The most common types of cheats allow players to see through walls or automatically aim for headshots, both of which are now a problem in Team Fortress 2.
But the botting problem is unlike anything else I’ve seen in another multiplayer shooter. This is when people use multiple virtual machines, each of which is logged into Team Fortress 2 with a different account, and software to control each of those accounts in-game. Some of these bots join matches and give just enough input so as not to be kicked out so they could farm items players passively earn while playing the game. Some bots are more aggressive, and are loaded with the same kind of cheats mentioned above, making any match they’re in unplayable to human competitors.
After [a streamer] started calling attention to this problem and asking the community to pressure Valve to do something about it 2023, the people operating the bots started harassing him. They used samples of his voice from YouTube to create an AI voice model
Wednesday, June 5, 2024
Using AI cloning tools to defame someone for reporting on the rampant use of bots to farm items in Valve's Team Fortress 2
Monday, June 3, 2024
Footage of remarkably bold cheating at the world junior surfing championship
Fox:
[An Australian] was in fourth place in the four-person heat and needed a score of 2.4 to advance with less than a minute remaining in the heat.
She took off on a wave, only to have [a Portuguese surfer] surf across her path and deliberately run interference.
[The Portuguese surfer] even attempted to push [the Australian] off her surfboard, yelled abuse at her and tried to grab the leash attached to her board.
Here's the footage:
@australiancommunitymedia The Portuguese rival repeatedly dropped in on Aussie surfer Willow Hardy, pulling at her board lead, pushing her off her board, and shouting abuse, during the El Salvador ISA World Junior Championship 2024. #surfing #juniorworldchampionship #willowhardy #surf #elsalvador ♬ original sound - Australian Community Media
And here's her apology:
Gold went to a surfer named Ziggy Aloha Mackenzie:
Sunday, April 28, 2024
IndyCar team caught cheating in a race, claims it was an accident
Drivers can utilize the cars' push-to-pass button for an extra 50hp boost, but the cars' software is supposed to prevent use of the button on starts and restarts. However:
During last weekend’s event in Long Beach, the series found the three cars from [one team] were able to bypass that software restriction and use push-to-pass at any time.
...
[The team] issued a statement . . . after the matter was made public by the series and blamed a software oversight
...
[The team] also acknowledged [two of its three drivers] chose to use the illegal access to push-to-pass power, which calls into question whether the unfair advantage was known to exist in advance.
AP:
During an emotional 25-minute news conference at Barber Motorsports Park ahead of this weekend’s race, the two-time series champion insisted he is “not a liar” and didn’t intentionally break the rules.
...
“That’s wrong. If he thought that, why didn’t he push it at the start?” [another driver] said. “He didn’t push it at the start. He pushed it on the restarts. You would think when everybody is stacked up the most, you would push it. So that’s a lie.”
...
“I can guarantee you, it’s not just [the driver] in this,” [said another driver] said. “Obviously what he did was wrong, but I truly feel like him taking the fall for something that he needs a team of people to help with -- he can’t do it alone -- I think it’s a bit unfair to him.”
"If the DRS opened up [in F1], that's more visible you'd have everyone going 'what's going on'. So, I would like to understand how it was missed at the time and make sure that in the future there's the right information being looked at.
"I think on a restart is a little bit trickier because so many things are happening to see what car has got more speed, but they've all got onboard cameras, you can see the button getting pushed. So that's one thing from a series standpoint.
Saturday, May 13, 2023
Longtime junior college baseball coach resigned after his team was caught with hidden earpieces in their batting helmets
The pitcher thought the batters were suspiciously good at anticipating his pitches, and then the first baseman heard voices coming from the baserunners' helmets:
That’s when [the opposing coach] went to the umpire and asked him to check two Atlantic Cape helmets. There was one out in the bottom of the third inning.
...
The umpire did, finding earpieces in the helmets of both the runner on second base, and the one on first.
...
“They had a center-field camera, which I wasn’t watching the stream, but the center-field camera, they can see in, they can see the catcher, they can see the signs,” [the opposing coach] said. “[The coach], in his dugout, had an iPad in his hands, so my assumption, and I don’t know if it’s true or not, my assumption was he was using the iPad to watch the livestream, the center-field camera, and looking into the catcher’s signs. Whether he did or not, who could prove or say, but he had an iPad in the dugout and you’re not allowed to do that.”
Saturday, April 15, 2023
Domingo German "pitching scandal" fan art
Domingo German. #MNTwins pic.twitter.com/8CxgnhxQbx
— KickliySPORTS (@KickliySPORTS) April 15, 2023
Based on this moment in the game:
Friday, October 7, 2022
"Centaur chess" and the "Wicked Problem"
From a long interview about the state of cheating in high level chess:
Machines alone can beat the world’s best chess master easily, but human-machine teams can beat that machine.
That was a very counter-intuitive result. [Former U.S. Defense Deputy Secretary] Robert Work famously used “centaur” chess to promote the Third Offset Strategy, where humans and computers work together, combining human strategy and computer speed. This fed a big argument at Defense about whether tactical battlefields should be just AIs acting alone and coordinating things, or a human-computer team. I actually was consulted on this.
...
In the current controversy, I’ve read some pretty crazy commentary, like, “Oh, maybe one of the players was using a sex toy as a remote communication device” to send vibrations to signal what an off-site machine thinks he should do, which I assume is not substantiated.
Yeah, but there’s one case in 2013 that I was involved in, where a player getting buzzes on his thighs was substantiated. It’s believed to have been a cellphone in a pocket. It was Morse code.
Wednesday, September 7, 2022
U.S. Soccer investigating allegations that an Orlando City employee spied on Sacramento Republic training before tonight's U.S. Open Cup final
Henry Bushnell for Yahoo:
According to the sources, the Republic were training at a public field on Monday when, they say, they spotted a man — whom they later identified as an Orlando staffer — watching. One source said the man was on his phone, consistently taking notes, stepping away to take phone calls, and coming back to take more notes.
Sacramento, per the sources, alleges that it asked the man to move to another area of the park, but he wouldn't. ESPN and The Athletic reported that, despite multiple attempts by the Republic to get him to leave, he refused to for 30-45 minutes.
More on the city that's been trying to get an MLS team for years:
After years of singing and chanting, of fortitude and faith, and of growing angst as MLS expanded elsewhere, the lead investor — “the final stroke,” as [the MLS commissioner] called it — finally arrived. [A billionaire] came with cash, so MLS came to the Californian capital, and on Oct. 21, 2019, [the commissioner] announced Sacramento as the league’s 29th team. Up in a balcony, at a downtown celebration, flags flew and Republic fans roared. This, they knew, was their ladder up the American soccer pyramid. What they didn’t know, at the time, was how easily it could be pulled away.
The Republic kept plugging along toward MLS, its eyes on a 2022 start date. But in 2021, [the billionaire] backed out of the deal; so MLS backed out of Sacramento; and the Republic spiraled.
But in 2022, it channeled a slogan championed by the last great American soccer underdog: “If you can’t join ‘em, beat ‘em!”
...
The Republic ousted the San Jose Earthquakes, and then the LA Galaxy, which pays one player more than Sacramento pays its entire roster. It toppled Sporting Kansas City in a semifinal penalty shootout that brought players to tears and fans spilling onto the field.
It will meet Orlando City, a fourth straight MLS team, in Wednesday’s Open Cup final (8 p.m. ET, ESPN+)
Sunday, February 6, 2022
Arizona State sent $67.3 million to its athletics program, "by far the largest single-year outlay of direct funding by a Division I public school"
USA Today on how universities are responding to massive pandemic losses:
While some athletics programs had built reserve funds that could have offset at least part of a deficit, most athletics programs that had deficits are borrowing money – in many cases from the university. Due to operating deficits in prior years, Rutgers' athletics program had received $84 million in loans from the university, according to an analysis by The Record and NorthJersey.com.
....
UCLA’s program also ran eight-figure operating deficits in 2019 and 2020, but it annually receives a relatively paltry $2.6 million in school funds and student fees. That's generally the second-lowest total among Pac-12 Conference public schools to Oregon's. Its 2021 deficit brings its three-year total to $103 million.
Antonio Pierce is the latest to resign from Arizona State’s [football] coaching staff.
...
In addition to Pierce, offensive coordinator Zak Hill resigned last week. Additionally, defensive backs coach Chris Hawkins, tight ends coach Adam Breneman and receivers coach Prentice Gill are no longer employed by the school.
...
All five of the departures from Edwards’ staff are tied to the NCAA investigation.
Wednesday, November 17, 2021
New t-shirts honoring Texas Tech's meat judging dynasty, and the Laker arena's new nickname
Replacing the red coats at the arena formerly known as Staples on December 25 pic.twitter.com/DRFzEuPIX8
— Nate Jones (@JonesOnTheNBA) November 17, 2021
Welp, today I learned that Great Western Forum was a corporate name.
— SCOTT (@Tex2WestSeattle) November 18, 2021
And speaking of arena names, here are some good ones:
It’s impossible to embarrass me with a new arena name. I went to Mizzou. I was born in the darkness, molded by it. https://t.co/QbgAF1wzL8
— Matt Pearce 🦅 (@mattdpearce) November 17, 2021
They played like one game in the interim period between when the scandal broke and when the board renamed it when it didn’t have a name, so the announcers called it The New Arena. They may have forgotten but I have not forgotten.
— Matt Pearce 🦅 (@mattdpearce) November 17, 2021
It can’t quite top my favorite name for a venue, though. That would be the 1-800-ASK-GARY amphitheater in Tampa, named for the perfectly Floridian business that ran a doctor AND lawyer referral hotline. (While I was living there, some people called it “the Gary.”)
— Laura J. Nelson 🦅 (@laura_nelson) November 17, 2021
Monday, November 15, 2021
Battlefield 2042 allowed a punishment for cheating players that's like a circle in Dante's Inferno
At least for a while, custom servers were allowed, and players exploited that option to set up servers where only a small number of armed human-controlled players could mow down unarmed bots for XP. But the servers were permitting players to keep joining even after the armed slots had been filled:
That puts most players on the big bot team: weaponless fodder for the XP farmers, who I'm sure are delighted to have human targets join the AI horde.
What's really funny is that not everyone leaves after discovering that only a handful of players in the server are XP farming and they aren't one of them. I've stuck around and watched players desperately run at their tormentors with knives over and over. Somewhere along the line, a rumor must've started that typing "/switch" or "/swapteam" into chat puts you on the other team, because there's a lot of that. It does not work. I've also seen strings of players type "/gun," apparently hoping that the command will give them a gun. It does not.
Tuesday, June 22, 2021
"Chinese swimmer Sun Yang banned again, misses Tokyo Olympics"
Sun’s case centered on a failed attempt to take blood and urine from the swimmer by a sample collection team who made an unannounced visit to his home in China in September 2018.It turned confrontational after midnight when he questioned the officials’ credentials. It led to Sun’s entourage ordering a security guard to smash the casing of a blood vial with a hammer so that it would not be valid for testing.
Thursday, June 17, 2021
That runner can't even say with certainty that she ate a pork burrito
WSJ:
In the two days since, however, a new fact came to light that muddies her explanation: [the runner] herself isn’t sure she ate the pork burrito in question.
[The runner]’s lawyer...confirmed in a Wednesday interview something first reported by the website LetsRun: that [the runner] actually ordered a carne asada burrito, not pork, the day before her drug test. They believe [the runner]was either given the wrong order or a burrito that included pork, [her lawyer] said. They don’t know for sure.
[The runner]’s initial statement didn’t mention that she ordered a carne asada, or beef, burrito, not pork. In the interview, her lawyer said the order was beside the point because the anti-doping lab’s analysis wasn’t done correctly.
Meanwhile, she "will be allowed to run at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials while any appeals she files are pending."
Wednesday, June 16, 2021
Arizona State has been accused of extensive recruiting violations, and there seems to be a long list of disgruntled employees eager to help investigators
Yahoo has a long report on accusations that the school "deliberately, blatantly and consistently" committed recruiting violations during the pandemic:
(The best Herm Edwards ASU moment.)While Edwards operates as a mostly hands-off CEO, associate head coach Antonio Pierce has accumulated much of the power in the ASU program thanks to his recruiting reach. His rise to power has been enabled by deputy athletic director Jean Boyd, who oversees football.
With Pierce’s power has also come division, as coaches have lost jobs, recruiting staff have felt pressure to blindly follow Pierce’s aggressive tactics and multiple sources said that those who insisted on avoiding recruiting gray areas were ostracized. That left a running joke on group texts and in phone calls this week about the mystery of who collected and documented all the receipts, emails and screenshots.
“There’s too many disgruntled people”
Former Milwaukee Brewers catcher says the Colorado Rockies used a sign stealing system similar to the Astros
MJS:
"I can also tell you — I don't really care, I don't know anybody over there — the Colorado Rockies were doing the exact same thing in 2018, and we caught them," said [the former catcher], who didn't articulate if that was during the regular season or postseason, but he intimated that the revelation played into Colorado's offensive struggles during that series.
"We played them in the playoffs. You know how many runs they scored in a three-game playoff series in 2018? Not many people watch the NLDS. They scored two runs in the ninth inning of Game 2 (actually Game 1). And they used to take a Theragun and bang it on their metal bench. They were doing the exact same thing from the TV. So, there you go.
For what it's worth, here's a thread accusing some specific teams and players of sign stealing and other forms of cheating.
Thursday, June 10, 2021
Dartmouth has dropped all charges against medical students accused of cheating
In January, the school first launched the investigation into students cheating on closed-book exams conducted online by allegedly accessing other web-based course materials at the same time. Students have said that some 40 students were initially involved in the investigation, but that narrowed to 17 who were notified of the cheating allegations in March.
...
The Geisel School of Medicine has dismissed all honor code charges against students accused of academic misconduct this winter, the dean said in an email message to the school community.
“I have apologized to the students for what they have been through
Monday, March 15, 2021
Friday, July 6, 2018
"Embracing the Kobayashi Maru: Why You Should Teach Your Students to Cheat"
Our variation of the Kobayashi Maru utilized a deliberately unfair exam - write the first 100 digits of pi (3.14159...) from memory and took place in the pilot offering of a governmental cyber warfare course. The topic of the test itself was somewhat arbitrary; we only sought a scenario that would be too challenging to meet through traditional studying. By design, students were given little advance warning for the exam. Insurrection immediately followed. Why were we giving them such an unfair exam? What conceivable purpose would it serve? Now that we had their attention, we informed the class that we had no expectation that they would actually memorize the digits of pi, we expected them to cheat. How they chose to cheat was entirely up to the student. Collaborative cheating was also encouraged, but importantly, students would fail the exam if caught. To provide additional incentive, we offered a prize to the student who exhibited the most creative and effective cheating technique.
...
Another just memorized the first ten digits of pi and randomly filled in the rest, assuming the instructors would be too lazy to check every digit. His assumption was correct.
"Embracing the Kobayashi Maru" -- inviting security students to "cheat" on an exam: https://t.co/RwW4Yufr2v pic.twitter.com/XhIh4GV6xW— Peter A. H. Peterson ✇ (@tastytronic) July 5, 2018
It's in the linked paper, but while you're here I'd like to take this moment to recognize @cyberbgone and @crypt0b0y as the authors of this cool paper!— Peter A. H. Peterson ✇ (@tastytronic) July 6, 2018
Tuesday, September 5, 2017
"Boston Red Sox Used Apple Watches to Steal Signs Against Yankees"
The commissioner’s office then confronted the Red Sox, who admitted that their trainers had received signals from video replay personnel and then relayed that information to some players — an operation that had been in place for at least several weeks.
The Red Sox responded in kind on Tuesday, filing a complaint against the Yankees, claiming that the team uses a camera from its television network, YES, exclusively to steal signs during games.
Sunday, August 14, 2016
USA sprinter LaShawn Merritt won two golds in Beijing, "failed three tests for a banned substance and then blamed it on innocently taking . . . ExtenZe"
Then, at an anti-doping hearing, he even produced the actual employee at his local 7-Eleven that he routinely bought the pills from during a break in competition – when his, shall we say, social life was a bit more active.
That woman, Leslie James, recalled Merritt routinely buying lottery tickets, juice and condoms, but specifically the ExtenZe because they were stored behind the counter to prevent theft. James was deemed “devastatingly convincing” and it was ruled that Merritt accidentally took the banned substances and wasn’t trying to gain a competitive advantage on the track.
He was still suspended 21 months for negligence.