portajohn's blog

Duplicate hacks
By portajohn, history, 3 months ago, In English

Currently in the Round 1074 standings it appears as though I made three successful hacks:

However I have submitted only two unique successful hacks. One of my three hacks was a duplicate, with the same input against the same person:

Why is the duplicate counted in the standings? If Round 1074 was a Div. 2 Round and hacks were rated, would the duplicate count towards my total score? If not, why allow duplicates? They make the scoreboard count meaningless, as anyone who can get one hack can get 10.

I want to ask because there is little information on hacks in the contest rules:

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3 months ago, hide # |
 
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Look at the submission ID below the handle name. These two are different submissions.

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    3 months ago, hide # ^ |
     
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    So if someone has multiple accepted submissions, you can hack each one in the reversed order of submission? Interesting.

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      3 months ago, hide # ^ |
       
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      Actually, I hacked them in order of submission, which is confusing considering that the contest rules state this:

      A hack attempt is also ignored if by the given moment the hacked solution is not the contestants' last verified solution of the problem. For example, this might be the case if somebody already hacked the given solution before or the hacked contestant has resubmitted the solution.

      And the (only?) guide on the subject states:

      Only the latest Accepted submission counts, which means if you want to hack someone with multiple Accepted codes, you need to hack their latest Accepted code since other ones are useless as the penalty is also calculated from the latest Accepted code.

      Both hacks were submitted after the contest ended, so the user couldn't have submitted his second solution after my first hack (and I checked the timestamps).

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        3 months ago, hide # ^ |
         
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        Hacks in the open hacking phase are very different from the ones in the normal contests that don't have the open hacking phase. What you quoted only applies to the normal contests, not this one.

        In the contests having the open hacking phase (educational, div 3 and div 4):

        • You can have multiple Accepted submissions for the same problem, because you can submit as many solutions as you want after the contest (during the open hacking phase).
        • If you have multiple practice Accepted submissions posted after the contest, all of them are valid.
        • You can hack any Accepted submissions, including the ones submitted after the contest ended.
        • Even if your solution is hacked during the open hacking phase, you can still submit the same solution and you'll get Accepted (hacks won't affect your practice submissions).
        • After the open hacking phase ends, successful hacks will be added to the main test cases and all submissions (in-contest and practice) are judged again with the updated test sets.
        • Hacks won't affect your points positively or negatively.
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