AI unmasks anonymous chess players, posing privacy risks(science.org)
science.org
AI unmasks anonymous chess players, posing privacy risks
https://www.science.org/content/article/ai-unmasks-anonymous-chess-players-posing-privacy-risks
118 comments
My Dad was a morse intercept operator for the US Army, mid 60s, stationed in Northern Japan. He has stories of them naming all the Soviet morse operators by the way the tapped.
Cryptonomicon mentions this as well. Each operator having a particular "fist" that was unique to them.
It's still true now in ham radio, even for those using a bug (vibroplex keyer) or even an electronic keyer, will still leak some of their natural fist thru.
I remember playing FPS game called Enemy Territory as teenager and after awhile whenever I was in 1v1 shoot out with one of my “clan” members I knew who it was based on their movement.
I was walking down the street a couple years ago, in my peripheral vision I noticed the gait of someone walking across the street traveling the other direction, instant recall of that former coworkers name from 10 years previous. It would have taken longer to recognize them visually if they were standing still. Still amazes me, years later.
This happens all the time in video games. Fighting game players often revere it as a form of unique personal expression, and it's interesting as a spectator because you absolutely can recognize the players by their plays, but it's extremely hard to explain how you can do that.
Off topic, but if it was Wolfenstein ET I will just add that there still is a community for it and a Foss version of it that runs on modern operating systems
https://www.etlegacy.com/
https://www.etlegacy.com/
I had the same experience with my workmates, in Quake 3. We played so much on the same maps that I recognized anyone by their play style, and also because they liked different parts of the maps.
Oh yeah, every ham knows you can recognize the sending fist. If they're actually using a real key, anyway.
I don't understand your sentence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegraph_key#Operators'_%22fi...
> With straight keys, side-swipers, and, to an extent, bugs, each and every telegrapher has their own unique style or rhythm pattern when transmitting a message. An operator's style is known as their "fist".
> Since every fist is unique, other telegraphers can usually identify the individual telegrapher transmitting a particular message. This had a huge significance during the first and second World Wars, since the on-board telegrapher's "fist" could be used to track individual ships and submarines, and for traffic analysis.
> With straight keys, side-swipers, and, to an extent, bugs, each and every telegrapher has their own unique style or rhythm pattern when transmitting a message. An operator's style is known as their "fist".
> Since every fist is unique, other telegraphers can usually identify the individual telegrapher transmitting a particular message. This had a huge significance during the first and second World Wars, since the on-board telegrapher's "fist" could be used to track individual ships and submarines, and for traffic analysis.
Identifiable ... by the way they tap out Morse code with their hand/fist.
Ham = amateur radio operator: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_radio
Ham = amateur radio operator: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_radio
Hey's saying if you are using a straight key instead of an iambic keyer (different morse sending tech) then you can recognize the operator from their patterns (the first)
> They gave the system 100 games from each of about 3000 known players, and 100 fresh games from a mystery player. To make the task harder, they hid the first 15 moves of each game. The system looked for the best match and identified the mystery player 86% of the time...A non-AI method was only 28% accurate.
This sounds incredible, to pick the right player out of 3000 candidates 86% of the time.
I am not sure that pruning the first 15 moves is enough to eliminate the information you get from choice of opening (which is presumably the intention of the restriction). For example, if a player religiously plays the Najdorf Sicilian as Black, you can immediately rule out many(most? ) positions that started with a French or a Ruy Lopez.
I'd like to see what the best results are from a model that just looks at the position after move 15, and use that as a baseline.
This sounds incredible, to pick the right player out of 3000 candidates 86% of the time.
I am not sure that pruning the first 15 moves is enough to eliminate the information you get from choice of opening (which is presumably the intention of the restriction). For example, if a player religiously plays the Najdorf Sicilian as Black, you can immediately rule out many(most? ) positions that started with a French or a Ruy Lopez.
I'd like to see what the best results are from a model that just looks at the position after move 15, and use that as a baseline.
> I'd like to see what the best results are from a model that just looks at the position after move 15, and use that as a baseline.
Reading the paper, they have an "opening baseline" which consists of frequency analysis on a player's first 5 moves. That model has 93% accuracy!
The mapping of first-five-move sequences to the positions obtained after them is almost a bijection (there are some transposition, but a small effect) so that's similar to my proposal.
I can't tell whether the 15-move cutoff is 15 half-moves, so 7-8 moves per player, or 15 moves each which is how every chess player would read the sentence.
Either way, I haven't completely read the paper yet, but I don't think it addresses the rebuttal of "I will just change my openings and the machine won't detect me".
Reading the paper, they have an "opening baseline" which consists of frequency analysis on a player's first 5 moves. That model has 93% accuracy!
The mapping of first-five-move sequences to the positions obtained after them is almost a bijection (there are some transposition, but a small effect) so that's similar to my proposal.
I can't tell whether the 15-move cutoff is 15 half-moves, so 7-8 moves per player, or 15 moves each which is how every chess player would read the sentence.
Either way, I haven't completely read the paper yet, but I don't think it addresses the rebuttal of "I will just change my openings and the machine won't detect me".
Yeah, that means it extracts roughly 12 bits of information from observing a game after move 15. It takes 33 bits to pick out one human from everyone alive. You get at least 3 bits just knowing someone plays chess, so you're halfway there?
Good point about baseline.
Good point about baseline.
Where can one learn more about this technique of equating bits to pieces of information? I get that it's used in various contexts like cryptography, randomness, compression, games of Guess Who, etc. but basically just nod in fake agreement when someone formally describes a system this way. Like what first principles did you use to make this statement:
It takes 33 bits to pick out one human from everyone alive
Is it basically just 2^33 > ~8 billion humans, therefore that's the minimum information context to identify a single individual? But then what counts as an information bit - any valid Yes/No question? And how do you calculate the bit value of a piece of info (i.e. 3 bits for the knowledge of playing chess)?
It takes 33 bits to pick out one human from everyone alive
Is it basically just 2^33 > ~8 billion humans, therefore that's the minimum information context to identify a single individual? But then what counts as an information bit - any valid Yes/No question? And how do you calculate the bit value of a piece of info (i.e. 3 bits for the knowledge of playing chess)?
It's any valid question at all, it needn't be yes or no. Humans have, at minimum, red, black, brown, blonde, dyed, grey, white, and no hair. Learning what colour hair a person has eliminates the other categories.
The way to think about the information content of a problem or of something you learn is exactly what you're suggesting. If you numbered every living person on earth, it'd take more than 32 bits and not quite fill the 33rd bit.
If you then learn a person's gender, you can eliminate all the people with the incorrect gender, which is going to leave you either 31.x bits (assuming binary gender) or 25-27 bits of remaining entropy (assuming some non-binary gender and, say, a 1-3% incidence rate).
When the parent you're responding to says you get 3 bits for knowing someone plays chess, they're guessing that 1/(2^3) = 1/8 of people, in an undifferentiated sense, play chess. Of course if we knew someone's age or gender or country of origin, the conditional information value in knowing they play chess could be greater or lesser. And realistically no one is ever trying to identify a human among all humans (partially because it seems highly unlikely that there are many questions that could equally implicate the president of the United States and a six year old on the Marshall Islands in their answer). Each bit of information represents a halving of the entropy of the target surface.
I think you got to within 1 bit of the answer from first principles ;)
The way to think about the information content of a problem or of something you learn is exactly what you're suggesting. If you numbered every living person on earth, it'd take more than 32 bits and not quite fill the 33rd bit.
If you then learn a person's gender, you can eliminate all the people with the incorrect gender, which is going to leave you either 31.x bits (assuming binary gender) or 25-27 bits of remaining entropy (assuming some non-binary gender and, say, a 1-3% incidence rate).
When the parent you're responding to says you get 3 bits for knowing someone plays chess, they're guessing that 1/(2^3) = 1/8 of people, in an undifferentiated sense, play chess. Of course if we knew someone's age or gender or country of origin, the conditional information value in knowing they play chess could be greater or lesser. And realistically no one is ever trying to identify a human among all humans (partially because it seems highly unlikely that there are many questions that could equally implicate the president of the United States and a six year old on the Marshall Islands in their answer). Each bit of information represents a halving of the entropy of the target surface.
I think you got to within 1 bit of the answer from first principles ;)
It's the field of information theory.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_theory
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_theory
It's a rough estimation technique. If every choice/factor divides the number of candidates in half (on average), you can choose between 2^N candidates with N yes/no questions (on average).
I'd assume that they are estimate that 1/8 of the human population plays chess, which feels like an over-estimate to me (but not absurdly, depending on your threshold of "plays"; by a similar process I'd estimate that at least 1/8 of humans alive are under 10 years old).
I'd assume that they are estimate that 1/8 of the human population plays chess, which feels like an over-estimate to me (but not absurdly, depending on your threshold of "plays"; by a similar process I'd estimate that at least 1/8 of humans alive are under 10 years old).
> feels like an over-estimate
That's why I said at least 3 bits. If chess players are rarer, then knowing someone is a chess player is a stronger filter. (By the same token, knowing that they're not is a weaker one; but that's not the case we're discussing.)
That's why I said at least 3 bits. If chess players are rarer, then knowing someone is a chess player is a stronger filter. (By the same token, knowing that they're not is a weaker one; but that's not the case we're discussing.)
From observing 100 games after move 15, I think you mean.
Oh, I thought the 100 applied only to training. But the article agrees with you -- thanks.
It seems really impressive.
I wonder how a chess GM would do at this test (although we’d have to restrict it to other top GMs that are active at the same time as them).
I wonder how a chess GM would do at this test (although we’d have to restrict it to other top GMs that are active at the same time as them).
Does anyone good religiously play the same opening as black?
I don’t know chess but that sounds like a bad idea
I don’t know chess but that sounds like a bad idea
Usually when you play the opening as Black you are responding to White's move which takes the initative out of your hands somewhat. There is such a thing as transposing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transposition_(chess), where you can reach the same position from different sequence of openings. So you can reach positions you are familiar with from a number of different openings.
As far as top players I think you need to be able to have variation in your repertoire if you play the same thing stubbornly you would risk becoming predicable and your opponent can prepare lines against you specifically. It might work for one tournament but afterwards people would have studied the games and developed counters.
As far as top players I think you need to be able to have variation in your repertoire if you play the same thing stubbornly you would risk becoming predicable and your opponent can prepare lines against you specifically. It might work for one tournament but afterwards people would have studied the games and developed counters.
> that sounds like a bad idea
Why? If you like it, you like it
Why? If you like it, you like it
I would assume black is more reactive. Like your opening may easily become an obviously terrible choice to white’s moves.
Ah, right. You can’t play the same moves in response to all of your opponent’s moves. (This is true for both white and black). I assumed the person you were responding to meant that they play the Najdorf Sicilian whenever white allows them to enter that line.
For example, you can’t play any kind of Sicilian, whether Najdorf or otherwise, against 1. d4 (white’s second most popular first move, behind 1. e4).
For example, you can’t play any kind of Sicilian, whether Najdorf or otherwise, against 1. d4 (white’s second most popular first move, behind 1. e4).
Pseudonymous. Just like anyone who is willing to do the work can identify my real identity from my HN writing, a pseudonymous chess handle gives a lot of information. A chess player who wants to be anonymous should not re-use a handle for two games. There is no anonymity anywhere if you provide enough entropy which you do if you use a persistent pseudonym.
If you want to play against good players you need some games to gain rating
Mmmm this could be solved using Zero-Knowledge proofs.
When registering pick an elo. Provide a proof that you own the account in that Elo range and then you can create another account that will start in that Elo range.
When registering pick an elo. Provide a proof that you own the account in that Elo range and then you can create another account that will start in that Elo range.
An account that you never play with doesn't have much value. And as soon as you play one game, thereby revealing your unique playstyle, you have pretty much signed the account with all your previous account names, which also potentially tie into your real identity.
So you get ONE pseudonym and then any other account you create are known aliases of that pseudonym.
And if you play in person, then any account/pseudonym you ever create are linked to your human identity as well.
So you get ONE pseudonym and then any other account you create are known aliases of that pseudonym.
And if you play in person, then any account/pseudonym you ever create are linked to your human identity as well.
Yes. That’s fine so long as you never play in person as well, thereby tying a real identity to your pseudonym.
Otherwise you can remain pseudonymous (not anonymous) for as long as you want.
But there is no way to do a mix of in-person and pseudonymous writing/chess/art/anything with a personal “style”.
Otherwise you can remain pseudonymous (not anonymous) for as long as you want.
But there is no way to do a mix of in-person and pseudonymous writing/chess/art/anything with a personal “style”.
So, to solve such issue we can add noise? So, lets say I play 1 game, i let another people/bot to play another game using same account?
What if the playing style of one game is already enough to hint at who might be playing?
Then you are never entirely anonymous. I doubt that’s the case though.
They aren’t comparing two sets of games. They are comparing a single game with all player's known set of game. Any FIDE rated player will have a set of games that is known to everyone.
Yes. If you played enough as a human then you can't play a completely anonymous/pseudonymous game. Just like if you have written 10 bestsellers you probably can't write even a short pseudonymous newspaper column without someone recognizing your style. They can't be sure from that little information, so you aren't completely exposed - but if you keep writing a series of columns they'll be more and more sure.
The same thing with chess. Play chess under your real name (or write texts or draw illustrations whatever) and you'll never do so anonymously again. I'm not sure what's so upsetting or revolutionary here.
The same thing with chess. Play chess under your real name (or write texts or draw illustrations whatever) and you'll never do so anonymously again. I'm not sure what's so upsetting or revolutionary here.
The fact that entire games have been repeated, even in top-level play, proves that there's not enough information to determine a player's identity from a single game.
To not get unmasked by things like this I throw in some blunders here and there. Unfortunately my other moves are often also blunders..
you could try hiding in plain sight: just play the optimal engine move every time and they'll say you're Hans Niemann, apparently whether they have evidence for that or not.
In case you missed this two weeks ago, "find by example" is possible in many datasets even without AI:
Show HN: Using stylometry to find HN users with alternate accounts
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33755016
Show HN: Using stylometry to find HN users with alternate accounts
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33755016
This is one of the use cases I see AI helping with. You can already ask ChatGPT to reword content for you - breaking analysis like this.
A (humorous) example: https://vc.blankenship.io
If you want to remain anonymous, use an AI filter for your written content.
A (humorous) example: https://vc.blankenship.io
If you want to remain anonymous, use an AI filter for your written content.
Thats definitely not private, which is the point of defeating stylometry
If only there was some kind of re wording AI that can be run locally.
If only there was some kind of re wording AI that can be run locally.
There are offline language translators. Translate offline to, say, French and back. Or better else, keep it in French. AI will not have enough data samples to learn that mapping.
> However, using automated methods like machine translation services do not appear to be a viable method of circumvention.
https://www.whonix.org/wiki/Stylometry
https://www.whonix.org/wiki/Stylometry
Interesting.
Given current trends, I guess I'd say give it 6months?
> Given current trends, I guess I'd say give it 6months?
I'm happy to give it 6 months until the technology is there to do it, if it's not already—but, as long as there's an owner of the technology (that is, as long as the technology is pre- the point where I can easily roll my own), I'm skeptical of any owner in today's privacy climate intentionally forgoing the opportunity to suck up personal data whenever and however they can.
I'm happy to give it 6 months until the technology is there to do it, if it's not already—but, as long as there's an owner of the technology (that is, as long as the technology is pre- the point where I can easily roll my own), I'm skeptical of any owner in today's privacy climate intentionally forgoing the opportunity to suck up personal data whenever and however they can.
There is OPT and BLOOM, which need lots of expensive GPUs to run. Not as good as GPT3, IMO. I doubt there will be any good local alternatives in a year. StableDiffusion needed light compute, not at all comparable to these beasts.
This is nice. I consider my stuff fairly easy for me to recognize so when I read the other users I found a bit of myself in them.
I thought "well this person seems a bit cynical" - you know, it's not a bad way to go outside yourself
I thought "well this person seems a bit cynical" - you know, it's not a bad way to go outside yourself
I once got annoyed at something I saw on a wikpedia talk page, so I wrote a response comment to it, pointing out all the numerous flaws in the argument. But I couldn't drop the subject, something about it kept bugging me... then an echo of a thought dawned on me so I went back and checked that son of a bitch's comment history:
yep, it was me I was arguing with, I'd written the previous comment a few years earlier from totally the other side of the argument :)
yep, it was me I was arguing with, I'd written the previous comment a few years earlier from totally the other side of the argument :)
Super cool and fascinating.
I don’t know why, but I don’t like that the headline frames it as a “privacy risk”. Are we really concerned about privacy when playing chess?
I think the world probably needs to accept there’s no such thing as “anonymous behavior”. Behavior itself is individualized. Therefore if behavior can be observed the probability that it is anonymous rapidly approaches zero with time and observations. The only way to be verifiably anonymous is to not be observed.
This means if you are a person at risk of harm if your identity is unmasked that you can’t rely on supposedly anonymous behavior. Bummer.
I don’t know why, but I don’t like that the headline frames it as a “privacy risk”. Are we really concerned about privacy when playing chess?
I think the world probably needs to accept there’s no such thing as “anonymous behavior”. Behavior itself is individualized. Therefore if behavior can be observed the probability that it is anonymous rapidly approaches zero with time and observations. The only way to be verifiably anonymous is to not be observed.
This means if you are a person at risk of harm if your identity is unmasked that you can’t rely on supposedly anonymous behavior. Bummer.
> I don’t know why, but I don’t like that the headline frames it as a “privacy risk”. Are we really concerned about privacy when playing chess?
To the extent that headlines matter, I'd way rather that people worry about the privacy risks of de-anonymizing technology long before it's at the point where it's a practical issue. If we only worry about it when it becomes an actual issue already being, or about to be, applied to unambiguously privacy-invading matters, then, well, that's the way we've already done it and it's too late now—why didn't you bring it up earlier?
I'd also prefer to avoid the "what do you have to hide?" issue. Maybe someone, for whatever reason, does have something to hide; if they intentionally play chess anonymously, presumably they intend to do so. It shouldn't be up to me to decide whether or not their need, or even just desire, for privacy is legitimate.
(Of course, it's already too late—and has been since, at the very latest, the AOL incident—to worry about the onset of such de-anonymization, but it's always (or only almost always?) better to face inevitable future problems now, rather than waiting for that future.)
To the extent that headlines matter, I'd way rather that people worry about the privacy risks of de-anonymizing technology long before it's at the point where it's a practical issue. If we only worry about it when it becomes an actual issue already being, or about to be, applied to unambiguously privacy-invading matters, then, well, that's the way we've already done it and it's too late now—why didn't you bring it up earlier?
I'd also prefer to avoid the "what do you have to hide?" issue. Maybe someone, for whatever reason, does have something to hide; if they intentionally play chess anonymously, presumably they intend to do so. It shouldn't be up to me to decide whether or not their need, or even just desire, for privacy is legitimate.
(Of course, it's already too late—and has been since, at the very latest, the AOL incident—to worry about the onset of such de-anonymization, but it's always (or only almost always?) better to face inevitable future problems now, rather than waiting for that future.)
Why is it important to some people to shout down other people's anonymity and desire for it? What's it to you? It's only hopeless if we give up - do that if you like, but why is it important to you that other people give up?
> Why is it important to some people to shout down other people's anonymity and desire for it? What's it to you? It's only hopeless if we give up - do that if you like, but why is it important to you that other people give up?
Who said anything about desire. I have no desire to unmask people.
To me it seems increasingly likely that observability and anonymity are mutually exclusive. I think it is hopeless because there's nothing you can do to stop someone from analyzing observations. We just never realized how much identifying information was contained in seemingly innocuous observations.
Who said anything about desire. I have no desire to unmask people.
To me it seems increasingly likely that observability and anonymity are mutually exclusive. I think it is hopeless because there's nothing you can do to stop someone from analyzing observations. We just never realized how much identifying information was contained in seemingly innocuous observations.
The authoritarian impulse is fundamentally about controlling the behavior of others, whereas the impulse for liberty is to control your own behavior. As we continue to drift towards authoritarianism, there are many people cheering this on, revealing their true affinities. You see this with people exuberant for restrictions of cash transactions, joyous at censorship and control over communications media, exuberance over other types of social policing, etc.
Oui! Nobody talks about or applies what used to be fundamental American values: Freedom, all persons are created equal, every person as good as another, anyone can achieve anything.
It seems like an obvious opportunity for a politician or even just a commentator, to pick up that baton. It's a well-paved path, everything is already written or you, and people really need some optimism and idealism right now.
It seems like an obvious opportunity for a politician or even just a commentator, to pick up that baton. It's a well-paved path, everything is already written or you, and people really need some optimism and idealism right now.
This seems incredibly ominous when transferred to social media. Large parts of the internet rely on the pseudo anonymity of it quite heavily - see reddit etc.
For those you haven't seen it, from 2 weeks ago:
Show HN: Using stylometry to find HN users with alternate accounts [1]
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33755016
Show HN: Using stylometry to find HN users with alternate accounts [1]
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33755016
[deleted]
Basic opsec principles always say that if you want to stay anonymous you have to switch the way you are writing (by adopting a differnet personality, running it through translation apps etc.).
If someone would want to stay anonymous the unmasking % would probably be lower. The threat-model of the chess players doesn't include that they have to stay anonymous and need to switch up their way of playing.
If someone would want to stay anonymous the unmasking % would probably be lower. The threat-model of the chess players doesn't include that they have to stay anonymous and need to switch up their way of playing.
I’m fond of occasionally throwing in some ou s and references to cities other than Ontario to throw folks off, but it’s hard to pull off long term
Just realized the fact I type like an American online (I'm British) would confuse someone for a little bit if they tried to de-anonymize me... (although they probably wouldn't struggle anyway)
I'm not convinced that, for 99.9% of use cases, anonymity is a feature. I think it's far more likely that the easy anonymity that has been the default for much of the existence of the Internet has harmed society.
I get downvoted whenever I say this, but anonymous speech is only allowed by recent technology and has never been a part of our ancestral environment.
I get downvoted whenever I say this, but anonymous speech is only allowed by recent technology and has never been a part of our ancestral environment.
I’m not downvoting, but I think the concept of anonymous speech goes way way back to the origins of writing, doesn’t it? The change in recent years is that it’s extra hard to stay anonymous, what with the surveillance economy?
Perhaps. But if you consider:
1. The cost of printing/transcribing something 2. Literacy rates 3. Constraints tied to physical distribution
...the reach of that potentially "anonymous speech" was the tiniest fraction of what we experience today. And even then it wasn't necessarily anonymous, unless you just left books lying around?
1. The cost of printing/transcribing something 2. Literacy rates 3. Constraints tied to physical distribution
...the reach of that potentially "anonymous speech" was the tiniest fraction of what we experience today. And even then it wasn't necessarily anonymous, unless you just left books lying around?
I think it was pretty doable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_anonymously_published_...
I won't argue that it wasn't possible. But that link shows 20-40 books, and covers 3000 years of human culture. That's about one anonymous book per century. I think we need more anonymity than that. But I think the amount of anonymity we have now is disastrous to civil society.
Appreciate the link though. Thanks for engaging.
Appreciate the link though. Thanks for engaging.
Well, with a rumor, the original source is obscured. So in a sense they are getting their info out there anonymously (to all but the first-hand confidantes).
What are you calling recent? The printing press? Spartacus?
The reason you get down votes is its a relatively dangerous line of thought in itself that plays into the hands of authoritarians that would love to track every bit of information to an individual.
The reason you get down votes is its a relatively dangerous line of thought in itself that plays into the hands of authoritarians that would love to track every bit of information to an individual.
Freedom of speech is also a recent invention.
Perhaps anonymous social media (like 4chan, with its lack of usernames) will become more popular.
Or less popular, because there is now a greater risk of your 4chan comments being associated with your other online identities.
There may be some additional safety in conforming to the local "memespeak" dialect, and not using that dialect elsewhere.
There may be some additional safety in conforming to the local "memespeak" dialect, and not using that dialect elsewhere.
[deleted]
Seems quite easy to solve this though. An AI could easily anonymise your text by rephasing sentences.
There was recently a player who shot up the Chess.com blitz leaderboard under the name Sinister Magnus. They were eventually removed from the leaderboard, presumably for being an alt of an existing GM, but I don't think anyone has figured it out for sure who they are, it would be interesting test to see if they are able to figure the player out using this.
Interesting! Why is it not allowed to have alt accounts? And why was such severe action taken, without enough evidence? Why do people want using alts in the first place, in a game with perfect information?
In StarCraft II, having alts is tolerated (well, depending on your manners - nobody likes smurfing), but we have sc2revealed.com which takes crowd-sourced reports to try to unmask "barcode" (llllllllllll) players. Many pros try to practice anonymously on the ladder, because SC2 a game of imperfect information, and in a best-of-3 series (like in a tournament), you 1. don't want to use the same opening every match, and 2. don't want your opponent to immediately recognize what you're doing, or work on preparing a counter ahead of time.
In StarCraft II, having alts is tolerated (well, depending on your manners - nobody likes smurfing), but we have sc2revealed.com which takes crowd-sourced reports to try to unmask "barcode" (llllllllllll) players. Many pros try to practice anonymously on the ladder, because SC2 a game of imperfect information, and in a best-of-3 series (like in a tournament), you 1. don't want to use the same opening every match, and 2. don't want your opponent to immediately recognize what you're doing, or work on preparing a counter ahead of time.
You can have an alt account, and Sinister Magnus is still around, you just can't be on the leaderboard more then once. So SM is presumably the alt of someone who is already on the leaderboard.
Similar to StarCraft a GM might want to prep openings without revealing that's what they are doing, so there are reasons for having alts but that applies more for longer time controls rather then blitz. Generally GMs do their prep with a small and usually secret team before a big tournament.
Why did meta hire someome to study poker bots? Arent they afraid that after spending a lot of money on some developer that peraon will just quit facebook and write own poker bots?
How does this research help facebook?
Im very, very far away from Musk and his antics, but really some of those big companies seem to have lots of people who do passion projects.
Meanwhile an actual user has low if no chance to get decent support (probably for the cost of that of programmer they could get multiple people).
And yes I am aware that I sound anti illectual here and research the sake of reseaech can lead to nice things. I just think that the person will quit facebook to write poker bots and ruin the game for those who play it by detecting their weaknesses ( btw. I dont even play poker).
How does this research help facebook?
Im very, very far away from Musk and his antics, but really some of those big companies seem to have lots of people who do passion projects.
Meanwhile an actual user has low if no chance to get decent support (probably for the cost of that of programmer they could get multiple people).
And yes I am aware that I sound anti illectual here and research the sake of reseaech can lead to nice things. I just think that the person will quit facebook to write poker bots and ruin the game for those who play it by detecting their weaknesses ( btw. I dont even play poker).
> Arent they afraid that after spending a lot of money on some developer that peraon will just quit facebook and write own poker bots?
That's a risk when you pay workers to research or learn nearly anything new. If you run a pizzeria, you teach your workers how to make pizzas; they could turn around and make pizzas for another business instead. Maybe even open their own pizza shop and compete with you, using your own recipe.
I think accepting this kind of risk is simply table stakes for running a business.
That's a risk when you pay workers to research or learn nearly anything new. If you run a pizzeria, you teach your workers how to make pizzas; they could turn around and make pizzas for another business instead. Maybe even open their own pizza shop and compete with you, using your own recipe.
I think accepting this kind of risk is simply table stakes for running a business.
Studying poker and humans style of play of the game translate directly to improving generalized agents that can play other games.
For all we know, the guy who was kinda good at poker made the small break-thru that led Google's Alpha/Omega chess or Go achievement.
It's actually difficult to tell what piece of such complex systems are responsible for which - but in general, applying incremental piecemeal improvements have been monumental for the magnitude jump in progress in recent years.
For all we know, the guy who was kinda good at poker made the small break-thru that led Google's Alpha/Omega chess or Go achievement.
It's actually difficult to tell what piece of such complex systems are responsible for which - but in general, applying incremental piecemeal improvements have been monumental for the magnitude jump in progress in recent years.
In the early to mid-2010s AI hype peaked, radical Kurzweillean ideas became sales pitches from founders, and a great wave of discussion and speculation passed through the media public consciousness.
For a time r/futurology was an interesting place for discussion, and there were really great comments to be found amidst the internet chaff .
One of the things I speculated about then was that ai doesn't need be sentient to ruin everything. Powerful tools in the hands of malicious actors could wreak havoc on the internet.
The internet could become compromised in so many ways via privacy invasions and data theft, aggressive spam, misinformation, propaganda and malicious code that nobody can reliably depend on it for much of anything any longer. One could receive a phone call from someone who sounds like their own mother, an ai that says things only a mother would know. That voice could be very persuasive.
that was the kind of stuff we talked about years ago. There were no instantaneous results, of course, and it became boring and uncool to keep going on about such things.
Nonetheless, it seems now that the tools and incentives needed to create a dystopia such as what I described are really starting to come into focus.
For a time r/futurology was an interesting place for discussion, and there were really great comments to be found amidst the internet chaff .
One of the things I speculated about then was that ai doesn't need be sentient to ruin everything. Powerful tools in the hands of malicious actors could wreak havoc on the internet.
The internet could become compromised in so many ways via privacy invasions and data theft, aggressive spam, misinformation, propaganda and malicious code that nobody can reliably depend on it for much of anything any longer. One could receive a phone call from someone who sounds like their own mother, an ai that says things only a mother would know. That voice could be very persuasive.
that was the kind of stuff we talked about years ago. There were no instantaneous results, of course, and it became boring and uncool to keep going on about such things.
Nonetheless, it seems now that the tools and incentives needed to create a dystopia such as what I described are really starting to come into focus.
The better the tech, the better it can be used for good as well as evil purposes such as deception/scams, disinformation, mass surveillance, election manipulation, etc.
It's not the tech that's wrong, it's the populace in democratic states losing more and more power, to the point where most of these systems can only be described as hybrid regimes anymore. The actual power does not lie with the voters but corporations, the mega wealthy, their various lobby groups and corrupt politicians. There is no monopoly of power exercised by elected officials and law enforcement respecting the constitutions, it's different groups and fractions fighting each other for supremacy. AI is just another tool at their disposal, of course they're making use of it.
Guns can be used for protection as well as oppression. The internet can be about free information or about censorship and spying on users. We can live in digital Maoism or digital liberalism. It's up to the common people and for them to realize this before it's too late.
It's not the tech that's wrong, it's the populace in democratic states losing more and more power, to the point where most of these systems can only be described as hybrid regimes anymore. The actual power does not lie with the voters but corporations, the mega wealthy, their various lobby groups and corrupt politicians. There is no monopoly of power exercised by elected officials and law enforcement respecting the constitutions, it's different groups and fractions fighting each other for supremacy. AI is just another tool at their disposal, of course they're making use of it.
Guns can be used for protection as well as oppression. The internet can be about free information or about censorship and spying on users. We can live in digital Maoism or digital liberalism. It's up to the common people and for them to realize this before it's too late.
I'm not sure why they ham up the risk of privacy loss regarding unmasking anon players, the only "risk" I can think of would be someone developing and testing new strategies but then I'd assume the fingerprinting would be far less accurate, testing if you can effectively hide your own quirks while deviating from them would be far more interesting. As it stands this is nothing new and the concerns seem weirdly pointed, everyone(?) already knows the risks of fingerprinting and pattern recognition in more general applications. It was a fun paper to read, shame half the article promoting it was cautioning.
Often the new strategies top level players test on anonymised accounts are subtle tweaks in lines deep into / slightly beyond opening theory. Often these lines are slightly inferior to mainline but come with an edge due to the "surprise factor" making it harder for opponents to prepare. Each of these subtle tweaks will only arise in a small proportion of games (as only some of the time your opponent will play the line you want to test), so I imagine fingerprinting based on play style will still work relatively well.
Why do you "ham" it down? What is too much or too little?
Other people want to be anonymous. Can they have beliefs and preferences independent of yours? Can their free choices have value independently of whether you agree? The value is in their free choice for it; your choice is equally valuable, but doesn't diminish theirs.
Other people want to be anonymous. Can they have beliefs and preferences independent of yours? Can their free choices have value independently of whether you agree? The value is in their free choice for it; your choice is equally valuable, but doesn't diminish theirs.
I don't get your point, I want to be anonymous generally and am all for it, but the risks being cited for half the article have been known for a decade already and it's pointless wasting this much time on it as if it were news.
To state the obvious : of course we are using this exact same technology to identify people by writing style. All of us. Right now.
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Just wait until quantum computing breaks all non-PFS encrypted internet traffic from the past 20 years. It's going to be wild. David Brin is going to get to live out his vision of a transparent society.
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Could it be used to find cheaters?
If you don't play like yourself you're likely cheating.
If you don't play like yourself you're likely cheating.
I really don't like this. Sometimes I want try a different style. It sounds like a presumption of guilt. "Machine doesn't know what' he's doing? Probably cheating"
For most normal humans, if they merely try a different style than what they are used to their performance would probably go down rather than up. After all, you'd have seen many common positions before and know most of the usual ideas for your chosen openings etc.
If someone suddenly plays a different style and also their move quality goes up significantly, that might be an additional indicator of cheating. All cheat detection works in a probabilistic fashion, since it is not allowed (and would be way worse) to actually observe players 24/7 in their home to verify whether they're cheating or not.
If someone suddenly plays a different style and also their move quality goes up significantly, that might be an additional indicator of cheating. All cheat detection works in a probabilistic fashion, since it is not allowed (and would be way worse) to actually observe players 24/7 in their home to verify whether they're cheating or not.
greggarious(1)
I doubt those players are really anonymous anyway, as either lichess or chess.com can easily identify them.
I don't see this changing anything, especially when we already know that chess.com is not impartial in its treatment of players.
I don't see this changing anything, especially when we already know that chess.com is not impartial in its treatment of players.
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https://axbom.com/keystroke-dynamics/