattern I've seen before for ages.  Its a pattern
        that tells me theres more involved overall than just one
        league's problem.

        I've been doing bbsing and sysoping for over 18 years.
        I've seen it all and heard it all folks just like you come
        and go all the time.  Its not even funny anymore.
        I've run EWOG II now for 10 years (6/1/03 was year 10)
        and ran AdventureNet for 10 years (this coming september).
        I ran EWOG I for some 6-7 years before that with other leagues
        in those very early days of bbsdom.

        I know what I'm doing and being a programmer also believe
        I am qualified enough to know the technics of problems with
        cheating and such.  I can examine patterns and analyze situations.

        You may not think so but i have the experience to back up
        my statements, do you?

        Yes your a sysop for many years but where is your game league?
        You say you have better things to do?  Fine.  You have time
        to yell at folks though.  I contend before you accuse folks
        of things you run your OWN network and your OWN game league.
        I directly challenge you to do so.  Its the only way you will
        EVER know how it truly is and what is involved.  Running a bbs
        is commendable and all that but its nothing like running a network
        tht stretches over several contients and organize something
        as complicated as a game league.

        Will you do it?  I doubt it.  Simply cause you know you may
        be proven wrong.  Yes you may find yourself even accussed
        by folks as well of cheating in your leagues.  I grant you
        some will do it out of spite but I bet there would be
        some honst others who say otherwise.

        All the stuff that happened to you has been covered ad nauseum
        so I bring to the echo and to you something to think about.

        Michael Frater was a good member just like you.  He claimed
        the same thing eventually as one might predict.  Me and Mark
        spent THREE weeks doing nothing but going over logs, investigating
        boards and sysops and users alike of the situation.  Day in
        and day out when we could.  I even wrote 3 small utils to divide
        up the logs for the info i needed since a network can create
        logs like irex logs of easilly over 12 megs of information fo
        a single month.  We presented the findings in the echo and
        found no standing for cheating.  What does he do?  He ignores
        the evidence and even admits to it.  Yet how does it look to
        us.  He accusses but when we try to work with him he ignores
        us and the evidence at hand.  How does it look when his son
        adn others from his own board seem to oddly have the same
        period of plays and attacks and even in some cases same
        "style" of messages.  Hmmm...is this multiple accounts
        from the same person.  I personally think there might have
        been.  Could I prove it?  Not really.

        So to the question of proving cheating....

        Tell me how does one prove cheating?  To our eyes you only
        acuse as so many others have tried in leagues world wide.
        But wheres the proof.  A LC can only do so much to investigate
        and so much to prove this or that.  Its YOUR burden of proof
        to prove the cheating.  Did you?  Not to our eyes frankly.

        So lets break it apart a bit:

        * Settings: Unlike most leagues we allow our players to vote
          on the league settings.  Yet they come later to claim
          its unfair when they suffer and it shouldn't be this or
          that.  We give them the chance.  Is this fair?  Yes.
          Does it change the environment so cheating is less
          tempting?  Yes in some degrees it does.

          Can this create cheating?  Not really it just changes
          tactics on how they might do things.

        * Polls: We set a rule that each board should poll often
          for mail pickup.  But how can one honestly enforce such
          a policy?  Unless he physically spot checks boards and
          their logs its impossible.  is this fair for us?  No
          it still gives them the free choice we have no control
          over.  Is it fiar to them?  For them yes.

          Can this create cheating? Yes through packet holding
          (see below)

        * Turnaround: We require that as soon as a packet comes into
          a board they must process that packet.  Again how cna
          one enforce?  Phsycially enter a house on boards world
          wide and watch the screen?  This is a honor system that
          has to be used.  Fair?  Yes but unfournate at times.

          Can this create cheating? Yes but holding packets (see
          later)

        * Travel Times: This is one of the LC's best tools to
          figure out what a board is doing.  But even then its
          only a measuring stick.  Some demand X TT hours and
          that's a bit restrictive since "stuff happens" boards
          go up and down (see below).  But in fact I've been
          around for over 15 years with the problem of TTs.
          They are NOT accurate and even both authors have
          admited to this at one point or another.   The
          software only estimates based on packets that may
          hit the system and not accuately demark times and
          time zones and date lines for example (though on
          that is a low problem).  The formula used to generate
          such only tries to determine the BEST TT they can find.
          It is not the true time.

          Can this promote cheting?  Well obviously a TT of days
          may need to be investigated over a TT of 2 hours.

        * Boards going up and down:
          I saw you complain to Mark about boards that went up
          and down.  Guess what that happens ALL the time.  You
          can't tell me whereever you get fido or other connections
          over the years you've never had ONE day of one of
          those connections being down?  Be honest here.  There
          are few that can even admit to say a record like mine being
          down for a total of only 8 days out of 10 years.  Internet
          problems occur all the time.  Can you force people to stay
          up all the time just to satisfy you?  No.  Stuff happens.
          Should you unfairly kick a board out for valid problems?
          No.  I definitely disagree with your belief there.  If
          you have a perfect board and never downtime that's great.
          But others do not.

          I can see your point that a board may 'fake' down time.
          I've seen that once or twice over the years.  But bring
          me the proof.  How? Show me the board is indeed up and
          players are in bre and can login but can't say send
          mail.  Then we'll deal with that board as a possible
          cheater.  Till then hard to prove.

        * Packiet Holding:  Probaly the top #1 problems of so called
          cheater boards.  This is the main story told for almost
          2 decades.  So a board holds packets nd processes them
          when he can to avoid attacks.  We know it can be done
          to where a sysop can avoid 'attacks' by creting backup
          copies of bre nd selectiving 'losing' those packets.
          Yes in that case that is cleary cheating and there have
          been numerous examples dealt with with many leagues I've
          been in.  Those are somewhat easy to track due to spies
          on those boards checking to see if such attacks are
          received and then that's EASY to prove by the game logs
          and events itself.  But did you get online and show any
          captures of such discrepacies?  No.  unfournately not
          to my knowledge.

          Tehrefore again not much we can do.

        * Lost attacks:  Something of a dark horse in the world of Bre.
          Attacks are lost through good or bad reasons and create
          lost attacks to come back and thus folks deem them to be
          cheating due to no results.  Guess what?  That's not always
          the case.  Lost attacks have been shown for years to be
          hit and miss.  During the early days of this very echo back
          around mid '90s it was proven that lost attacks are not
          accurate in that even if a packet gets through bre will
          sometimes miss a ack back ot the game thus replies are snet
          back the lost attack flags are sent.  I wish I still
          had that capture info back then a decade ago to show you
          but i don't.  I don't think John D was part of it then
          but i could be wrong it was over a decade ago.

          In a small league for example that i run just between
          3 boards in this city I found lost attacks hit and miss
          based on oddities in the way packets are processed at
          times.  Point is its not a perfect system.

        Now with the above can you prove with these items to us
        that a board either our league or pauls or bobs cheated?
        Please show us here so the evidence can be broken down.
        Not just words please.  Please post logs, statements by
        users/players, screen captures and such.  I hope you did
        do your homework.  But being so long i'm sure that
        stuff is thrown out by now.  Oh well.

        There is only two ways to really prove cheating in a legue.

        * Player stupidity: By having obvious multiple accounts.
          Yes that is a problem even our league had a times and
          we dealt with them quickly and deleted them.  There
          are ways to monitor the game for this and check patterns.
          But sometimes it gets overlooked since its hard to
          prove since you don't know the user info on every board
          in your league.  Also stupidity by them admiting to them
          cheating.  That has occured.

          Is this a doable thing to find?  Sure.

        * Endless investigation:  What I mean by this is spending
          thousands of dollars to log into boards nd keep accounts
          on every board in your league you run.  This means calling
          LD to countries you wouldn't ever call normally.  This
          means loging every detail of every attack that you see.
          Ever ymessage to mark patterns in player msgs.

          Is this doable?  Nope.  Unless your rich and have no life
          and job.

        
         Now with these ideas in the open lets get back to cheating
         in our league.  In my experience we have had cheaters
         we have caught and dealt with.  No board besides yours has
         ever been thrown out (though I did not per se do it mark
         did).  In my league 033 and now the merged 933 league
         we have mainly found the stupid multiple accounts.  We've
         had one player admit to trying to cheat and that sysosp
         nuked him before we could.  We tolerate no such activity
         nor do other respectable leagues.  The main big period of
         cheating occured from around '92 to '94.  During this period
         just about every single teen out there tried the multiple
         account thing.  It was a battle.  So I'm not saying it
         has NEVER occured I'm saying that it did not occur during
         Michael's and yours tour of duty with the league.

         Finaally before i leave here is example #2.  When league
         088 was big and hot in the early '90s there were rampant
         accusations of cheating.  I was a member and eventually
         took the league from him when he was near closing down
         the bbs.  Dale informed me how he was always winning
         their board (mostly winning).  We setup a sub game just
         him and me and I ran through every trick and technique
         he told me about.  By the 3rd week I was doing what he
         was doing in major buildups of military forces and doing
         the same things he was.  WITHOUT cheating.  Through skill
         alone (his not mine).

         I suck in bre and my board or marks has never been a major
         factor in the victory of the games.  We have nothing to
         lose by wanting cheating since it would not benefit us.

         If I as a sucky bre player can do what dale, one of the
         biggest all time players I've seen, then there is moer
         to consider.

         I'm expert and top in Arrowbridge and a couple other
         games (none bbs) like Axis and Allies and Machievelli.
         I'm uncontended in many circles in thsoe games.  But
         folks of course have to accuse me of cheating.  Its
         simple skill that's it.  Tactics and skill.

         Is this boasting?  Maybe I'm good in those games
         I suck in most others like bre/fe.

         But the point is persepctive is the key to everything.
         As a sysop in a league you don't see every detail.
         Every problem.  Every fact.  You only see your side
         and your board losing battle after battle in a desperate
         fight for survival.  You example what info you do have
         like scores and think "they must be cheating".  That's
         not the case that's just your human mind trying to resolve
         a situation it can't deal with.

         It happens in everyday life when you see one person getting
         promoted in a job over another.  They claim they sleep
         with the boss or cheated on forms.  But it might just be
         plain talent.

         Now with all the above said the bottom line is that based
         on my experience as a old timer in this business is that
         based on what i have seen over the years that everyone who
         tends to claim cheating is a sore loser.  That's my opinion
         and how it is.  Michael left in disgust and took his ball
         home even though the facts were in his face.  Your board
         did well.  I seem to recall it makeing sometimes 3 or 4th
         place in the final victory.  So maybe its not all about
         being a sore loser i dunno.  But after seeing you attack
         not only our league but 3 or 4 others there is a pattern
         going here that to me tells ther emight be more behind the
         accusations than we can see.  Does that make them true?  Dunno.

         But as the saying goes.  Those who protest or deny too much
         tend to have something to hide (metaphorically or for real).

         Something a therapist could probably dechipor.

         Now I know this is lengthby and boring but I wanted you to
         knwo where I'm coming from and try to show you perspective
         works in mysterious ways.

         Now you may call me names if you want I won't.  I only
         am trying to reason with you and hope you think about it
         more than you are.  But if you do I have a running bet
         with several in ICQ as to what you might call me.  So
         far my bets for what folks call me in fn_sysop are 85%
         right :)

         Good day and good reading.  I hope you consider the
         above in friendship (what little you may think we
         have left) and not a attack.  You started the attacks
         I'm replying to them.
                                
        Now back to your regulary scheduled flame fest...

        Before you reply it might be another 2 weeks before
        I can reply so take your time and calm down.  Or
        just fly off and call me names.  I'm used to it.  :)

        My best was one guy in our local fido net that was NC
        till we got him bounced for firing me (that was
        fun) so we fired him.  He sent 9 lines of text and about
        300 words.  Only about 12 words were non profanity.  So
        don't worry I'm used to it :)


... By: Dean Cran  
--- Fringe BBS