Muhammad-Saram's blog

By Muhammad-Saram, 5 months ago, In English

These days, there have been a lot of blog posts about cheaters.

Random Thought

And if you ask me, I'm tired of seeing "Cheater Exposed" and ... whatever blah blah.

Anyways, the number of cheaters is gradually increasing (or maybe just cheaters' reports increased), which could lead to consequences like decreasing the value of Codeforces; a large subset of participants are cheaters and a majority of blog posts are about Cheaters.

Admins really need to take some action about the current situation.

And to those Exposers, Patrols, Clubs, Investigators, Detectives, Hawk-eye and whatever they call themselves(sorry If I missed your "title"):
I'd like to say maybe let's just wait for some admin to take notice, I hope, soon some admin will write about the current circumstances. Maybe let's just let them be them, in my opinion, anyone who has reached a level of CM or even expert is already mature enough that they'll not even think about these things. Most of these people are just stuck newbies/pupils, and what could they even achieve from cheating, trust me, literally nothing. And if you're here just for practice and improvement, you shouldn't really care about these people.

P.S

Maybe some people are getting me wrong, by

they'll not even think about these things.

I mean that they'll not even think about cheating.

And that

Most of these people are just stuck newbies/pupils

So this should not affect anybody's rating much.

And even if it does

if you're here just for practice and improvement, you shouldn't really care about these people.

Shouldn't our main objective be practice?

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5 months ago, # |
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I have delved deeply into codeforces' history over the past 4-5 years, and I've noticed that these types of blogs are not new. There have been numerous blogs exposing cheaters, which primarily target individuals rather than addressing the broader issue. They personally expose the cheater and flood the site with multiple blogs about the same person over intervals of 3-4 months, even if the individual has stopped participating in contests or ceased cheating. This is truly annoying.

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    5 months ago, # ^ |
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    That's the point!
    I'd agree with everything you said, except the first thing. It's more like there are some peak eras and some peaceful eras but this era has been greater than any past era that I know of.

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5 months ago, # |
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These blogs are necessary because Cf doesn't have any alternative reporting system.

Maybe let's just let them be them, in my opinion, anyone who has reached a level of CM or even expert is already mature enough that they'll not even think about these things

I think you are immature for not thinking about "these things". I have a lot of friends in the Newbie — Pupil range who are affected by cheating. Just because you are at a rating where it does not affect you much, you will write a blog to not care about it ??

I'd like to say maybe let's just wait for some admin to take notice

As far as I know, Admins take notice and do look into blogs that report cheating.

Anyways, the number of cheaters is gradually increasing (or maybe just cheaters' reports increased), which could lead to consequences like decreasing the value of Codeforces; a large subset of participants are cheaters and a majority of blog posts are about Cheaters.

It is increasing. And are you suggesting that if we pretend cheating does not exist, it will go away? The people reporting cheating are helping clean up the community and increase its value.

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    5 months ago, # ^ |
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    True. I also support exposing all the recent cheaters. My concern is just for people who are being poked since months and/or years also those who were imposed with false allegations by probably alts of the same person.

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      5 months ago, # ^ |
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      Bro forgot to use AI to "proofread" his post lmao

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    5 months ago, # ^ |
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    I think you are immature for not thinking about "these things".

    Maybe you are immature for thinking about rating.

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      5 months ago, # ^ |
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      Rating has a place in this world. To act as feedback and motivator to do better.

      Tell me, I have some friends who I got into CP. They went from being unable to solve a single problem to being able to solve AB and sometimes C in div2. Yet even then, their rating doesn't improve, unlike what it would have a year ago. Is that not demotivating for them?

      In things like Chess, Cp, rating is a part of the sport. Its harmful if you obsess over them, but you can't not "think about them".

      Also, imagine ignoring the rest of my points to just focus on the one part about rating. Cringe behavior.

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    5 months ago, # ^ |
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    It does, it's for div1+

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5 months ago, # |
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Perhaps a better solution would be for CF to implement a way to report cheating that does not involve flooding the blogs with cheating posts.

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    5 months ago, # ^ |
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    This system already exists. Antiplagiarism check will ban most of cheaters, and if cheating dramatically impact on one's rating, after this check the one will get underrecieved rating. But I never saw f.e. even +20 points after this check, so I guess problem with cheaters taking away rating is overvalued

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      5 months ago, # ^ |
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      Antiplagiarism check will ban most of cheaters

      I thought a good chunk of those skipped in later antiplagiarism checks were also because cheating blogs posted their names publicly -_-

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        5 months ago, # ^ |
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        I don't think so. most of these blogs written by newbies/pupils, seems like whining for me (sorry for toxicity, hope I won't get ban because of this comment), so why should we listen to people who prefer posting blogs instead of upsolving and practice?

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          5 months ago, # ^ |
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          Well, that is something that can only really be answered by CF admins.

          I still advocate for a feature to report a suspicious submission (with some comments for the reasons why), which is kept private and only visible to CF admins.

          I know that they won't be able to process all such complaints and many might be fake reports. But still, something is better than nothing.

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            5 months ago, # ^ |
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            to avoid fake reports, this feature can be implemented for experts+/cms+, like it is for tagging problems now. but here another problem appear, most of cms+ don't affect by cheating and won't report anyone since they don't care about it. so this feature seems useless)

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          5 months ago, # ^ |
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          whats the point u are trying to make here ? if a person doesnt upsolve or practice that doesnt make him a proper human thats able to report cheaters also lower ranks are corrupted due to cheaters u see blogs everyday where the first 3 — 4 problems of div 2 rounds are publicly spread the cheaters problem is a real issue and its not overrated

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            5 months ago, # ^ |
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            The cheating issue is probably not as big as you're making it out to be. Based on what I've seen, it seems like problems D, E, and F are hardly affected by cheaters. Cheating is a big issue on many platforms, but I don't think codeforces is one of them (maybe this is because cf's community is so diligent at spotting cheaters).

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              5 months ago, # ^ |
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              i literally started my sentence by saying lower ranks are corrupted since when E and F are for lower ranks also even higher ranks are corrupted by cheaters when was the last time u saw a div 2 won by a legit user ? proves my point

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                5 months ago, # ^ |
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                to be fair, higher ranks usually aren't "cheaters" but either div1 alt accounts smurfing or new users getting to their proper rating.

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              5 months ago, # ^ |
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              I can't see how D isn't hardly affected by cheaters when everyone can get free access to its solution almost every round

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                5 months ago, # ^ |
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                If it were significantly affected by cheaters, we'd see much more correct submissions. Sometimes D only has like 200 correct submissions (from div. 2 users), and not all of those 200 submissions are from cheaters.

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            5 months ago, # ^ |
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            Firstly, I don't blame people for beeing low rated. I'm just tired of 998244353 same blogs where one grey guy blaming another grey for cheating on div4a.

            Secondly, about cheating on div2. Firstly, guys who cheat on problems like div2d are usually smart enough to change code dramatically, so you can't find these cases and chance of false positive cases is high.

            Lastly, is 5 points you didn't get because of cheaters is very big problem that worth thousands of posts? I think no

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              5 months ago, # ^ |
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              Why not 1e9+7 :thinking:

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              5 months ago, # ^ |
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              whats that logic ? if the 5 points mattered or not its not an excuse not to try as hard as possible to remove cheaters iam also tired of seeing the top 20 in most div 2s being alt accounts of some red coders or smth

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                5 months ago, # ^ |
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                5 points can be gained easily on next round unless you are gm (btw never saw gm who said cheating is a very big problem). And also it shows that not really big amount of people cheat on contests usually. And as I see on your comment below, you suggest to use spoofers. This spoofers will basically remove all fun from cp but for what? For 5 extra rating points?

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                  5 months ago, # ^ |
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                  bro when did i suggest using spoofers are you talking about also when did i say 5 points matter ? how are gms involved into this wth is going on

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                  5 months ago, # ^ |
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                  If rating doesn't matter for you then why you care about cheaters?

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                  5 months ago, # ^ |
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                  first of all knowing your real rank and rating in a leaderboard and also making the rounds more enjoyable for those who are eligible to participate i cant imagine that you have to be a gm to have a chance of winning a div 2 round because as i said above most of the top 20 are alt accounts

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                  5 months ago, # ^ |
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                  I am also curious: why is 5 points harder to gain when you're a gm?

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                  5 months ago, # ^ |
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                  Not really a GM (never been red, heh), and my experiences would be obsolete, but I'll try to briefly explain as a former yellow.

                  There are only two ways to gain rating at Div.1 (I meant strictly Div.1 i.e. Master+): Div.1-only round and combined round.

                  For Div.1-only, the risks are imminent: should you choke on a problem and can't proceed too far, you are guaranteed to drop rating. More with the facts that there are no gray/green/etc. as fodders to farm/stabilize your ratings (though not much if your performance is already beyond saving).

                  For combined rounds, on hindsight it's fine since we have both the fodders and the easier problems as warming-up, but the demanded ranking for positive delta are insanely high. An example back in 2018: rank 246 in Avito Cool Challenge 2018 is only worth a performance of roughly 2200, i.e. the competition starts getting way too intense. Now scale that up to 2450-2500, which imo is the bare minimum to ensure a positive delta at low red: I believe you'd have to make it at top 100 at least.

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                  5 months ago, # ^ |
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                  gotcha, appreciate it

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5 months ago, # |
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I think banning the IP address, at least for the cheater live streamer will be better.

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5 months ago, # |
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no points of ranting just close the recent actions tab and life easy. Someone need to calm (majority)Indian audience till then just focus on yourself.

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5 months ago, # |
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As someone just starting out with cp, I appreciate people exposing cheating scams because its very hard to motivate yourself to continue this journey with such negativity going around.

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5 months ago, # |
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The main concern with cheating is not cheating itself.

It's the influence which poses a problem. I don't know how but when something is done by a lot of people it starts getting approved more and more even if it's morally wrong.

Maybe someday some high rated guy will excuse their cheating behaviour by saying (I am just helping others.)

I believe the admins are also struggling (Atcoder admitted that curbing cheating is hard and they are always ahead at taking actions around unfair means)

I believe it's good that the community is now taking part in weeding out cheaters. We shouldn't't encourage mass spam of cheating blogs but collective action is definitely necessary.

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5 months ago, # |
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there are 2 problems here we have to discuss first one is that u are able to register but if u dont make a submission it wont affect your rating this should be removed we everyday see shit alt accounts avoiding WAs and also participating only when they know they have atleast some part of the problems i dont see a reason why its not atcoder style u either make a rated or unrated register and u are only able to register before the contest also if u dont make a submission its your problem and your rating drops

the second one is the cheaters problem and i'll be honest i only see 1 viable solution its to make a desktop app for codeforces contests where u are only able to participate in a contest via the app and make hardware bans there will still be spoofers but hardware spoofers are expensive and usually unsafe which will make cheaters think twice before fucking around

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    5 months ago, # ^ |
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    Agree with your first opinion. If someone is not ready for a contest or maybe busy, they should not register the contest. Otherwise, they should be rated as a participant no matter what.

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5 months ago, # |
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I'm no expert or CM but I'm going to agree with you on everything, especially the practice part. I just don't care about the cheaters, I'm here just because I find coding fun and not because of some random number on the screen that goes up when you solve more problems.

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5 months ago, # |
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bro is telling us not to care about cheaters because he is one

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This blog is an attempt to stop cheaters. Today I want to say a few things to cheaters.

1- It never makes you better.

2- If you are caught, no one will trust you ever.

3- It gives you no benefit.

Honestly, if someone is cheating to impress someone, whether it's your Mom, Dad, grandmother, grandfather, or any community or anyone else(Your girlfriend/boyfriend). Please stop it, and do something else in which you believe that you are good. Everyone has some quality, try to be better in that. And Don't disturb the CF community.

All these people I mentioned before want you to become better not to show off that you are better. All of us are here for educational purposes, let us learn rather than quit CP. And if someone is cheating, he is wasting his and our time(the time I spend writing this comment, and others posting blogs ...).

I hope everyone understands, please don't waste your time. Value your time for yourself. And let us live a CHEATERS FREE LIFE.

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5 months ago, # |
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The problem with these blogs is that they're usually exposing the same handful of people over and over and it doesn't do anything except for clog up the recent actions section. Unfortunate.

Also, "exposing" these cheaters doesn't have any real impact. They'll expose a few dozen people out of the 20-30k who take each contest. Even if plagcheck didn't catch them, catching a few dozen more users won't do anything. Cheating is already mostly irrelevant (I've never seen anyone get more than +- 3 rating after rollback).

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5 months ago, # |
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Just get better and ignore the cheaters I guess.