Re: PBEM Cheating, how to deal with it?

From: Aristophanes <scribe@netcom.ca>

Date: Sat, 23 Mar 1996 00:00:00 +0000

Mr R M Mantel wrote:
>

>
> I guess most uf us agree to this. The questions that are unclear are
> 1.) What is considered cheating?
> 2.) What should a GM do who strongly suspects someone of cheating?

I may not be answering this question, but the way to prevent cheating may be by
encryption.

If the PBEM scenario of a game has a way in which battles are measured and then
encrypted so that the player cannot simply replay an unfavourable result.

In other words, each player has a way built-in to the program of verifying the use
of the combat engine once per combat. For every combat the program generates an
encrypted message to the other player, using ONLY his/her key, so that only they
can access it so as to verify the results. Each player has the OTHER players key,
but cannot access it because the other part is on their opponents system. The game
automatically uses the distant players key to generate a combat message. Tne game
could even have its own key to verify integrity (this gets a little more
complicated).

This would be very difficult to hack as the time and effort doing so would rise
commensurate to the strength of the encryption. Part of the solution lies in
deterrence.

This could work with PGP for example, a cross-platform standard. If done well, it
can run behind the scenes so that the players hardly know it's there, aside from
having to enter in passwords when sending and receiving the mail.

In short: Each player generates a game key automatically as part of the email they
use to set-up the game. The game has an RSA algorithm to verify the integrity of
the programs email capabilities. Each time a combat occurs, a message is generated
as to the results, encrypted sing the opposing players key and verified by the
game key. These can be behind the scenes. The game can then summarize all the
moves encrypted so that the opposing player can read the game's version of events,
as well as the commenatry that PBEM games usually have.

This does add some complexity to the program, not really the game. However, the
tournament possibilites are enormous, especially if scenarios are given a new RSA
encryption each time.

Just a thought....

References

PBEM Cheating, how to deal with it?
Jim Flanagan <flanag19@eos.net>
Thu, 14 Mar 1996 00:00:00 +0000
Re: PBEM Cheating, how to deal with it?
mephisto@ra.isisnet.com (David Thompson)
Fri, 15 Mar 1996 00:00:00 +0000

Referenced By

PBEM Cheating, how to deal with it?
Jim Flanagan <flanag19@eos.net>
Thu, 14 Mar 1996 00:00:00 +0000
Re: PBEM Cheating, how to deal with it?
mephisto@ra.isisnet.com (David Thompson)
Fri, 15 Mar 1996 00:00:00 +0000