How hard is?

[JcMaTe]

It hasn't been proven that Rybka 3 or Rybka 4 broke ICGA rules.

They just went "it's Vas's responsibility to prove those versions are innocent".

I know that your support VAS ... let me ask you this and i hope you will be honest.

1) what make you think when a guy as VAS say that he lost rybka's source code?
2) what do you think when he haven't defend his self yet?
3) do you really believe that Rybka 3 and 4 are clean?
4) what do you think that he spend hours reading his forum,talkches and maybe open-chess and he do nothing to prove us wrong?

[Jeremy Bernstein]

It was Rajlch who was banned, not Rybka 1 or Rybka 2 or Rybka 3. Therefore it doesn’t matter which flavour he has on offer at the moment - he is banned!!!

If he wants the ban lifted, he could consider adopting the attitude and behaviour that any other reasonable person would adopt in the prevailing circumstances, namely:
1. Returning any cups that he won with engines that were found to be clones.
2. Returning any prize money that he won.
3. Telling the truth about what he did.
4. Apologising for the inconvenience and upset that he caused.
5. Recognising the fact that, as he has shown himself to be untrustworthy and nobody is willing to spend hundreds of hours reverse engineering his code he may have to actively cooperate with more stringent scrutiny than those who have not shown themselves to be untrustworthy.

I pretty much agree with this, as well. Thanks -- you nearly always manage to put it more clearly and with fewer words than I do.

jb

[hyatt]

It hasn't been proven that Rybka 3 or Rybka 4 broke ICGA rules.

They just went "it's Vas's responsibility to prove those versions are innocent".

But really, that's not different from saying "Rybka 1.6.1 is made of 99% Crafty, so we'll assume all future versions of Rybka are guilty and it's Vas's responsibility to prove those versions are innocent" without checking Rybka 1.0 or 2.3.2a at all.

Sort of ignores the rybka 1.0 beta / fruit analysis completely? And the rybka 2.3.2a eval similarity comparison too?

[BB+]

But really, that's not different from saying "Rybka 1.6.1 is made of 99% Crafty, so we'll assume all future versions of Rybka are guilty and it's Vas's responsibility to prove those versions are innocent" without checking Rybka 1.0 or 2.3.2a at all.

Sort of ignores the rybka 1.0 beta / fruit analysis completely? And the rybka 2.3.2a eval similarity comparison too?

I interpreted Uly's statement as merely being a counterfactual argument in the "what-if" sense. That is, suppose we knew nothing about R1/Fruit/R232a, and just happened to run across some old archive with R161 in it, and found it was derivative of Crafty -- if then an inquiry to Rajlich was met with silence, should this disqualify Rajlich from later WCCCs w/o further investigation?

I think there was agreement on the Panel that R161 by itself would not be enough. Whether the R1/Fruit situation would be enough (for it never competed in the WCCC, but OTOH was a distribution to the public) was less clear. Another step down the ladder (which was considered) was whether plagiarism in only the 2006 entry was of enough import. But everyone could agree that the evidence with R232a [which was assumed to be essentially the same as the 2007 winner] was sufficient for the ICGA to request Rajlich to address the situation.

Historically, El Chinito publicly apologised for using too many Crafty parts. This thread is notable for containing Rajlich's opinion (at that time) about reverse engineering -- more to the point here would be Gerd's post [the link above -- well worth reading] that considers the path to acceptance of later engines of Castillo [there were some comments about how such "assurance" would work in practise].

[Uly]

As for laziness, how many volunteer man-hours of someone else's time spent performing unpleasant disassembly and analysis would you consider appropriate?

What about 1/3 of the work that was done? Because, they spent all that work and time checking three different engines, 1.6.1, Beta 1.0 and 2.3.2a, while just checking Rybka 4 would have sufficed.

reasonable assumption of continued violation

Backwards assumption. I would have had no problem with them finding Rybka 4 "dirty", and having the reasonable assumption that all previous versions were dirty, because it's obvious. It wouldn't make sense for Vas to have a clean engine all the time, and then suddenly insert dirty code into it in the latest public version.

But it would make sense that at some point he rewrote the engine from scratch and that later versions are "clean", that's why it's much more efficient to just check latest versions for cleanliness.

he could have been disqualified simply on the basis of refusing to provide source code as part of such an investigation.

Well, they asked him for an impossible in a definitively non timely manner. As most people know Vas didn't keep any version of his old engine sources, he made a successful change, and he deleted old versions. So he doesn't have any Rybka 3 sources, and probably by now he doesn't have the R4 and R4.1 sources (unless he got more careful by now). How is he going to provide something he doesn't have? Something he deleted 6 years ago (for the Rybka 1.0 Beta).

And I know this is true, because by the time I was beta testing Rybka 4, it was clear that he only had the bare bones and had to adapt the cluster software back to UCI, he didn't even have time control code and had to improvise, which probably cost Rybka 40 elo or more due to terrible time management.

It's probably stupid to not have any version control at all, but don't act like Vas didn't want to show his sources, there just weren't any sources to show.

1) what make you think when a guy as VAS say that he lost rybka's source code?

I knew what he meant, it's not like he had a drive failure, or some accident in where he lost the sources of the engine, it's that he employed a "burn the ships" programming strategy in where he just wasn't interested in keeping the source of old versions of the engine.

What for? For when he breaks time management so he could easily retrieve the time management code of an old version? Nah...

For people implying that Vas is lying about this, he made this statement back in April 2009.

2) what do you think when he haven't defend his self yet?

From what I've read about the interview that he gave, he doesn't care about it, as it hasn't affected him negatively (on the contrary, with his engine selling 4 times as much and all).

3) do you really believe that Rybka 3 and 4 are clean?

I don't know, and actually Rybka 4 maybe is not clean. Both versions could have been found guilty and then there wouldn't be any discussion on how e.g. proving that 1.6.1 is guilty is irrelevant.

what do you think that he spend hours reading his forum,talkches and maybe open-chess and he do nothing to prove us wrong?

That he doesn't? Whenever he reads Rybka Forum he goes on a posting spree replying to anything he finds relevant, and he hasn't done this in quite a while. My expectations would be that once he has free time and is on the mood he'll read Rybka Forum first, and he hasn't done so.

[^Change "reading" to "spends hours reading" up above if necessary]

The only report of such a thing I've read about was when he spent 10 hours straight reading CCC because he was misinformed about his situation with the ICGA.

I maintain: Innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around. To me stopping the investigation at 2.3.2a is like stopping the investigation at 1.6.1. They spent time checking versions that didn't need to be checked, and didn't check versions that would be relevant for a fair trial of "banned for life", since there's no reason to ban the engine if it is clean.

@hyatt: Check BB+'s message, he got it.

[thorstenczub]

sorry but a programmer who deletes the source codes of his software when he rewrites a new version is IMO an idiot.

i don't believe this story about "having no source code anymore".

[BB+]

It wouldn't make sense for Vas to have a clean engine all the time, and then suddenly insert dirty code into it in the latest public version.

But it would make sense that at some point he rewrote the engine from scratch and that later versions are "clean", that's why it's much more efficient to just check latest versions for cleanliness.

I don't know if I agree with this. There could always be a temptation to scrap some part of what you have, forage what's out there, and stick your next version number on it. To take an obvious example in the case at hand [ignoring any Crafty aspects], R161 didn't have any Fruit-based parts [UCI, eval features, etc.], but then "suddenly" these appeared in the later R1. Another "original->recycled" analogy might be IPPOLIT's PST now being re-used in Critter [when RV found it worked so well].

[...] and didn't check versions that would be relevant for a fair trial of "banned for life",

It's never easy to have a "fair" anything when the accused won't participate. Indeed, this latter fact was most likely almost solely the reason for the quasi-gratuitous life-ban. My own attitude was more of: there's little point in checking/discussing later versions until he responds to the evidence against R232a. There were two reasons for this, the first being the previously mentioned desire to avoid work ( ), in that if Rajlich couldn't care enough to offer a defense of R1/R232a, then I personally felt that this was enough to impose drastic penalties, even w/o R3/R4 evidence being catalogued. The second reason was that it would be much easier to judge the "originality" of later Rybka versions with Rajlich participating (either with the Board or the Panel).

[K I Hyams]

As for laziness, how many volunteer man-hours of someone else's time spent performing unpleasant disassembly and analysis would you consider appropriate?

What about 1/3 of the work that was done? Because, they spent all that work and time checking three different engines, 1.6.1, Beta 1.0 and 2.3.2a, while just checking Rybka 4 would have sufficed.

reasonable assumption of continued violation

Backwards assumption. I would have had no problem with them finding Rybka 4 "dirty", and having the reasonable assumption that all previous versions were dirty, because it's obvious. It wouldn't make sense for Vas to have a clean engine all the time, and then suddenly insert dirty code into it in the latest public version.

But it would make sense that at some point he rewrote the engine from scratch and that later versions are "clean", that's why it's much more efficient to just check latest versions for cleanliness.

he could have been disqualified simply on the basis of refusing to provide source code as part of such an investigation.

Well, they asked him for an impossible in a definitively non timely manner. As most people know Vas didn't keep any version of his old engine sources, he made a successful change, and he deleted old versions. So he doesn't have any Rybka 3 sources, and probably by now he doesn't have the R4 and R4.1 sources (unless he got more careful by now). How is he going to provide something he doesn't have? Something he deleted 6 years ago (for the Rybka 1.0 Beta).

And I know this is true, because by the time I was beta testing Rybka 4, it was clear that he only had the bare bones and had to adapt the cluster software back to UCI, he didn't even have time control code and had to improvise, which probably cost Rybka 40 elo or more due to terrible time management.

It's probably stupid to not have any version control at all, but don't act like Vas didn't want to show his sources, there just weren't any sources to show.

1) what make you think when a guy as VAS say that he lost rybka's source code?

I knew what he meant, it's not like he had a drive failure, or some accident in where he lost the sources of the engine, it's that he employed a "burn the ships" programming strategy in where he just wasn't interested in keeping the source of old versions of the engine.

What for? For when he breaks time management so he could easily retrieve the time management code of an old version? Nah...

For people implying that Vas is lying about this, he made this statement back in April 2009.

2) what do you think when he haven't defend his self yet?

From what I've read about the interview that he gave, he doesn't care about it, as it hasn't affected him negatively (on the contrary, with his engine selling 4 times as much and all).

3) do you really believe that Rybka 3 and 4 are clean?

I don't know, and actually Rybka 4 maybe is not clean. Both versions could have been found guilty and then there wouldn't be any discussion on how e.g. proving that 1.6.1 is guilty is irrelevant.

what do you think that he spend hours reading his forum,talkches and maybe open-chess and he do nothing to prove us wrong?

That he doesn't? Whenever he reads Rybka Forum he goes on a posting spree replying to anything he finds relevant, and he hasn't done this in quite a while. My expectations would be that once he has free time and is on the mood he'll read Rybka Forum first, and he hasn't done so.

[^Change "reading" to "spends hours reading" up above if necessary]

The only report of such a thing I've read about was when he spent 10 hours straight reading CCC because he was misinformed about his situation with the ICGA.

I maintain: Innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around. To me stopping the investigation at 2.3.2a is like stopping the investigation at 1.6.1. They spent time checking versions that didn't need to be checked, and didn't check versions that would be relevant for a fair trial of "banned for life", since there's no reason to ban the engine if it is clean.

@hyatt: Check BB+'s message, he got it.

There are 4 quotes in that post that you claim came from me (K I Hyams). In fact, none of them came from me. Please be more careful in future.

I maintain: Innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around. To me stopping the investigation at 2.3.2a is like stopping the investigation at 1.6.1. They spent time checking versions that didn't need to be checked, and didn't check versions that would be relevant for a fair trial of "banned for life", since there's no reason to ban the engine if it is clean.

Not only have you attributed incorrectly, you may be exhibiting a talent for ignoring inconvenient facts. I have already explained to you that it was Rajlich who was banned, not Rybka 4. Why do you continue to claim that "there's no reason to ban the engine if it is clean."?

[hyatt]

But really, that's not different from saying "Rybka 1.6.1 is made of 99% Crafty, so we'll assume all future versions of Rybka are guilty and it's Vas's responsibility to prove those versions are innocent" without checking Rybka 1.0 or 2.3.2a at all.

Sort of ignores the rybka 1.0 beta / fruit analysis completely? And the rybka 2.3.2a eval similarity comparison too?

I interpreted Uly's statement as merely being a counterfactual argument in the "what-if" sense. That is, suppose we knew nothing about R1/Fruit/R232a, and just happened to run across some old archive with R161 in it, and found it was derivative of Crafty -- if then an inquiry to Rajlich was met with silence, should this disqualify Rajlich from later WCCCs w/o further investigation?

I think there was agreement on the Panel that R161 by itself would not be enough. Whether the R1/Fruit situation would be enough (for it never competed in the WCCC, but OTOH was a distribution to the public) was less clear. Another step down the ladder (which was considered) was whether plagiarism in only the 2006 entry was of enough import. But everyone could agree that the evidence with R232a [which was assumed to be essentially the same as the 2007 winner] was sufficient for the ICGA to request Rajlich to address the situation.

Historically, El Chinito publicly apologised for using too many Crafty parts. This thread is notable for containing Rajlich's opinion (at that time) about reverse engineering -- more to the point here would be Gerd's post [the link above -- well worth reading] that considers the path to acceptance of later engines of Castillo [there were some comments about how such "assurance" would work in practise].

I would not suggest DQ'ing by ICGA for 1.6.1, although I would certainly suggest that he not be allowed to compete in any more CCT events since he did violate those rules with 1.6.1...

[Richard Vida]

Another "original->recycled" analogy might be IPPOLIT's PST now being re-used in Critter [when RV found it worked so well].

Yeah, and my mailbox was full of flames from anonymous ippolit fans
I am still pretty convinced that the PST's are mostly just adding noise. Nevertheless, for the next Critter I had developed an 'PST-autotune' method custom tailored for my engine. Alas, judging from early test results it seems to be completely elo-agnostic (no gain, no loss). So far the only gain is that my mailbox will be probably more spam-free in the future

Edit: And I am very curious how it will affect the similarity % from Don's "sim03" tester...