The last rollback from Goodbye 2025 Codeforces round starkly reveals a crisis of fairness. My rank jumped from 3141 to 3017, not because my code suddenly optimized itself, but because a large number of cheaters were skipped. It means 124 fraudulent participants were skipped from the top 3000. This indicates that approximately 4.13% of top contestants relied on AI to generate solutions.
Moreover, there must be more cheaters who have not been detected and still steal top rankings and high ratings.
Such behavior does not merely exploit a loophole—it fundamentally ruins the spirit of competitive programming. Platforms like Codeforces are designed to test problem-solving under pressure, creativity, and the rigorous application of algorithms. When code is mass-produced by AI rather than cultivated through careful thought, contestants cheat not only the system but also themselves, missing the growth that comes from struggle and debugging.
Worse, this trend erodes trust across the community. Honest participants see their efforts devalued, while the scoreboard becomes a distorted reflection of true skill. If contests turn into battles of who can best manipulate AI tools, rather than who can think critically and adapt, they lose their purpose as arenas for human intellectual growth.
I urge Codeforces and similar platforms to strengthen plagiarism detection and adopt proactive measures against AI misuse. More importantly, we call on every participant to uphold integrity—because the true reward of competitive programming lies not in a temporary rating, but in the authentic, hard-won brilliance of human thought.
This is no longer just a loophole — it is an existential threat to the credibility of our community. Every skipped cheater represents a stolen moment of genuine effort, a legitimate ranking that was unfairly denied. We cannot remain silent while the arena we cherish is corrupted by AI posing as intellect.
We must act now: first, advocate for stricter, real-time code provenance analysis that detects AI-generated patterns beyond simple plagiarism. Second, as a community, we must cultivate a culture of collective vigilance—where reporting suspicious activity is seen as an act of honor.
The scoreboard should reflect human minds at their most resilient, not the most efficient cheating methods. If we fail to defend this principle, we risk losing the very soul of competitive programming.
Title: 4 out of top 100 in Goodbye 2025 are proved to be cheaters?
First paragraph: 100 out of rank 1000-3000 in Goodbye 2025 are proved to be cheaters.
i guess 36 out of the top 604 (my rank jumped from 604 to 568), were cheaters, which is ~6%
Definitely not AI-generated — in fact it was AI inspired.
[Wrong understanding resulted in irrelevant answers. Deleted.]
Sorry, I didn't understand the meaning of your words before.
My English is not very good and it is difficult for me to write articles of thousands of characters, so I wrote them in my native language and used translation software for translation. The text may seem a bit unnatural, and I apologize for any inconvenience caused to your reading.
If there is any paragraph that still cannot be understood, please let me know and I will try to rewrite it.
You have clearly identified the problem but the solution is not robust. The solution proposed by you is going to make codeforces toxic . We need to find technical solution to this systematic problem .
I am not a good writer , English is not my native language so used chat gpt to draft my thoughts , kindly bear with it .
The "Gold Standard" (Proctored Tier): Implement a proctored environment for a fee. A "Verified/Proctored Rating" would be immune to AI flags (due to video proof) and would restore the rating's value for recruiters. • Accountability over Anonymity: We are problem-solvers; we need a tech-driven solution that shifts the community from anonymous suspicion to verified integrity.
Ending the Telegram Leaks (Blind Hacking): The current hacking system is being weaponized. Access to submitted code should be blocked during contests to stop "Telegram Armies" from scraping and spreading code, which currently leads to massive false plagiarism flags for the original authors.
Fixing the "Troll Army" (Identity Verification): We must move to institutional verification (University/Employer emails). Only verified users should have "Speaking Rights" (the ability to comment/blog). This restores dignity and forces accountability.
The Existential Crisis: CP is currently a "Cold War" where honest users are caught between AI false positives and a toxic "Troll Army" of anonymous alt accounts. • The "Clean Account" Fallacy: A clean record no longer proves honesty; it often just means a user "ghosted" a flagged account and started fresh.
By the way even in your account you have not mentioned your name .
Note: I am posting this from an alt account because the current environment makes it unsafe to suggest these reforms without being targeted by the very trolls I am describing.
Strictly enforce life time one account
I will reply to your points one by one.
Your proctored tier idea is frankly quite bad. The fee does nothing, because cheaters would want rating more than normal users. Also, video proof causes more problems than it solves. You will need facial recognition for proving that the contest is being taken by the actual user, and it will cause a lot of load on the server, not to mention a total lack of privacy. Do you mean to say that someone must sit at a table to be eligible for a contest? What about pacing in the room? What about going to the bathroom?
I'm not sure what you mean by "blind hacking". Do you mean hacking someone with no idea of what they wrote? You might as well disable hacking altogether.
Identity verification: As Mike said in his blog, he won't even add SMS verification as he, and I quote,"likes the idea of basic privacy". If you want privacy at all, most of your ideas can't be implemented at all.