Mattcrampy
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There is some discussion going on within Caravel regarding the high scores. When it's complete I'm sure they'll publicise their decision.

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Tim
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halyavin wrote:
I am not accusing, I am suspecting that can be done now and would be able to done in future.
[...]
How I should call it? It was hard for me to think out a meaningful name for this topic. Sorry, if I am hurt someone .

I'm sure you didn't wanted to hurt someone, but it happened.

Because I believe you are intelligent, and I still want to believe you are okay, and I don't want to lose a smart person from the froum just because of this thread. So I'm giving you an advice.

Try the next time, do not try to think out a meaningful name, or a meaningful poll. Just ask your question as simple as possible like the first like of your quote.

You'd be surprised how nice we really are, if you do that.

Please?

-- Tim

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[Last edited by Tim at 01-08-2007 10:43 PM]

halyavin
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I do think that guys here are nice (because only smart people can play this game, isn't it?). I am surprised that I am still not banned .

Briareos
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Just kidding... ^_^

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Blondbeard
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halyavin wrote:
I do think that guys here are nice (because only smart people can play this game, isn't it?). I am surprised that I am still not banned .

Well... Truth be told I think it sounds as if you've worked harder than most people for your firstscores. And I think most people that have seen the demo are quite impressed

What I find odd is the way you have presented this. You have activly been trying to be caught cheating, which is how you, yourself in quite strong words previously have described what you have done. I almost have to ask... Did you want to be banned? And in that case why?

NiroZ
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Blondbeard wrote:
What I find odd is the way you have presented this.

I think we can all agree on that. If he wanted to have some sort of surprise, posting one of the more obvious bot demo's and saying that he had found this weird demo would be a much better way of going about this, I reckon.

Schik
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halyavin wrote:
I do think that guys here are nice (because only smart people can play this game, isn't it?). I am surprised that I am still not banned .

So... do you want to be banned? You must, because you made a desperate attempt to make everyone notice what you did.

Let me just ask in a simple, straightforward way: Are you cheating?
If that's too open to interpretation, then: Are you using a computer program to optimize parts of your demos?

If you answer yes to either of those, then I ask you to stop. If you refuse or if it's clear that you continue to cheat, then yeah, I'll probably disable your highscore uploads.

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Beef Row
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Schik wrote:
Let me just ask in a simple, straightforward way: Are you cheating?
If that's too open to interpretation, then: Are you using a computer program to optimize parts of your demos?

From his comments throughout this thread and others, I sort of get the impression that if he is cheating, it may not be with a bot. He's mentioned demo extraction utilities, removing edit protections on holds, and manually reentering move sequences from a demo. Many of his high scores seem to be first runs.

I think the big picture here MAY be that he compiled a version of JTRH where you can save demos from the editor, and then proceeded to remove the protection from various holds. After recording in editor demos, he extracted them and reinputted them in the standard, CaravelNet enabled JTRH.

I'm not saying he definitely did this, just that it seems to fit what we know more than using a bot does, since it explains the interest in demo extraction and hold permissions, would be much easier to do. It also would make paranoia about bots seem less like an effort at self-exposure, and more a fear that someone still had an unfair advantage, even over him.

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diamond
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One doesn't need room/hold editor or even recompile DROD in order to save demo from DROD to file. Attached program dumps demo directly from drod2_0.dat (and must therefore be placed in the same directory as *.dat files, that is, %DROD%\Data). Started without parameters, it will dump names of all demos; started with integer ID of concrete demo, it will dump it to string.
I don't understand, how hold editing can help to find or optimize a solution. Indeed, if you make modifications, the way for modified room will not be valid solution for original room. Of course, with editing privileges one can easy determine scripts actions, but in very small number of rooms scripts influence on solution.

Briareos
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diamond wrote:
I don't understand, how hold editing can help to find or optimize a solution. Indeed, if you make modifications, the way for modified room will not be valid solution for original room. Of course, with editing privileges one can easy determine scripts actions, but in very small number of rooms scripts influence on solution.

Hold editor = test room via F5 = unlimited undo.

Easy as that...

np: Autechre Live via XLTronic 28.12.2006

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halyavin
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Schik wrote:
So... do you want to be banned? You must, because you made a desperate attempt to make everyone notice what you did.

I am not a masochist, I don't want to be banned. I want problem to be discussed and taked into account. I am glad to hear that CaravelNet team is started to discuss it and I am awaiting results. There is no reason to talk further until you want openly or closedly (via PM) invite me to your internal discussion. In the court you can be interrogated either as a witness or as a defendant but not both. I clearly understand your cheap tricks (I am not bothered of them though because this is natural human behaviour and I use them too).

Let me just ask in a simple, straightforward way: Are you cheating?
If that's too open to interpretation, then: Are you using a computer program to optimize parts of your demos?

Yes, I have to admit that I use drod.exe. How in the world I can play drod without game itself?

If you answer yes to either of those, then I ask you to stop. If you refuse or if it's clear that you continue to cheat, then yeah, I'll probably disable your highscore uploads.

That must be in the rules, isn't it? It is not good for the game when different players are play by different rules.
PS When you fix the forum, so its not store password openly in cookies?

Maurog
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If you don't like the cookies, you can set the "Save Username and Password" option to "No" in your account settings. Suggestions to improve the forum should be posted in The Site board.

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NiroZ
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halyavin wrote:
I am not a masochist, I don't want to be banned. I want problem to be discussed and taked into account. I am glad to hear that CaravelNet team is started to discuss it and I am awaiting results. There is no reason to talk further until you want openly or closedly (via PM) invite me to your internal discussion. In the court you can be interrogated either as a witness or as a defendant but not both. I clearly understand your cheap tricks (I am not bothered of them though because this is natural human behaviour and I use them too).

I fail to see your court analogy. Whist a defendant cannot be cast as a witness, he can still be interrogated. Not that I see how that helps you.

What has struck me throughout your posts is your overwhelming arrogance and confidence. It seems to me that you want something, and you have been playing this game(this thread, not DROD itself) in order to get it.

Yes, I have to admit that I use drod.exe. How in the world I can play drod without game itself?

He asks two simple questions and you avoid both of them. It seems as if you are bluffing about something.

That must be in the rules, isn't it? It is not good for the game when different players are play by different rules.

So you do want to be banned, eh?

halyavin
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He asks two simple questions and you avoid both of them. It seems as if you are bluffing about something.

If I answer this 2 simple questions, what happens? Admins will start to watch me but willn't do something usefull for the problem itself. If I will not answer question then admins will not have strong reason to suspect only me, and so there is a chance they do something usefull for the problem.

ErikH2000
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There's a lot of ways to cheat with DROD. Lots. We'll never be able to plug all the holes, especially because it is an open source game. We can't police everyone and set up a DROD Court to try all the "criminals". When I think about this, I don't feel angry. I don't even feel sad. I just feel tired.

So for now, here is the Spirit of the Law...

The DROD High Scores are for people who are solving the rooms with their own brainpower.

And then some people will want the Letter of the Law. That's reasonable, but I'll tell you now that you're never going to get it spelled out exactly. We have talked about making the distinction that the executable that uploads the demo should be an unmodified Caravel release. But I don't think this covers it all.

And then some people will view the rules as some sort of extra fun challenge and means of expressing how clever they are by thwarting it.

Damn it, man. We've got better things to do than mess with this. Follow the Spirit of the Law, please. We aren't Blizzard Entertainment. We're a bunch of moonlighters that could be spending our time doing something other than bringing you games to play. So give us a break, huh?

Give Schik a break. Do you want him to work on the new CaravelNet features for the DROD 3 engine and adding more multiplayer games to the website? Or do you want him to work on writing demo fraud detection?

Give Mike a break. Do you want him to work on fixing TCB bugs, coordinating beta testing, and editing sound files so that we can get a new game released? Or do you want him to work on adding code to DROD to verify it isn't hacked?

Give me a break. Do you want me to work on polishing up artwork for TCB and writing dialogue for Danforth Strout? Or do you want me to work on new CaravelNet EULA text, writing some detailed FAQ for what constitutes cheating, and playing King Solomon for the various disputes that arise?

We are considering ways to tighten up the scoring system, and we will put some things in place without a lot of fanfare. Don't expect us to fix every possible way cheating might happen or announce some comprehensive solution. We'll do what we can.

Before you reply to this post, think about if what you are saying is going to help the DROD community, or if it is just something you are saying to be dramatic, clever, or vengeful.

-Erik

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eytanz
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halyavin wrote:

He asks two simple questions and you avoid both of them. It seems as if you are bluffing about something.

If I answer this 2 simple questions, what happens? Admins will start to watch me but willn't do something usefull for the problem itself. If I will not answer question then admins will not have strong reason to suspect only me, and so there is a chance they do something usefull for the problem.

That doesn't make any sense. As far as I can tell, you have two helpful ways of answering this questions:

1 - "Yes, I discovered a problem with the scores, and here are the details" - instead of suspecting you, the admins would be thankful that you gave them useful information, and will fix the problem.

2 - "No, I don't actually know of a real way to cheat, I was just raising a hypothetical scenario" - in which case, there's no evidence for a problem and everyone can do more interesting stuff.

By refusing to answer, you are certainly not making yourself seem less suspicious, you're just making yourself also seem outright hostile, which means that if any problems are discovered, you will probably be treated with a lot less consideration.

Also, take what Erik said to heart. Caravel is a small company run by people who work on their spare time with the help of some additional volunteers. They're doing it for the sake of the game and the sake of the community. If you're interested in helping the community, be helpful. If you're not interested in being helpful, stop pretending you are and just shut up.

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halyavin
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to eytanz
Good admins should fix the problem even if there is no evidence for a problem. I gave enough ideas how drod solver can be written. It is hard to estimate which rooms can be solved with it and which can't without actually writing it and trying to use on the rooms though. So the first variant will change something only if CaravelNet need such information.

Imagine expoit which can either do nothing or erase all information from your hard disk. Will you install update only when you find your or your friend's hard disk empty?

When admins are simultaneously a programmers, the situation is more difficult. They can continue work on TCB, but the time it will be out, the highscores should be locked for it, until they will come to good solution of the problem. If highscores is half of the game, it is worth to spend even a half of year for dealing with the problem because you very probably will lose this half of game otherwise sooner or later.

Here is some ways to deal with the problem, I know:

>We can add an option which allows to mark demos as partually computer maden or to mark demos as not-uploadable to CaravelNet and hope that all peoples which have drod solvers will follow rules. Partually computer maden demos shouldn't be allowed to download in order to prevent copying of so good demos.

>We can include to TCB and Smithmaster Selections only puzzles which are difficult to optimize on computer.

>We can allow to use such programs without limits. Very probably peoples will start to exchange ideas and all peoples will have the equal as powerfull as it can be drod solver soon. So all will be in equal conditions.

>We can forbid to use such programs and ask all peoples to check new good demos in order to find all disturbers quickly. Also we can close the source code and make monster movement more complex, so reverse engineering of monster movement rules will be harder.

>We can refuse and revoke score uploades at all. Or may be change scoring system so that such demos can't influence much on the scores.

to ErikH2000
Ok, I give CaravelNet a break. But someone in the future probably will not give us even a minute to react. I hope we would not lose much if this happens.
PS There is no need to modify DROD game in order to send a computer maden demo because one can always retype demo from paper. It is not UU talking about.

Tim
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This reminds me of the joke about consultants:

http://www.thehumorarchives.com/joke/Shepherd_for_consultants

(or search for '1586 sheep' in a search engine.)

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[Last edited by Tim at 01-10-2007 11:34 AM]

Stephen4Louise
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halyavin wrote:
to eytanz
Good admins should fix the problem even if there is no evidence for a problem. I gave enough ideas how drod solver can be written. It is hard to estimate which rooms can be solved with it and which can't without actually writing it and trying to use on the rooms though. So the first variant will change something only if CaravelNet need such information.

Imagine expoit which can either do nothing or erase all information from your hard disk. Will you install update only when you find your or your friend's hard disk empty?

Of course problems should be fixed and patches should be applied but you seem to be assuming that someone already has a solver or will have in the near future. If that ever happens I'm sure there will be plenty of discussion about it. Someday we may all be driving flying cars, but I don't own a parachute yet.

halyavin wrote:
Here is some ways to deal with the problem, I know:
>We can add an option which allows to mark demos as partually computer maden or to mark demos as not-uploadable to CaravelNet and hope that all peoples which have drod solvers will follow rules. Partually computer maden demos shouldn't be allowed to download in order to prevent copying of so good demos.

Why allow computer made demos at all if no-one could watch them? Again you are looking to the future (unless you know something we don't). If there ever is a Drod solver it would be interesting to see competitions between them, and I'm sure it would gain a lot of attention from mathematical and scientific communities. Not to mention make a lot of money for the developer.

halyavin wrote:
>We can include to TCB and Smithmaster Selections only puzzles which are difficult to optimize on computer.

SMS have been hard enough recently. If they are made harder, Caravelnet might start to lose subscribers.

halyavin wrote:
>We can allow to use such programs without limits. Very probably peoples will start to exchange ideas and all peoples will have the equal as powerfull as it can be drod solver soon. So all will be in equal conditions.

That would be nice, think of the time I could save by allowing my PC to solve the rooms for me. I could go for a nice walk instead. Will I be able to watch the demos my computer records or are they off limits to me too?
When that day comes us human players will be obsolete?

halyavin wrote:
>We can forbid to use such programs and ask all peoples to check new good demos in order to find all disturbers quickly. Also we can close the source code and make monster movement more complex, so reverse engineering of monster movement rules will be harder.

Why not make walls and monsters invisible too, if those pesky drod solvers can't see the rooms, they will never solve them! Seriously though, with all these changes you are proposing, how do you expect us to be able to play the game at all?

halyavin wrote:
>We can refuse and revoke score uploades at all. Or may be change scoring system so that such demos can't influence much on the scores.

Again, you are proposing punishing players due to some threat that may or may not happen. That's like telling Microsoft to disable internet access in their OS in case people get a virus.

Since you and your friend seem to be so interested in the mechanics of the game, why not have a look on the Development forum. You may be able to do something useful that will benefit the community rather than scaremongering.

Steve.

Warning : this post contains sarcasm (lots of)

Edit : I voted for the third option, and as I'm sure people can see from my demo's I don't use a Drod solving program.

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[Last edited by Stephen4Louise at 01-10-2007 12:10 PM]

Beef Row
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halyavin wrote:
Here is some ways to deal with the problem, I know:

>We can add an option which allows to mark demos as partually computer maden or to mark demos as not-uploadable to CaravelNet and hope that all peoples which have drod solvers will follow rules. Partually computer maden demos shouldn't be allowed to download in order to prevent copying of so good demos.

This is a useless way to deal with cheaters, since it would only
detect 'ethical' cheaters. It would be an interesting idea if someone wanted to try writing an actual DROD bot that would solve rooms entirely on its own though. (I suspect that even on rooms where it did work, a bot without human assitance would struggle in the scores, not snap up all the first places though.)

>We can include to TCB and Smithmaster Selections only puzzles which are difficult to optimize on computer.

But why bother? The few people, if any, who really on optimizing short sequences of specific rooms will have their high scores limited simply by volume, unless the bulk of their score is made up of normal play, and they have actual skill as well.

>We can allow to use such programs without limits. Very probably peoples will start to exchange ideas and all peoples will have the equal as powerfull as it can be drod solver soon. So all will be in equal conditions.

But most people won't be interested in this, except in a few special cases (IE: the orb solver). So really, this will take fun from the game except for for the few specialists who enjoy designing systems to optimize DROD by computer. Also since many will not WANT to use these programs, this will in no way create an equal playing field.

>We can forbid to use such programs and ask all peoples to check new good demos in order to find all disturbers quickly. Also we can close the source code and make monster movement more complex, so reverse engineering of monster movement rules will be harder.

Part 1 of this suggestion (turning the userbase into some sort of secret police) will create a needless paranoia and antagonism in the community. "Does this demo look funny to you?"

Part 2 of this suggestion (closing the sourcecode) will stifle innovation. I've often seen users pinpoint bugs or offer small enhancements themselves thanks to the openness of the source.

Part 3 of this suggestion (making monster movement too complex to reverse engineer) will destroy everything that DROD is. Monster movement to complex to reverse engineer means monster movement too complex to predict. Which means this is no longer a puzzle game, but some form of gambling in an unpredictable game world.

>We can refuse and revoke score uploades at all. Or may be change scoring system so that such demos can't influence much on the scores.

But there still is no clear way to determine if a demo is definitely by computer. And trying to systematically hunt them down would just lead to a witchhunt. However, to follow this suggestion, definitely anyone that was known to be retyping demos would have to be revoked, since it would be unclear what the original source of their demos was.

Speaking of this, you might want to explain exactly why you retype demos, since you openly do so.

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NiroZ
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halyavin wrote:
Here is some ways to deal with the problem, I know:

>We can add an option which allows to mark demos as partually computer maden or to mark demos as not-uploadable to CaravelNet and hope that all peoples which have drod solvers will follow rules. Partually computer maden demos shouldn't be allowed to download in order to prevent copying of so good demos.

Well people can always turn off caravelnet in the options menu. I don't know if DROD will start uploading scores made when it connects to the Internet again or not

>We can include to TCB and Smithmaster Selections only puzzles which are difficult to optimize on computer.

The problem is knowing what would be easy to optimise with a computer. Someone might make a bot which excels against wraithwings, because for the human it is difficult to predict. The chances are that it will just cut down on the variety of puzzles for the rest of us, which isn't good.

>We can allow to use such programs without limits. Very probably peoples will start to exchange ideas and all peoples will have the equal as powerfull as it can be drod solver soon. So all will be in equal conditions.

But then again, it then becomes a programming contest rather than a brainpower contest. Not to mention excluding people who don't want to use these programs and the additional time that Erik would have to deal with people who have issues thanks to the 3rd party hacks.

>We can forbid to use such programs and ask all peoples to check new good demos in order to find all disturbers quickly. Also we can close the source code and make monster movement more complex, so reverse engineering of monster movement rules will be harder.

Considering that the fact that DROD is open source has helped attract new customers, it is probably not worth making it closed source. However, having the users look out for "bot demo's" would probably work seeing as it would take quite a bit of effort in order to not attract attention.

>We can refuse and revoke score uploades at all. Or may be change scoring system so that such demos can't influence much on the scores.

Any ideas how that would work?

I think it would also interest you, >>DELETED<<, that there has been a attempt before to 'hack' the highscores. Someone(I don't know the specifics of this) would download the top score off caravelnet, then procede to duplicate it, and then re-submit it, generating an enormous number of ties, sky-rocketing his score. He got caught because of the large amount of ties, and the lack of any 1st places.

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[Last edited by ErikH2000 at 01-10-2007 03:44 PM : I removed reference to player's real name.]

eytanz
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halyavin wrote:
to eytanz
Good admins should fix the problem even if there is no evidence for a problem. I gave enough ideas how drod solver can be written. It is hard to estimate which rooms can be solved with it and which can't without actually writing it and trying to use on the rooms though. So the first variant will change something only if CaravelNet need such information.

Imagine expoit which can either do nothing or erase all information from your hard disk. Will you install update only when you find your or your friend's hard disk empty?

That's not the same at all. If there was a *destructive* exploit - a way to remove other people's information/scores - then we'd be talking about a completely different ballpark. At the moment, there may be an *additive* exploit - people can add machine-made scores, but not remove other people's scores.

In other words, there's no need for a proactive solution, just a reactive one.

More importantly, the highscores are *not* half the game. They are a small part of the game experience compared to the main point of the game which is delivering puzzles and contents. If necessary, Caravel could just shut down the highscores and keep everything intact and they'd lose only a relatively small percentage of their customers.

You say that "Good admins should fix the problem even if there is no evidence for a problem". That is true in an ideal universe, where everyone has unlimited time and resources. In the real world, good admins need to prioritize and rather than solving every hypothetical problem, they need to make a cost-analysis and figure out which problems are worth solving for the time/effort/gameplay price you pay for solving them.

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Maurog
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I daresay a useful DROD solver is a work of fiction. Even if someone decides it's not beneath him to cheat in a fun game like DROD (why), brute-force solving will only get you so far. So the roach sequences will be easier, right. So you get the ultimate super awesome demos in the few rooms that require no strategical thinking and move on. And then you meet a real puzzle and go "durr... how does a roach go?" because you're out of shape, man.

I welcome our independent-thinking-challenged cyborg brothers with open arms! Let them play the game for awhile, and maybe they will decide on their own that they don't need any crutches. Seriously, if ever there is a game that inspires you to think on your own behalf, it's DROD. Bring them on, I believe in the power of the game!

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Stefan
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You're seriously making mountains out of molehills here. Sure, there's always the possibility that this could become a problem, but since it isn't at the moment, there's no need to react. Also, unless I'm mistaken, highscores are never deleted from the server automatically, so even if computer generated demos started showing up, they could be deleted without disturbing the rest of the high scores.

I think this whole thing is quite comparable to the spamming problem on the forum. We previously had no or very few spammers on the forum, so there was no need to do anything about it. In recent months there has been a number of spammer accounts created, which has sparked a reaction to try to prevent this from becoming more of a problem.

>We can include to TCB and Smithmaster Selections only puzzles which are difficult to optimize on computer.

This would seriously restrict the type of puzzles that can go into SmSes, and how would one know which puzzles are easily optimizable with the help of computers? As I see it, given the right tools (which as far as I know doesn't exist yet) for the job, most rooms should be almost equally easy to optimize.

>We can allow to use such programs without limits. Very probably peoples will start to exchange ideas and all peoples will have the equal as powerfull as it can be drod solver soon. So all will be in equal conditions.

And turn the high scores into a "see who can run this room through a powerful optimizer first" contest? No thanks.

>We can forbid to use such programs and ask all peoples to check new good demos in order to find all disturbers quickly.

This is pretty much what Erik suggested, except for the "look out for cheaters" part.

Also we can close the source code and make monster movement more complex, so reverse engineering of monster movement rules will be harder.

This is not an option. DROD is and will be Open Source, and as such any code obfuscation would just be silly.

>We can refuse and revoke score uploades at all.

What, all score uploads or just the ones that are known to be bad?

Or may be change scoring system so that such demos can't influence much on the scores.

There's no way of knowing whether a demo is computer-generated or not, so I don't see this as a possibility.

As for DROD solvers in general, of course it's possible to create one (I've even created one long ago that can solve small puzzles with unbrained roaches and trapdoors, but I've only used it once, and even then only after solving the room in question myself), it's just not something that we should be concerned about yet. If it does become a problem sometime in the distant future, I'm sure it will be reacted upon accordingly.

I realize where you're coming from, but this is simply not the place to be overly concerned about cheating.

____________________________
0.099³

bandit1200
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To put Stefan's post in a nutshell, the sky *isn't* falling.

bandit, amused and bemused by all this.

geomatrx
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I don't think there is anything to worry about here.

I mean, we've pretty much concluded such a room solver cannot exist.

Players here have their own methods of optimising puzzles, whether it be trial and error, noting every move, even if they do use tool assistance like key logging and "tactical monster solver v1.1".

At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter how people get their scores. The only real cheating is copying other high scores demos deliberatly - which can be spotted at a simple glance at the scoreboard.

If any more effort needs to be put into exposing cheaters than this, it would really be a waste of time.

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Briareos
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My 2 cents on the matter:

Going by this thread, it's only one user actually having/seeing a problem - and that's halyavin, who started it. On the other hand, probably more than one user sees this thread itself as a "problem".

Maybe it's just me, but I'd really drop this whole discussion until there's a real problem, not just a perceived/hypothetical one...

Or to rephrase that - I'll believe that a DROD solver exists when I have read it's source code.

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halyavin
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Stefan wrote:
As for DROD solvers in general, of course it's possible to create one (I've even created one long ago that can solve small puzzles with unbrained roaches and trapdoors, but I've only used it once, and even then only after solving the room in question myself), it's just not something that we should be concerned about yet. If it does become a problem sometime in the distant future, I'm sure it will be reacted upon accordingly.

I realize where you're coming from, but this is simply not the place to be overly concerned about cheating.

Can you send me link to your DROD solver? May be it works good on real puzzles too. Have you checked this?
PS You think that you are correctly realizing where I came from? I advise you to compare your assumptions with google. (You will need a Russian-English translator for most links though)
PSPS I count 3 links that points not to me in the first 3 pages.

eytanz
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halyavin wrote:

Stefan wrote:
As for DROD solvers in general, of course it's possible to create one (I've even created one long ago that can solve small puzzles with unbrained roaches and trapdoors, but I've only used it once, and even then only after solving the room in question myself), it's just not something that we should be concerned about yet. If it does become a problem sometime in the distant future, I'm sure it will be reacted upon accordingly.

I realize where you're coming from, but this is simply not the place to be overly concerned about cheating.

Can you send me link to your DROD solver? May be it works good on real puzzles too. Have you checked this?
PS You think that you are correctly realizing where I came from? I advise you to compare your assumptions with google. (You will need a Russian-English translator for most links though)

"I realize where you are coming from" is an English phrase that means "I understand what you are saying". It has nothing to do with knowing where you actually are coming from.

Though I checked on google and you are apparently a very skilled programmer. Why is that important here?

What you seem to not understand is that everyone here accepts that there could be a DROD solver out there. But no one really cares all that much - if there is one, it's a minor irritation, not a huge problem.


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[Last edited by eytanz at 01-10-2007 01:55 PM]

halyavin
Level: Delver
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If the fact that some peoples use solver would be minor irritation for most of members and the fact that 50% of peoples use solver would be minor irritation for most of members, this topic should be closed. I agree that if the lost will be small, there is no reason for protection. But some peoples seems not like the fact that highscores can transform to a programming contest. Or this will be a minor irritation for them anyway?