lasthour's blog

Solution to reduce the number of alt accounts and cheaters
By lasthour, history, 4 years ago, In English

Hello, codeforces! Here we are.

1) I wanna suggest the phone number authentication(OTP verification type) for codeforces account that will surely reduce the number of future alt accounts?

2) Now if someone gets caught cheating than mike can ban him so he won't be able to make a new account of if he somehow has 2 phone numbers than it will be the last account he can make so hopefully He won't cheat again.

So one solution to two problems.

What do you think? This post is not made for upvotes but making codeforces better.

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  • -19
  • Vote: I do not like it

Comments Comments (8)
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4 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

This is a terrible idea. It's really easy to get a free phone number. Googling gives a lot of sites, and even if those were banned, is it that hard to get another number? Parents, grandparents, friends, easily gives you more than enough numbers. Honestly banning someone for alting 5 times seems hard. Also, not everyone has a phone number (I don't), and in this case you'd have to ask someone else for theirs, which completely defeats the purpose. Emails for registration are standard, but phone numbers, especially those used to determine uniqueness and reduce alts is quite rare (and probably for a good reason). Really, this suggestion doesn't make it much harder to alt but just makes it more annoying to register for honest users.

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    4 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

    googling gives u a phone number but you can't verify an OTP using that.

    is it that hard to get another number? Parents, grandparents, friends, easily gives you more than enough numbers

    Current situation: You're like let's make a new account and in 1 min you're done.

    After applying OTP verification using phone numbers: Awwwww! who can give me his number so that I verify the OTP using that? and in many cases, you would avoid that.

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      4 years ago, # ^ |
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      If you're going to cheat, do you think you're going to be scared off by a phone number verification? Also what am I supposed to do if I don't have a phone number.

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4 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +4 Vote: I do not like it

You can get temporary phone numbers and temporary mail id's easily.

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    4 years ago, # ^ |
    ← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

    But you can't verify OTP using those.

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      4 years ago, # ^ |
      ← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

      You can, that's the whole purpose, but are you suggesting OTP verification for every contest to the same number? If that's the case, cheaters can just change the number to another temporary one. It's great that people are coming up with innovative solutions for the problem, but we have to analyze both pros and cons.

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        4 years ago, # ^ |
        ← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

        can you please mention the website in which you can verify OTP for indian mob no., once i needed it and i searched a lot, & all i found was trash which weren't working.
        PS: getting mail & verifying is easy i know.

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          4 years ago, # ^ |
            Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

          Yep, I also searched a mobile number so that I can verify the OTP and I couldn't find one.

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