Why (IMO) delayed vugraph is not the answer

[fred]

Here is what I think...

 

Premise: If we had to choose between only having live vugraph and only having delayed vugraph, if it were not for security concerns, almost everyone would prefer only having live vugraph. Live vugraph makes for a better show.

 

The purpose of this post is to explain why I think that the security concerns that some people have regarding live vugraph are illusory (and therefore vugraph should remain live).

 

When we speak of security concerns, we are talking about a player being able to receive information he is not entitled to and then acting on that information. I will refer to that player as the receiver (or R). The information that R receives must come from a sender which I will refer to as S.

 

There are several possible cases to consider:

 

1) R and S are partners. The information is passed between them without the aid of electronic devices. For example, when S coughs it tells R "I have a maximum for the bidding". Case 1 is the "traditional" way that people cheat.

 

2) R and S are partners. The information is passed between them electronically. For example, S uses an electronic transmitter in his shoe that sends a signal that can be received by an electronic device in R's shoe.

 

3) R and S are not partners but they are teammates. The information is passed between them without the aid of electronic devices. For example, S leaves a note in a hidden location in the washroom that says "you can make 6NT on board 23 but you must play East of the Queen of diamonds". R intentionally plays slowly to maximize his chances of finding a note that is useful when he eventually goes to the washroom.

 

4) R and S are not partners but they are teammates. The information is passed between them electronically. For example, S has a shoe-based electronic transmitter and R has a shoe-based electronic receiver.

 

5) S is not a player. The information is sent from S to R without the aid of electronic devices. S gets his information by kibitzing. For example, S is kibitzing R's partner and coughs whenever R's partner has a maximum for the bidding.

 

6) S is not a player. The information is sent from S to R electronically. S gets his information by kibitzing. For example, S is kibitzing R's partner and uses the shoe trick to pass information to R.

 

7) S is not a player. The information is sent from S to R without the aid of electronic devices. S gets his information from live vugraph. For example, S is watching live vugraph and therefore sees all 4 hands and has access to GIB. R is the declarer in a difficult contract and goes to the washroom to "think about the hand". R encounters S during this journey and S tells R how to play the hand.

 

8) S is not a player. The information is sent from S to R electronically. S gets his information from live vugraph. For example, S is watching live vugraph in his hotel room and he sends what he learns to R's shoe-based electronic receiver.

 

9) S is an electonic device (such as a laptop or an iPhone) capable of receiving live vugraph. For example, R stashes his iPhone in the washroom before the match. During the match he can go to the washroom and have access to all sorts of useful information.

 

Cases 1 through 6 are irrelevant in a sense (because they have nothing to do with live vugraph), but some of these cases demonstrate a point that is extremely relevant:

 

If R is able to bring an shoe-based receiver to the table then the security of the tournament has been compromised regardless of whether or not there is live vugraph going on.

 

Tournament organizers who care about security should therefore take steps to prevent R from using electronic devices (such as shoe-based receivers) to gain access to information that R is not entitled to. I don't know anything about such technologies, but I presume there exist scanning devices that can detect electronic receivers and/or jamming devices that can block the signals that such devices can receive. If I am wrong then all bets are off, live vugraph or not.

 

That would eliminate case 8.

 

It would also eliminate case 9, provided that such devices are in place wherever the players are allowed to go during a match (washrooms for example).

 

We are left only with case 7 and this should also be easy for tournament organizers to deal with - all they have do is prevent unauthorized entry into the playing areas (and washrooms). Furthermore, unless they are willing to do this, there are other possible security exposures that have nothing to do with live vugraph (such exposures did not make my original list in an attempt to keep the list relatively short, but if you can't figure out what I mean let me know and I will explain).

 

Conclusion: Tournaments that fail to secure the playing site (including washrooms etc) by scanning/disabling electronic devices and by preventing non-players from being able to physically access such areas, are going to have security exposures regardless of whether or not there is live vugraph.

 

IMO Tournament organizers who claim to care about security and fail to take such steps are not doing their jobs properly. IMO they have no right to complain about the security exposures that result from live vugraph.

 

Tournament organizers who do take such steps have nothing to worry about in terms of live vugraph.

 

Even if you disagree with the above, here is some more food for thought:

 

If players are able to utilize live vugraph to cheat, a (say) 30 minute delay in a (say) 2.5 hour segment is not going to stop them. Such a delay might stop them from receiving information about the current hand, but it will not stop them from receiving information about the state of the match. For that you would have to extend the delay until the segment was over.

 

Keep the vugraph live!

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[mike777]

Fred you do not seem to address two issues. There may be existing ways these situations are being handled, I dont know.

1) Actual but accidental information passed on by nonteamate. The information may or may never be acted on.

2) The reasonable appearance of communication even though there is not 100% proof that any communication actually occured. example, Nonteammate A was talking with Player B in private at the smoking break, bathroom etc.

[fred]

Fred you do not seem to address two issues. There may be existing ways these situations are being handled, I dont know.

1) Actual but accidental information passed on by nonteamate. The information may or may never be acted on.

2) The reasonable appearance of communication even though there is not 100% proof that any communication actually occured. example, Nonteammate A was talking with Player B in private at the smoking break, bathroom etc.

Mike,

 

The best to way to keep non-teammates from helping players cheat, raising false suspicious that this might be going on, or having players receive information from non-teammates "by mistake" is to not let non-players get anywhere near the players while the match is going on.

 

If this means a "no kibitzing" rule then so be it.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[jdonn]

Fred you do not seem to address two issues. There may be existing ways these situations are being handled, I dont know.

1) Actual but accidental information passed on by nonteamate. The information may or may never be acted on.

2) The reasonable appearance of communication even though there is not 100% proof that any communication actually occured. example, Nonteammate A was talking with Player B in private at the smoking break, bathroom etc.

Mike,

 

The best to way to keep non-teammates from helping players cheat, raising false suspicious that this might be going on, or having players receive information from non-teammates "by mistake" is to not let non-players get anywhere near the players while the match is going on.

 

If this means a "no kibitzing" rule then so be it.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

Except vugraph operators, right? :rolleyes:

[fred]

Fred you do not seem to address two issues. There may be existing ways these situations are being handled, I dont know.

1) Actual but accidental information passed on by nonteamate. The information may or may never be acted on.

2) The reasonable appearance of communication even though there is not 100% proof that any communication actually occured. example, Nonteammate A was talking with Player B in private at the smoking break, bathroom etc.

Mike,

 

The best to way to keep non-teammates from helping players cheat, raising false suspicious that this might be going on, or having players receive information from non-teammates "by mistake" is to not let non-players get anywhere near the players while the match is going on.

 

If this means a "no kibitzing" rule then so be it.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

Except vugraph operators, right? :rolleyes:

Not much choice except to trust certain members of the tournament staff who "need" to be able to be at the table.

 

TDs and perhaps caddies are other examples.

 

The staff responsible for duplicating, storing, and moving boards also has to be trusted even if they are never present at the table.

 

Of course it is a good idea to keep the # of such people to a minimum and to minimize their need and ability to interact with the players.

 

But you raise a good point. IMO there are likely ways that you could prevent the vugraph operator from being able to communicate with the players without compromising his/her ability to contribute to the show.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[jdonn]

Well my point is the following. I don't think the vugraph operator is in the same category as the directors or caddies (whose presence is required to run the tournament operations), but nor is it the same as a random kibitzer with no purpose at all. It seems somewhere in the middle. So it's all well and good to say "there shouldn't be kibitzers in order to keep the tournament secure", but it's a hard argument to make when you follow with "except the kibitzer I want to be there, who happens to be in the best position of anyone to compromise the security of the tournament."

 

Don't get me wrong, I love vugraph and I'm not saying your point is wrong. Just that it's a little self serving, and thus not as convincing as you might think (as someone who believes strongly.) I also understand BBO doesn't have a direct financial benefit from the vugraph shows, but it's still in BBO's interest to have them, if nothing else for general member happiness.

[NickRW]

Well my point is the following. I don't think the vugraph operator is in the same category as the directors or caddies (whose presence is required to run the tournament operations), but nor is it the same as a random kibitzer with no purpose at all. It seems somewhere in the middle. So it's all well and good to say "there shouldn't be kibitzers in order to keep the tournament secure", but it's a hard argument to make when you follow with "except the kibitzer I want to be there, who happens to be in the best position of anyone to compromise the security of the tournament."

 

Don't get me wrong, I love vugraph and I'm not saying your point is wrong. Just that it's a little self serving, and thus not as convincing as you might think (as someone who believes strongly.) I also understand BBO doesn't have a direct financial benefit from the vugraph shows, but it's still in BBO's interest to have them, if nothing else for general member happiness.

Yes, I see the point you're making. But the vugraph operator isn't just there because Roland or some random, vaguely BBO related person wants them to be there - surely they are also there because the tournament organiser wants the added publicity and/or prestige that comes with having the event on vugraph. So, even if they are not tournament staff, they are, surely, there at the invite of the tournament organiser. Further, the organiser presumably can insist on knowing who the operator(s) will be and can veto anyone considered undesirable.

 

Thus, while I accept that the operator may not strictly be tournament staff, such persons are much closer to that than being some random kibitzer.

 

If this isn't sufficient for the organiser, but the organiser wants the event vugraphed, then surely they can appoint their own people.

 

Nick

[Gerardo]

Josh, I disagree, in this context (vugraph running, either delayed or not) and until bid/play data gathering becomes automatic, vugraph operator is a must.

 

And, if organizers agree to vugraph, that well could put the operator as a member a the tourney organization.

[awm]

The amusing thing is that a lot of these arguments mirror the arguments about allowing cell phones in the playing area.

 

The basic point is that there are lots of ways to cheat at bridge. This leaves the tournament organizers with two basic options:

 

(1) Rely on players to be honorable and not cheat. Typically those few who do cheat will find it difficult to keep this secret from everyone over a long period, and eventually someone will catch them in the act and turn them in, at which point we ban them from bridge permanently.

 

(2) Try to enact procedures to make it harder to cheat. There are a wide range of such procedures from screens to barometer play to disallowing kibitzers in one or both rooms to banning electronic devices to delaying vugraph.

 

Either of the two approaches makes some degree of sense. The problem is that a lot of tournament organizers seem to want a rather haphazard mixed approach. This doesn't work, because while it may make certain methods of cheating more difficult, it will remain easy to cheat unless they go all the way with option two. So the net result is that a bunch of people are annoyed or inconvenienced, but it's not really made any harder to cheat. Meanwhile, the perception has been created that a lot of bridge players are cheating / were cheating / would cheat given the opportunity, which tends to undermine the honor code from the first point (i.e. it's a lot easier to rationalize cheating if you're convinced that many of your opponents cheat).

 

In any case, we made the very same point when cell phones were banned and got absolutely no where. So good luck with vugraph. :(

[fred]

a lot of these arguments mirror the arguments about allowing cell phones in the playing area.

I disagree at least as far as my argument goes, but first I should say:

 

0) Your concept of "trusting everyone until they prove they can't be trusted" has a lot of appeal to me, but I don't think it is realistic to hope that organizers of major tournaments will ever feel this way

1) I have never had a cellphone

2) I hope to never have a cellphone

3) I consider myself a serious bridge player so I don't think it is a big deal if organizers of tournaments I care about winning force me to do things that I find to be inconvenient in order to play in such tournaments

 

So it is easy for me to say "what's the big deal?" about the cellphone rule, but I can sympathize with those who think it is a big deal.

 

Anyways, back to why I disagree with you...

 

The basic thrust of my argument is this:

 

In order to use live vugraph to cheat, players must have access to the information that live vugraph provides. They can receive that information if any of A, B, or C below is the case:

 

A: They are able to access iPhones or laptops during the session

 

B: They are able to communicate in electronic ways (such as shoe-based receivers) with people who have access to this information

 

C: They are able to communicate in non-electronic ways with people who have access to this information

 

But A, B, and C all allow the possibility of cheating even if vugraph is not live.

 

As I understand it, however, your (and no doubt other peoples') argument for why it is dumb to ban cellphones is this:

 

Even if we ban cellphones, people can still cheat by:

 

D: Coughing signals from partner

 

E: Coughing signals from kibitzers

 

F: Many other methods that do not involve cellphones

 

I am not saying I disagree with this argument, but it is different from mine.

 

The difference is that A/B/C are necessary conditions for cheating using live vugraph and D/E/F having nothing to do with cheating using cellphones.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[mike777]

Yes, I assume the crooks will always be one step ahead of the cops.

 

Given that the bottom line becomes what can the cops do that is cost efficient and not too personally inconvenient.

 

Granted this is a moving average and as Fred phrased the question, is giving up a live Vugraph, giving up too much of our freedom of choice?

 

Hopefully this will be a typical neverending politcal decision where the masses vote with their voice and dollars/euros.

[jdonn]

Josh, I disagree, in this context (vugraph running, either delayed or not) and until bid/play data gathering becomes automatic, vugraph operator is a must.

Only if you think vugraph is a must. That to me means it is needed for there to be a (not horribly run) tournament. It's very nice and I enjoy it a lot, but I don't consider it essential, so I wouldn't call the operator a must.

 

And, if organizers agree to vugraph, that well could put the operator as a member a the tourney organization.

That is missing the point. You can call them what you want or give them whatever rights you want. But I was saying they are not aiding the functioning of the tournament.

 

I am not arguing against vugraph operators being there. I was just addressing Fred's point and the difficulty in arguing it that way to tournament organizers. "In order for vugraph to run best security should be addressed differently, meaning there should be no kibitzers.... except for the one I want there even though that obviously makes the tournament less secure."

 

Let me try an analogy. Suppose the police told the major news networks that they could only show up at a crime scene 30 minutes after the crime ends. They say they are trying to make the situation safer by eliminating news reporters from the scene. Suppose CNN doesn't like that because they want to film crimes as they happen. CNN believes disallowing anyone but police from stopping to watch the crime would be a much more effective safety mechanism than delaying news reporters. They want to use that argument on the police.

 

I believe what CNN is saying is correct. But do you think it would be an effective argument for them to say to the police "It would be better for safety if you would remove everyone who is not police from the area... except our news reporter that is." I don't.

[Codo]

As much as I agree with the idea that a delayed vuegraph will not solve the security problems, there are some arguments for a delay:

 

1. In all your examples you needed two partners too cheat. When you have an I-Phone and a washroom, you can do it all by your own.

2.To use a sender in your shoes or to use hidden signals with your partner needs much more criminal energy then just a short look at the vuegraph. Both is wrong, but for the first way you need a lot of preparation.

 

So, I would like a ban of ALL electronical machines during a session. No pcs, no phones- no sender, no radio. This would ban cheating much more effictelvily then a delay on vuegraph.

[awm]

Well there is the following issue.

 

Currently, it is difficult to cheat at bridge without having at least one co-conspirator.

 

Looking at the ways that Fred mentioned to cheat, all but one of them involve having a complicit partner or teammate or kibitzer to transmit the illegal information. This was true regardless of whether the information was transmitted verbally, on paper, or electronically.

 

Finding such a complicit person can be difficult -- how do you first propose cheating? What if the other person turns you in rather than agrees? What if the person you cheated with ends up on a different team in a subsequent event? Certainly they will be very suspicious of you now...

 

Only the last method of cheating (electronic device) does not require another person. Potentially vugraph allows someone to cheat using an iphone, without having another complicit person. If vugraph is delayed, the potential for such cheating is quite limited. I suppose one could have card combinations or GIB or something running on the phone, but this is a pretty mild way to cheat.

[qwery_hi]

If the two rooms are kept in sync, most issues with breaks disappear. The tricky part is how to keep them in sync.

 

One idea is for each room to start every board at the same time. Each table can be handed a new board by the director only when he determines that both tables have finished playing the previous board.

 

State of match information is more difficult to mask. No ideas about how to do that.

[qwery_hi]

Just realized the two rooms need not be kept in sync, just the publication of the results of each hand on vugraph needs to be kept in sync. This should be easy to do electronically and the resulting delay would be of the order of 10 minutes .

[Codo]

This is just true for the final.

[hrothgar]

Well there is the following issue.

 

Currently, it is difficult to cheat at bridge without having at least one co-conspirator.

 

Looking at the ways that Fred mentioned to cheat, all but one of them involve having a complicit partner or teammate or kibitzer to transmit the illegal information. This was true regardless of whether the information was transmitted verbally, on paper, or electronically.

 

Finding such a complicit person can be difficult -- how do you first propose cheating? What if the other person turns you in rather than agrees? What if the person you cheated with ends up on a different team in a subsequent event? Certainly they will be very suspicious of you now...

 

Only the last method of cheating (electronic device) does not require another person. Potentially vugraph allows someone to cheat using an iphone, without having another complicit person. If vugraph is delayed, the potential for such cheating is quite limited. I suppose one could have card combinations or GIB or something running on the phone, but this is a pretty mild way to cheat.

Hi Fred

 

I think that Andrew has (obliquely) raised a very important point:

 

You provided what looks to be a fairly complete list of different scenarios by which people can cheat. However, you haven't considered the relative costs and benefits for the various methods.

 

My concern is the following: Streaming live Vugraph's makes scenarios 8 MUCH more attractive.

 

1. The receiver doesn't need to convince his partner (or team mate to cheat). All he/she needs to do is find one (trusteded) individual willing to acted as the sender.

 

2. The receiver gets very good, very actionable information. The fact that folks might have general information available about the state of the match doesn't excuse giving them much more direct / useful information. (General data about the state of the match isn't anywhere near as useful as a single bit of information about whether partner is at the maximum or the minimum for his range)

 

Its all well and good to state that the Bridge authorities need to fix this by mastering the fine art of bug sweeping. Regretfully, I am far from convinced that any of the regulatory bodies have the necessary expertise to get any of this right. Please recall: Part of the reason that your were able to succeed so well with BBO is that national organizations like the ACBL failed utterly and completely at their own attempts to establish any kind of viable online presence. I think that this is a case where

 

(a) The "robbers" are going to be much better funded than the "cops"

(b) The robbers are going to be in a much better position to take advantage of existing Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) technololgy than the cops.

© I suspect but can not prove that it is much more difficult to detect simple receivers than transmitters. (The way that you'll stop a S+R at the same table is by focusing on the the transmitter, not the reciever)

 

I could be wrong. One of these days, we might see a case where the WBF starts investing heavily into Non Linear Junction Detectors or some such. There will be an ever-so-delightful spectacle of forcing all of the participants to strip down to their undies so all their shoes and clothes can be safely scanned. (Really bad things can happen when you run those bug sweeping wands over soft tissue). Oh yeah, better hope no one in the vincinity has a pacemaker.

 

This is all really complicated stuff and I don't think its realistic to dump all the responsibility onto the tournament organizers.

 

I don't think that a short VuGraph delay introduces all that much of a cost and I don't think that its unreasonable for tournament organizers to request this.

 

One last important comment.

 

If you talk to any competant security professional, they'll stress that real security systems are based on layers. It's not enough to sweept for bugs, you also try to degrade the benefits from using bugs.

[TimG]

Only the last method of cheating (electronic device) does not require another person. Potentially vugraph allows someone to cheat using an iphone, without having another complicit person. If vugraph is delayed, the potential for such cheating is quite limited.

If players must remain at the table during a segment, the potential for this sort of cheating is quite limited. How many people can pull up results on their iPhone while sitting at the table without the other players noticing? Especially if electronic devices are banned from the playing room.

[Codo]

Tim,

 

I doubt that you can ban people from using the restrooms when they need to go there. This is close to waterboarding.

[hrothgar]

Only the last method of cheating (electronic device) does not require another person. Potentially vugraph allows someone to cheat using an iphone, without having another complicit person. If vugraph is delayed, the potential for such cheating is quite limited.

If players must remain at the table during a segment, the potential for this sort of cheating is quite limited. How many people can pull up results on their iPhone while sitting at the table without the other players noticing? Especially if electronic devices are banned from the playing room.

I'll note in passing that one of the competitors during this years Scripps spelling bee was using the spell check functions on his iPhone during the contest.

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andy-borowit...i_b_209013.html

 

He made it quite a ways through before getting noticed.

 

This was just some random kid cheating in a fairly transparent manner. Imagine just what someone could do if they were willing to invest $20-30K on some custom hardware.

 

Here's how I'd do it.

 

I'd invest in something extremely simple. A tiny little coil or crystal or what have you that would heat up or vibrate when it heard the right frequency.

 

I'd place this somewhere VERY sensitive where a small temperature change would get noticed very easily. Under my hair, right on my temple might be reasonable. (I can suggest other locations that are probably even more sensitive plus they're MUCH less likely to get searched)

 

All that I'd need to do then is sit back and wait for things to heat up.

 

I could only receive a single bit of information at a time.

 

Does partner have a minimum or a maximum?

is the queen on my left or on my right?

Is a sacrifice good or too expensive?

 

Admittedly, my game is bad enough that I wouldn't be competitive even with something like this in "hand". However, I suspect that there are a number of pros who might find something like this worth their while...

 

Anyone want to remind us how much some of the top pros make for a single weekend of play?

[fred]

Tim,

 

I doubt that you can ban people from using the restrooms when they need to go there. This is close to waterboarding.

The USBF has been doing this right for at least as long as I have been playing in the USBC each year (since 2002 I think).

 

Each table is in its own hotel room. Each hotel room has its own washroom.

 

I am quite sure that the USBF's original decision to isolate all of the tables in the USBC had nothing to do with vugraph (because this one-table-per-room policy has been in place since before online vugraph was much of a reality).

 

The USBF's motivation for this policy was likely general security, but in the process they managed to eliminate some of the possibilities for cheating using live vugraph (such as #7 in my original list) while making it easier on themselves to control other possibilities (such as #9 in my original list).

 

Of course it would not be practical to do this for tournaments in which there are 100s of tables in play at once, but if it is vugraph-related cheating you are concerned about then you only have to do this for tables that are featured on vugraph.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[TimG]

This was just some random kid cheating in a fairly transparent manner. Imagine just what someone could do if they were willing to invest $20-30K on some custom hardware.

 

Here's how I'd do it.

 

I'd invest in something extremely simple. A tiny little coil or crystal or what have you that would heat up or vibrate when it heard the right frequency.

 

I'd place this somewhere VERY sensitive where a small temperature change would get noticed very easily. Under my hair, right on my temple might be reasonable. (I can suggest other locations that are probably even more sensitive plus they're MUCH less likely to get searched)

 

All that I'd need to do then is sit back and wait for things to heat up.

 

I could only receive a single bit of information at a time.

 

Does partner have a minimum or a maximum?

is the queen on my left or on my right?

Is a sacrifice good or too expensive?

 

Admittedly, my game is bad enough that I wouldn't be competitive even with something like this in "hand". However, I suspect that there are a number of pros who might find something like this worth their while...

 

Anyone want to remind us how much some of the top pros make for a single weekend of play?

I think you've gone off the deep end!

 

You're also talking about a system that needs an accomplice rather than a solo cheat.

[TimG]

Of course it would not be practical to do this for tournaments in which there are 100s of tables in play at once, but if it is vugraph-related cheating you are concerned about then you only have to do this for tables that are featured on vugraph.

But, it would add an expense for the tournament organizers to set up a special vugraph room (or rooms).

 

Perhaps I am significantly out of touch with reality, but asking a competitor to do without the washroom for about 120 minutes does not seem at all unreasonable to me. Especially if there is a protocol for emergencies.

[hrothgar]

I think you've gone off the deep end!

 

You're also talking about a system that needs an accomplice rather than a solo cheat.

Comment 1: This type of system certainly requires an accomplice

 

Comment 2: I'm not sure where the "Off the Deep End" comment is coming from...

 

If I wanted a "wire" I'd use precisely this type of method.

 

This type of system would be almost impossible to detect.

You couldn't sweep for the bug.

The transmitter only needs to burst for a short length of time on a few critical hands.

I suspect that this type of system would be pretty cheap, easy to build, and still provide highly actionable information.

 

Folks have done MUCH sillier things in pursuit of filthy lucre...