Happy holidays, dang! Thank you for all the effort you pour into making HN as useful and vibrant a forum as it can be. You help set the bar for productive online discourse, and that means something and is more and more important in the world.
I finally got a chance to look this up, and I think saying that Hans "lied outright" is fair. (Obviously on the assumption that you believe chess.com's analysis of his play on the site, and their claims of Hans' admissions to cheating there.)
I listened to the entirety of Hans' interview again, and also read a transcript thereof. But I could've saved some time because the chess.com report itself quotes (and paraphrases, separately) Hans' statements about his play there, and calls Hans' statements false outright.[1,2,3]
Here is a selection of Hans' direct quotes from the post-Sinquefield interview which are outright falsehoods according to chess.com:[4]
"I have never, ever in my life cheated in an over the board game, or in an online tournament. They were in unrated games."
"Other than when I was 12 years old, I have never, ever, ever--and I would never do that, that is the worst thing I could ever do--cheat in a tournament with prize money."
"Never when I was streaming did I cheat."
"I did this when I was 12 years old. And then when I, and then the second, the other times I did it, it was not even in an over the board tournament, it was not even a prize money online tournament. It was in absolutely random games."
According not only to chess.com's analysis and the evidence they present, but apparently to Niemann's own admissions to them, each of these statements is outright false on their own. (And if they are false, then together they also grossly misrepresent the overall picture of his behavior.) It appears Hans did in fact cheat in rated games, and in cash prize games, as well as cheating while streaming, and while playing against highly rated players in "real" games.
1: "Consistent with the letter we sent Hans privately on September 8, 2022, we are prepared to show within this report that he, in fact, appears to have cheated against multiple opponents in Chess.com prize events
(beyond the Titled Tuesday event that Hans admitted to having cheated in when he was 12), Speed Chess Championship Qualifiers, and the PRO Chess League. We also have evidence that he appears to have
cheated in sets of rated games on Chess.com against highly-rated, well-known figures in the chess
community, some of which he streamed online. These findings contradict Hans’ public statements.
In particular, in interviews given during the 2022 Sinquefield Cup, Hans made several comments to the
press about alleged instances of prior cheating
:
• “Other than when I was 12 years old, I have never, ever, ever – and I would never do that, that is
the worst thing that I could ever do – cheat in a tournament with prize money.”
• “Never when I was streaming did I cheat.”
• “Keep in mind I was 16 years old, I never wanted to hurt anyone, these were random games. I
would never – could even fathom d
doing it – in a real game.”" -Page 4 of the chess.com report on Neimann.
2:"If you are willing to correct the false statements you made about having never cheated when it mattered (now that you have said these untruths publicly), acknowledge the full breadth of the above violations, and cooperate with us to compete under strict Fair Play measures, Chess.com would be happy to consider bringing you back to our events. In fact, I think it would be a wonderful redemption story for the full truth to come out, for the chess world to see this and acknowledge your talent regardless of your past, and give the community what they deserve: The truth." -Page 58 of the chess.com report on Neimann.
3: "In your
interview you mentioned (paraphrased) that you “cheated when you were 12” and then “later when
you were 16 in an unrated game”. This directly contradicts our statistical evidence, as well as the conversation you and I had in our private call when you confessed to cheating, and there is written
evidence from you that substantially corroborates this. You also contradicted your own statement that
you had only cheated in unrated games in the interview by later stating that you did it to gain rating
points, which obviously indicates cheating in rated games." -Page 57 of the chess.com report on Neimann.
> Where does this report state that the "removal of Hans' ban was controversial among chess.com's Fairplay staff?"
Page 58, from the text of a letter chess.com sent privately to Hans, just after they banned him:
"When I received your confession back on August 12th of 2020, in light of your age, I allowed you to create a new account with no fair play markings to continue to stream chess... For my team, however, there always remained serious concerns about how rampant your cheating was in prize events. In finalizing the field for the upcoming CGC, and based on a growing concern regarding ensuring fair play in Chess.com’s first million dollar prize event, my team did a deep review of your past history, and encouraged me to rethink my position of letting you continue to play in prize events on Chess.com. I ultimately made the decision that too much was at stake given our ongoing suspicions and past violations." [Emphasis added, 1]
This is an example of where such internal controversy is discussed.
[1]Full text of this section of the letter:
"Moving on to my second point, I want to address both the reasons and timing for freezing your account and rescinding your CGC invite. For my team, however, there always remained serious concerns about how rampant your cheating was in prize events.
When I received your confession back on August 12th of 2020, in light of your age, I allowed you to create a new account with no fair play markings to continue to stream chess. You’ll remember that I worked hard to both advise you on this process and to protect you as much as I could. I would do that again for you or any young player I deemed to have lost their way and wanted to choose a better path forward.
For my team, however, there always remained serious concerns about how rampant your cheating was in prize events. As you know, we’ve closed the accounts of hundreds of titled players (including 4 of the top 100 Grandmasters who have confessed to cheating), and we carefully monitor and help all of them as they rehabilitate into participating in our events. You and I had many subsequent discussions in our Slack DMs where we openly cooperated on the right way for you to rebuild your reputation.
In finalizing the field for the upcoming CGC, and based on a growing concern regarding ensuring fair play in Chess.com’s first million dollar prize event, my team did a deep review of your past history, and encouraged me to rethink my position of letting you continue to play in prize events on Chess.com. I ultimately made the decision that too much was at stake given our ongoing suspicions and past violations.
Considering the above, we made this decision to close your account privately and uninvite you from the CGC. I regret the timing, but the timing between the Sinquefield Cup and the CGC required me to move quickly to replace your spot. I believe I acted in the best interest of the game and all participants to
reconsider our invitation with so much at stake.
I’m going to bring my letter to a close with an offer to have a call. If you are willing to correct the false statements you made about having never cheated when it mattered (now that you have said these untruths publicly), acknowledge the full breadth of the above violations, and cooperate with us to
compete under strict Fair Play measures, Chess.com would be happy to consider bringing you back to
our events. In fact, I think it would be a wonderful redemption story for the full truth to come out, for the chess world to see this and acknowledge your talent regardless of your past, and give the community what they deserve: The truth."
I don't think engine correlation necessarily proves anything, on its own. It's worth remembering, though, that chess.com's report a) presents more than merely raw engine correlation, and b) its correlations do not seem to match against hundreds of engines.
But even with all the evidence presented, "proof" is a tricky thing. To what standard would we be trying to prove a claim?
Does this report prove beyond all reasonable doubt that Niemann cheated? I'd say no, but others may disagree.
How about to a preponderance of evidence? Perhaps. But even that is hard to say when no one has yet presented a rigorous defense or set of counterpoints.
In any case, my post wasn't meant to say that Niemann cheated per se. I have no idea, and chess.com themselves may not be able to actually prove whether he did. But I found the report interesting, even beyond the current issue surrounding Niemann and speaking to potential cheating in high-level chess more broadly, and if you re-read my post, I tried not to state anything definitive about whether Hans actually cheated or not.
> I find the decsription "lied outright" unfitting
Hmm.. if time allows in the next hour or so, I will find his exact quotes from the interview and will definitely edit this out if it is unfair. But my recollection is that Hans stated explicitly that he had never cheated in a serious tournament since he was 12, that he only cheated thereafter in "unrated" games, that he only cheated twice overall, and that he hadn't cheated at all in the ~2.5 years (since he was 16) preceding his game against Carlsen in Sinquefield this year. From the report, chess.com is saying any or all of those statements are outright lies.
But it's good to call this out and it sucks to unfairly malign anyone so I'll follow-up if other obligations allow me to scrub through the post-game interviews videos quickly.
> Expecting a perfect verbal 72 page report from him under these circumstances fells pretty cruel.
To be equally fair, 'a perfect verbal 72 page report from him' is not at all what I stated or implied as a standard, and saying so is a strawman.
The report outlines the rationale in some detail. The removal of Hans' ban was controversial among chess.com's Fairplay staff. In recent months, suspicions grew about Hans' tournament performance among both elite chess players and chess.com staff. Simultaneously, chess.com is readying to host its largest ever (by cash prize pool) tournament, and Hans recently qualified for it. Then the Sinquefield incident happened, resulting in both Hans' play specifically, and the potential for cheating in chess tournaments generally, being called into question with a great deal of attention.
All of this led chess.com Fairplay staff to request that leadership re-review Hans' account, with updated analysis they provided, and to reconsider the removal of Hans' ban.
The full report is worth reading, if you're interested. It reveals a great deal of additional information, not just about Hans' history of cheating and his misrepresentations, but of wider spread cheating (or suspected cheating) by high level chess elites online.
This report provides a detailed background of Hans' potential cheating, and detailed breakdowns of certain aspects of chess.com's cheat-detection methodology, including previously unknown (or little known) methods such as window focus change event monitoring and post-focus-change move analysis.[1]
The report also reveals Niemann's engine move correlations alongside over two dozen chess Grandmasters who have admitted to cheating on chess.com. The fact that online cheating is so widespread even among top chess players is certainly news to many, including me. Perhaps it is a good thing that this scandal is highlighting the issue, and given how widespread cheating may be, perhaps chess tournaments both online and physical need to take cheating much more seriously than they apparently have been.
There is also an interesting analysis of Hans' rating improvement history, his over the board tournament performance and key game analysis, and a rundown of key moments in his game against Carlsen in the Sinquefield cup. Each raises concerns.
Chess.com's report also makes it clear that Niemann lied outright about his history of cheating in post-Sinquefield interviews, as he admits in communications with chess.com Fairplay staff to much broader cheating.
All in all, the report raises many concerns and it seems reasonable for the chess community to demand much higher standards of cheat prevention and detection across competitive venues. How long might cheating issues have gone on merely rumored vs fully investigated or acted upon, had this intrigue not developed due to Carlsen's withdrawal from Sinquefield '22?
[1]Tangentially, this induces an obvious concern about cheat and cheat-detection arms races. A clever cheater might scrutinize this report and refine their cheating plan. For example, they might recognize the need to use a second device (such as a phone) to cheat. They might use the data corpus presented in this report to establish limits on how often they use chess engine moves per game, and they might manage their ratings progress over time carefully, so as to stay in acceptable ranges of engine move correlation, rate of improvement, etc.
A key fact to understand in thinking about cheating in over the board chess: a strong player can defeat a much stronger opponent with just 1-3 hints per game indicating the strongest move. For example, most chess experts agree that a ~2600 rated player with 2-3 hints at key moments per game would be expected to beat a ~2800 rated player. Many people might assume that a cheater needs guidance every move, thereby requiring a potentially more obvious cheating mechanism. That is not the case.
Also, clever cheating devices have been found in over the board chess competitions. So, this is possible. Moreover, one needn't carry a device on themselves. A cheater may have accomplices providing hints, if they carry a device.
It will be interesting to see how chess tournaments, as well as FIDE, chess.com, and other major chess institutions react to this situation. The potential for cheating has now been brought to the absolute forefront of chess discussion. And Carlsen's actions have been questioned by FIDE in recent interviews, with FIDE staff condemning "vigilantism" of a kind.
Some set of resolutions seems necessary--perhaps standards for security in major chess tournaments, perhaps an alliance to share cheating or reliability data amongst major chess operations, perhaps a standard term in major chess tournament agreements that no previously identified cheaters (online or otherwise) will be allowed to play, and perhaps sanctions in some form against Carlsen (or Niemann, if concrete evidence against him emerges).
Does the hypothesis in question seem to hold for, say, the world's top 10 languages (by, say, # of living fluent speakers globally)? Top 30?
I'm genuinely curious. And also trying to discern whether your point is that many-- but not necessarily _all_-- current languages seem to conform to this hypothesis, or that actually very few seem to.
Mathematics often deal in abstractions, and "God" may be used as a linguistic abstraction for ideal or perfect knowledge. It's a shorthand in writing casually about the most elegant mathematical insights. Its use is also a tradition via Erdos with "The Book", which Aaronson and many mathematicians pay homage to.
I see many comments here asserting that RCV is "fundamentally sound" and that there is proof that it satisfies at least strategyproofness (in the sense of Cooperative Game Theory and Social Choice Theory, s.t. revealing/voting for true preferences is at least weakly dominant).
But can anyone provide backup for these claims?
I'm far from an expert, but I'm curious to reconcile these claims vs Arrow's Theorem and Gibbard's Theorem. My (potentially flawed) understanding as well is that RCV leads to a greater propensity for "extreme" (in the strict sense of being the top choice of a small minority of voters) candidates to win.
Thanks for the reply! And apologies I didn't realize the autocorrect on my phone turned "PvNP" to "PnP". I'll read up on the recent works you mentioned here. Appreciate the link to your comment on Blockchain technology as well.
If you still have time to answer questions.. is there any recent work in the cryptographic or blockchain space you see as standout? I haven't referred recently to any citations or updates, but found Ben-Sasson, Bentov, Horesh and Riabzev's recent work (https://eprint.iacr.org/2018/046) on ZK-STARKs intriguing.
I'd just first like to say that I love reading your work. I'm always delighted when I see an update on Shtetl-Optimized and I admire how you are both simultaneously rigorous and funny in your papers and posts. Your PnP survey stands out in my mind as a truly fun and insightful read in particular.
Two questions:
1. Any meaningful updates you'd make to the PnP survey today?
2. As a total aside, I'm curious for your thoughts on blockchains. Not specifically proof of work as a BFT system per se, but more broadly curious to what degree you think "trustless" transactions and data processing might or might not be transformative.
Apologies in advance if you've recently provided thoughts on either of these topics and I've sadly missed them!
Interledger and other such protocols are designed to facilitate exchanges across distributed ledger networks. The underlying whitepaper this article is based on mentions Interledger in a few places as a promising direction for some components of inter-ledger-transactions. In my view, Interledger/ILP is an elegant and simple protocol. I didn't glean (from only a cursory skim) what the paper finds is lacking in ILP?
PoW is not the only solution to the BFT. PBFT PoS, DPoS, etc are all "solutions", in that they represent a series of tradeoffs to achieve consensus in the presence of faults, just as PoW does.
Further, PoW itself as implemented in large part today is vulnerable to attack via selfish mining.
Finally, purely empirically speaking, PoW in most systems like Bitcoin today is highly centralized and far from trustless. Consensus authority has accumulated in the hands of large mining operations. Many people foresaw this outcome. In the author's analogy, you are not provided any certainty of consensus on your bunker, rather, massively resourced authorities controlled by a handful of people are dictating state to you and you have nowhere near enough resources to change that.