We recently witnessed a case of mass cheating in CF goodbye 2020 which led to many people disrespecting Indiansdue to some shitty people posting solutions in Indian Telegram groups .But this has not stopped .
In this month's codechef long challenge many of the solutions have already been leaked by YouTube channels and many of these solution videos have more than 10k views and one video has 5k views in a span of just 1 or 2 days
This is highly discouraging to all the people who want to enjoy CP as a sport and we have to tackle this as this is bound to increase when no. of contests increase and they will also spoil many upcoming important competitions like codejam , hacker cup , hash code for us.
[This video has 10 k views in just a day] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ve3AmSImwQ
This is the codechef id of the uploader
There are many comments requesting him to not share the code to which he replies "Yess bro.....this is a public contest whose paid solutions are available just in one days So why not I help those who have problems in implementation to code"
Even there are many people thanking him for the solution.
[Another one with 6.6k views]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPFf7hxr4VE
And there are many more with more than 4k views..
Its high time now and codechef should at least do something about these long challenges as every time solutions to codechef long challenges get leaked otherwise there would be only one option to skip the long challenges
I would request all of you to report these channels and comment to take down these videos otherwise these people will ruin competitive programming in near future.
P.S. They are many of them:(
The funniest thing is some people in the comment section are saying give some small hints not the whole solution , Bruh what! XD
It is actually a bit sad at the same time: a lot of those comments sound like people don't even know the rules of what they are doing and they actually do believe honestly that sharing only corner cases or pointers to relevant algorithms is not cheating. So you end up having a lot of people who cheat without even realizing that they are cheating, and probably without even intending to cheat.
I don't think that they are unaware that they are cheating; I believe that they think that asking for small hints is not as bad as copying the entire solution.
They simply don't care!
I replied a lot of them in comment section and they don't even think that they are doing wrong in fact they defend the cheating by saying they are learning, solutions are already available for sale and what not..
After the contest when ranking comes people who have not cheated feel demotivated that they could not perform very well . It hurts sometimes :(
Always. Literally always. The number of submissions in the last few days saors up in hundreds if not thousands. I always feel that I should not at all give these long challenges but I really want to compete in these challenges...
At this point, I don't think there is much that can be done apart from getting rid of long or making it unrated. My personal suggestion would be to take rating for granted and just focus on self improvement.
Name and shame the guys that made the videos (on the main page of CodeChef for example).
They have been doing it since March 2020.
what? Hall of Shame type stuff?
Bruh ,he is from IIT , his college reputation is enough to clear all his sins , and be a successful person . I don't think shaming will effect him even a bit. Just make long challenges unrated .
I kind of agree with him , paid solutions are already available ,so he is kind of doing correct, by sharing solutions for free. Those who sell solution will suffer alot because of it. (Anti capitalism)
He is not from IIT Madras, he is just faking to be from IIT. I have a friend from IITM I asked him to search for this person from the year and branch he is saying to be from, there was nobody named Sudip Mondal. He is just using IITM to gain more popularity. He has also created a fake Linkedin profile with that name and given its link in his Youtube video. If he was really a IITM student, he would have protected his identity.
O hell no! this is not the solution. Drugs are sold in black market, to destroy black market you will not start selling drugs in public or provide it free. how you even draw this conclusion.
Why can't he wait till the end of the contest
I have personally seen mass long challenge cheating in telegram this month as well . Also, each video solution reaches 20k+ views till the end of the contest . That is approximately the number of participants in long challenge . Also, I personally know groups where full fledged solutions of Div-1 are being discussed(with testcases) and distributed for 1000 INR .
Ashishgup This is high time that you give some suggestions to Codechef related to long challenges. Either remove them completely or change their format(decrease the number of days) . Codechef takes useless actions like introducing div3(which was not at all needed) , but never takes useful step like bring changes in long challenge . The image of competitive programming has been affected a lot these days, most people outside of CP now think, that it just an online test where you can cheat easily using youtube and telegram .
Introduction of div3 will now create the following effect : Only <100 participants will be there in Div-1 cookoff or lunchtime , how bad it will look that rank-list only comprises of 100 people . And it will give rise to very unusual rating distribution . Seems like the person who brought this feature didn't use an iota of brain.
Please stop long cheating challenges , stop harming the image of people who do CP , even a 7* on codechef holds no value if it is done by only long challenge . People look at it with suspicious eyes.
Codechef seems like busy with promotion of their Unacademy courses on CP(rather than fixing the issue of Long Challenge) . Let me make it clear , no one is gonna buy such expensive CP courses, when high ratings on Codechef can easily gained by cheating on telegram and youtube :P
https://www.codechef.com/users/snitin315
See this guy, 6* coder with no short contests, only long contests. Has solved less than 50 problems on cc till now.
Just look at his submissions : https://www.codechef.com/viewsolution/39623908
Added tons of fake functions which do nothing related to the problem to pass MOSS test .
No doubt he is a 6* telegram boy . With a PhD in cheating . Noobs need to learn from him.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/snitin315/ See his linkedin posts, he has started consulting students for learning programming by taking $15/hr.
By looking at his experience , Google Code of summer , sde @paypal , its difficult to believe that person with such a profile will cheat . But anything is possible.
If he cheat ,i don't get a reason why?? he is already so good in development ,and will get job with such a profile.
He may be faking that also. Just see his submissions, do you feel a real person would write such code? https://www.codechef.com/viewsolution/39623908
And why only long contests with less than 50 problems solved in total?
wtf is this. Did he just try to beat MOSS and was actually successful XD
Bro placements and internships are happening virtually in 2020, I personally have seen people from Electrical and Mechanical background in my college and having zero experience in coding getting selected in companies like SAP, Oracle. They all cheated in the coding rounds and selling your projects in interviews in not that hard. Which makes guys like me who didn't cheat settle for sub-par companies while those who cheated getting selected in big tech companies.
I also have 7* from almost only long challenges and maybe 30 problems on cc total. Am I a cheater?
no
being a 7* doesn't imply being a cheater, but being a cheater does mean it's a ~7*er
no u r sus
no because you do short contests here. XD XD
Codehef is doing business in simple terms , introduction of div 3 was to increase the number of users(i.e cheaters)
Codechef rating = zero credibility
lmao one of the comments he replies that he uploaded solutions on youtube to make people who ask money for solutions to go out of business. Like what even is going on
These kinda people are for sure one step closer to evolution then others
That's disgusting
Can't believe people like this exist, he has no shame showing his face (can't understand what he is saying at the beginning).
I request codechef to ban this guy plz!
This guy should be publicly shamed.
Can we assure that no mass cheating will occur in today's Div3?
ofc no
Well, below 1600 there aren't many successful scammers.
That's why i stopped giving long challenges :(
This is not official CodeChef position, I have not (as of now at least) done anything related to Long Contests.
Why? It is a different format, more educational since you have time to work on a problem in a span of several days, maybe even learn new concepts.
How would that help? The problem is not in the format, as we have seen in Goodbye 2020. The problem is the people who do it. I, personally, think that admins should not do anything special (just run some kind of plagiarism checker and that's all). Codechef provides the problems for your enjoyment and education, that's it. If some people want to cheat — bad for them.
it is not just "bad for them".
It is "bad for them" for you — the man in top 5 on CodeForces. It is "bad for them" for me who doesn't care about results/rating after finishing a university/finding the job etc.
But it is not just "bad for them" for young people who starts CP now, 11-12 years old. I believe most of them (at least in my country), do not have any support in CP. Their friends in primary school care more about football/basketball/video games and you think they will not be discouraged when they see that even competitions are not fair?
This shouldn't be too much of a problem as long as cheating is more or less limited to online events.
I can play chess online knowing that the person on the other side may be using chess engine — and still enjoy the process. Even if I'm playing online against people who may be cheating, I can still use some relatively objective metrics (like online rating or average centipawn loss or whatever) to measure my progress. And if I eventually learn to play really well, in Wijk aan Zee or during Candidates Tournament folks playing against me are likely going to play fair.
Same holds for programming competitions. If there is any issue to solve here, it is probably about changing the perception so that recruiters don't buy into online ratings, or at least take them with a lot of scepticism. Participants have much harder time cheating during ICPC World Finals, (offline edition of) IOI, GCJ Finals etc.
Sure, seeing that people cheat is discouraging, but I think you are focusing on it too much. For a lot of people "others are better than me" is already sufficiently discouraging to stop doing whatever they tried to do.
If its done in some private groups then it's ok (according to your concept) but on youtube! its like you are playing on board offline and next person is using engine, you can see him cheating every move and i am sure if you have imagined the situation, you cannot enjoy.
I'm relying on assumption that under some setups catching cheaters is much easier than under some other setups, and therefore one should use those more fair setups as a more trustworthy and reliable indicator of skills and achievements.
People cheat during offline events in chess, people cheat during offline events in ICPC as well (I don't know about any really bad cases for World Finals, but I know lots of cases for different regional events, and only in some of them there was punishment involved), but it is not nearly as bad as online precisely because it is much harder to cheat.
My point isn't about "not seeing it", my point is about relying on that "harder to cheat" criterion. How much I am upset about cheating is proportional to how much I expect it to not be happening, which correlates with that "easy to catch" part. If it is an OTB chess game at some competition, my expectations would be that if somebody is clearly cheating they are going to get punished. Yes, I may get upset if that is not the case — precisely because it didn't match my expectations. If I played a game online today and then tomorrow somebody told me that I was playing against a cheater, that wouldn't be much of an upset not because I didn't see it during the actual game, but because dealing with that stuff online is expected.
I don't have expectations that there will be no cheating in online events, and I understand that there is no easy way to fight that kind of "PSA: here are solutions for free" approach, so it doesn't make difference to me if it happens in a private small group or publicly in Telegram / YouTube / Discord. It is generally disappointing when the subject is raised, but I don't see anything unexpected here.
Maybe, I am looking too much from my perspective. I think I will discuss the issue with my mother, and see what she thinks about this 'discourage issue'. She is a child psychiatrist :)
Anyway, I believe we all wanna see increase of participants in regular rounds over years.
Life is not fair generally. If they enjoy what they are doing, I don't think they would be discouraged.
We can't enforce not cheating, we can't really apply any kind of punishment other than losing internet points and public shaming. How does any of that help your imaginary 11-12 year old newbie?
As I wrote one comment above, maybe ai look too much from my perspective. And I am not planning to go deeper into the issue as we are not experts and we can have just our opinions. Let's see over time what will happen.
I think my imaginary 11-12 old newbie will have benefits if he wouldn't read posts like this one in every 5-10 days. It is the reason why I have suggested punishment where you do not need to add any badges/destroy rating and look after each contest to banned list (downvoted comment below).
I do not think the issue is something which you should try to resolve, or any other coordinator. I think it is just job for thinking for guys like Mike.
I kinda agree that these posts are even more of an issue than cheating. But obviously authors of such post will disagree. They think that are helping us get rid of cheaters, probably.
I won't say that I completely disagree on your extreme measures, but I think that won't solve the problem either. Cheaters will also cheat to overcome this new obstacle (i.e. use VPN) because internet points are too important for them, while you'll discourage genuine Indian CPers who, like us, just want to solve problems.
Yep, I do not think my idea is the best and everyone have right to agree/disagree I just wanted to explain what is my opinion and why I have written it.
People might think this is being lenient, but in fact this is the harshest punishment. It does take some wisdom to realise that by cheating they are doing their own harm. I am in favor of long challenge, it develops perseverance, if given faithfully.
what about making them unrated?? Then won't the objective of long challenge of codechef not get depreciated??
Please report both videos as Promotes Terrorism.
I am the guy who doesn't care about the rating at all. I am doing the contests mostly because I enjoy in problem-solving and I still have some personal goals (like preparation for ICPC, learning new algorithms/data strucutes/finding good topic for my master thesis...). But I think the rating matters and it is important part in the whole CP concept. Small amount of coders have opportunity to show their skills in some big onsite competitions like ICPC WF, IOI, Google CodeJam, TCO etc. So the cheating is the real problem and I think we need drastic things to cut it immediately.
I risk 2000 downvotes, but if the CodeForces is my site, I would block access to the site from India for 2 months. Most of Indians are not cheaters blah blah — I do not care, 10k YT views/Telegram groups with 2k people it is too much. Solve it inside the country/intern groups and then come back.
I am not a nationalist, just I think it is better to lose 10% of people for some time and hope they will learn the lesson, than lose 50% forever.
CodeChef has a bigger problem as it is platform where Indian coders are 95% of community. But everyone should solve the problem in own house.
I second this. That's the only solution to this problem.
I said the same here.
But now, I will get downvotes,come downvote me Indian retards.These people are just worthless,destroying community,and sport just for the sake of jobs.
I'm with you ... LOL in fact I think only the top 10 rated should be allowed to access this website ... it would further lighten the load on the server, plus the competition would be quite healthy
survival of the fittest
you too would be out (of course) ... but that's a sacrifice to be made
Isn't it too easy to bypass that via VPN?
Downvote after you report these cheaters proof.
come on man, it's not as easy(atleast for Codeforces) and there are tons of VPN service providers which you can use. There are other ways too, i don't wanna mention them.
Downvote after you report these cheaters proof.
I agree with the quora answer but VPN blocking is done by sites like Netflix, Hulu and you surely know the difference between the budget they & CF has. It won't be a good idea for CF to add this VPN blocking just to reduce the most traffic it receives from India.
Easy saying from the other side of the world bro, we too need to prepare for ICPC. Lol, being a master, I thought you'd have a better solution to the problem.
Face reality. The rating system has lost its authorization. The only thing Codechef can do now is to remove the rating completly.
I hope they do, since they not only kill their own reputation, but also the whole ecosystem of competitive programming.
Cheaters will cheat as long as they are rewarded for cheating.
That won't happen most probably. This is not the first incident, and this won't be the last incident. But 1 thing remains constant :
It is currently the first time that this cheater community affects also other sites like codeforces. We have seen mass cheating in Goodby2020 for the first time.
This phenomenon has the potential to change CP as we know it today completly.
What I have said is truth ,that's why people cheat
Like these videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sN0HQEvVy3w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKbUE1J9DhE
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=love+babbar
Worst case :-https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJskGeByzRRSvmOyZOz61ig
some good coders in India is the best motivation for cheating for most of the people in the India. see the tagline of their videos 6* at codechef candidate master at codeforces. and other bragging which takes people on wrong side.
I think making this contest, or rather any contest unrated is hardly going to make a difference. The Community needs something more promising than that.
Haha XD
But nowadays samething is happening with codeforces also.
Man cheating is not the problem in only CC , nowadays it's a problem in each and every platform
Can you please remove the link of solutions as it is promoting that youtube channel.
These kind of activities are leading to decrease the interest of students in competetive programming.
Well, the Cheater will Cheat till they are told Higher Ratings is appreciated, and for that even if they have to cheat they will. We can Do one thing is to unrate the long challenges and make only short contests rated. Though I agree cheating will there be also, but it will decrease a lot than now.
Also, Companies should stop seeing Ratings and all stuff in Resume.
These people should be reported and their rating should be made nill citing Cheater.
>> Companies should stop seeing Ratings and all stuff in Resume.
Yes, this is exactly the reason why they cheat. Outside India, nobody is interested in your ratings, and there are no cheaters.
Many people suggested cheater badges and rating reset, it doesn't look difficult to implement, and maybe it is just enough?
If not "cheating", what would be the right word for the intent of my incoming messages with content like "I'm a student, I want to get internship at Google/Facebook/Microsoft, I'll pay you to boost my account so that I can put it on my CV to make it more attractive"? I had such messages from people in Europe. I even had such message from a person aiming for Google specifically, sent to me at the point when I was already working at Google :)
Man, they could ask you to pay for recommendation letter. It is less time for both.
I'd say they should see the 'CP Skills', but only through olympiads, etc. ... contests where cheating is not possible ...
To sudip mondal, IIT Madras:
Sudip Mondal He has deactivated his original account and created a fake one.
Feels sad to see that these petty things are done by IITians, from the most premiere engineering institutions of India. CodeChef_admin , atleast ban this guy's id if you cannot do anything
He is not from IIT Madras, he is just faking to be from IIT. I have a friend from IITM I asked him to search for this person from the year and branch he is saying to be from, there was nobody named Sudip Mondal. He is just using IITM to gain more popularity. He has also created a fake Linkedin profile with that name and given its link in his Youtube video. If he was really a IITM student, he would have protected his identity.
Well.. Well.. Well.. If it isn't Indians...
I think that the best option is to have a disclaimer on a person's profile (This rating might not be real, cause he cheated in the XYZ contest). This way, you could see which contest participant cheated and companies might not hire him, because of his previous actions. Obviously, you won't remove cheating this way, but it would surely decrease the number of cheaters (people would be afraid to cheat).
They do have a different sign for plagiarism
but it is very hard to find on one glance, it should be made more clear and visible.
The solution he shows on Youtube is not his own . That is also copied from somewhere else . These non-skilled youtubers don't know how to solve , they get it from telegram :P
He might have done that to avoid plagiarism on himself because a lot of people would just blindly copy paste
These unskilled youtubers don't know how to pass plag system . I can guarantee you, he would submit the same code from his original account . But as he has been caught , he might not , this time.
if incidents like these keep going on then there will be no fun left doing cp
The main problem is with Codechef itself. When was the last time they ran a plagarism test?If you mail them, they will reply by saying we are a small team so it takes time. But how much time do they need, I think they have not run a single plag test since May 2020 and cheaters are using it in their favor . And cheating happens in every contest of Codechef, anyone can see that people who are struggling to reach pupil in codeforces actually become 5 star on Codechef by getting double digit rank (And not because the problem of Codechef is easy but because there is massive cheating going on). The most possible solution is to run a plag test and simply ban all the cheaters.And conduct plag test within 2-3 days of the contest not like months. Ashishgup Sir , please do something you can bring the change that is needed for a very long time.
Their MOSS test takes time but it is much better than CF plag testing system , as much as I knoe
that wipl codechef question has 1200 submissions till now and i found that it is harder than the chef and ant question but this has only 190 submissions. now i know why.
Codechef should immediately ban these accounts and also plagiarised solutions from other such accounts.
Why not make contests unrated? One who wants to practice will still take part.
Just make long contests unrated
There are some people who genuinely perform well in a long contest rather than a short contest. Already there have been 100s of threads regarding this topic so, no point in creating a new one.
The main concern is that these cheaters have already started plagiarizing codeforces as we saw in goodbye 2020 and can soon start cheating in codejam,hackercup,atcoder,kickstart or even ICPC online rounds and we have to find something to tackle these issues.
At least opencup is safe ;)
Scared that India might get ban from ICPC :(
That's ridiculous! It won't happen.
Hi, demoralizer. Remember me. Downvoted you successfully. You're welcome.
I think Codechef's long contests are really good for the beginners. But I've seen many of my friends not to participate in long contests only because of this reason. In my opinion, it would be better to make them unrated.
Some are suggesting to ban Indians(from CF)! Which is really sad. Though it's true that they are contaminating the environment and the community is going to suffer if this continuous. It's not gonna affect the top rated ones but might be a breakneck for people like us. Let's see what happens next.
At this point, serious participants should not care about ratings anymore. If you think that you have solved a challenging question yourself then head up "YOU WON"!!
But the sad part is you can't judge your performnce.
I have mailed codechef plenty of times regarding the cheating and have given all the youtube links and telegram cheating group links ,but they never replied or clarified this issue ,it seems they are more interested to bring the people on thier platform and promote their CP courses ,they don't care about coding community
"Please don't stop posting the solutions . People need it since they also wish to learn . Also codechef itself says learn and code ." Look at the excuses man!
idk how hiring in India works, but if it is smth like "you must have X+ rating", maybe it make sense: for users with rating <= X-100, after long challenge it still must be <= X-100
No company hires a candidate if he is x* on Codechef or Codeforces, there are people who were rejected despite being ICPC World Finalists, so everyone has to go through the interview process of the company.
The reason for mass cheating imo is that:
1) Rating on CP platforms can increase your chances to get referrals or get shortlisted(but not always) for interviews with the companies that do not visit your campus. Since in India, there are a lot of Engineering students in Tier 3/2 colleges where companies do not visit, everyone wants to increase their rating to get interviews with them.
2) Many people on LinkedIn these days add posts like _How they got into Amazon, MS and they were x* on Codechef _ blah blah, so beginners obviously are influenced from them too,
I hope there will be no mass chtng in today's Div-3. Codeforces has such a nice probset why can't they simply enjoy that. Though Rating does not matters but it provides an index to check whether you are improving or not. But NOw....... (sorry for poor inglis)
It's funny and annoying to see how the author of the video is living in a delusion of doing the right thing. And if people don't have the patience to wait until the contest ends, they shouldn't even give the long contest or if they wanna give it, they should start it 3-5 days before the contest ends. This is just killing the spirit of long contest.
I am not going to give long challenges from next month. Some people have really ruined it. The sad part is. Cheating in long challenges will never eradicate completely. So my idea is , just don't give priority to codechef rating. There would be many cheaters there.
I'm in division 3 in codechef and I gave this long challenge after a long time(since I wanted to learn more concepts).I submitted my Watching CPL solution and after like 20 attempts I got AC, and my rank was around 700(in div3).But after one hour I saw my rank went up to 200(approx).I wondered what happened but then I realised someone uploaded a solution to this problem on YouTube which was recieving TLE on a testcase(the comment section was full of it).So just think about it.In a span of 24 hrs(since the video was uploaded),over 500 people cheated. I commented that he must delete the code as it is highly de-moralizing but people defended him saying "they are learning". Dissapointed.
Yes this is disappointing for me 2 was very difficult and after 2 days of hardwork i was able to solve it same happens to me and believe me or not 3rd question will also be on youtube in 2-3 days. It makes me unhappy
Sometimes I feel ashamed to be an Indian. We are ruining it not only for ourselves but also for others. :(
I am not ashamed as an Indian. Rather I am ashamed for having them as my countryman.
This not a new thing :( That's the reason I don't give any long challenges, ratings are of no use if we have not such knowledge. I doubt that these cheaters will ever understand!!
the concept of a long challenge just sounds like it cannot ensure test security though. cheating seems to be much easier and much harder to catch on a weeklong contest than a 2 hour one.
Codechef sucks..they just don't care about the cp community at all. Unacademy ruined it, they are only busy promoting their paid courses. I got plagiarised in April long challenge 2020 as I took a piece of code from a publicly available editorial of a problem that appeared before and even commented those links in my code. Since then I have mailed them multiple times to resolve this issue, it seems they don't care at all, there is no response from their end.
Unacademy killed it may be the right sentence!
If they share hints or codes themselves in a contest like Div2 where time is very important, It's really hard to overcome with effort. I am not happy to see "some shitty people posting solutions in Indian Telegram groups"
I mailed to Codechef last month regarding cheating then they asked me for proof then I sent them around 5-10 photos where people were posting solution/test-cases. what happened after that?? nothing happened. Even big youtubers are not talking about this issue only striver made one post on Linkedin.
Big Youtubers?
I will expose some cheaters.
I request the competitive programming community to look at these codes and tell whether these users have cheated or not.
rohit_79 this user has a record of cheating repeatedly in long challeges. Let me show you his code of one of the problems code which he wrote
Another user abinashgogoi wrote exactly the same code of the same problem. What a coincidence!!!
Look at his submission code
ddamcc too cheated in the same problem exact same code
All these users have used JAVA for this problem. All their previous submissions were in different languages.
These people are ruining the spirit of competitive programming, using cheap tricks to increase rating without using any knowledge of their own. They should be penalised heavily for their actions. I wonder if one is not interested in doing programming then why he/she is ruining challenges for others.
Thats why I stopped worrying about rating and ranking... i was able to solve first 4 problems only but i did it on my own :). It will never change people who want to cheat will cheat this discussion is simply waste of time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKbUE1J9DhE
This guy promoting cheating at codechef.
5 star long cheated challenge guy(3 time plagiarism detected)
Pls report his channel
I love codeforces i am worse in problem solving but i am learning everyday
But for beginners I feel sometimes they just need that guide or the approach for the solution.
You just directed a raging storm of "downvotes" at you son
I just told what I felt, I know there are a lots of people who will hate my point. But try to think from a point of view of a beginner who is completely blank. I agree with all of you.
They have the guide/approach for the solution in editorials. I think that's enough.
Also, please don't necropost on an old blog.