Hello, Codeforces!
The situation involving AhmetKaan has generated some discussion. I would like to summarize the information we have reviewed and explain the reasoning behind our final decision.
About evidence
First of all, it is important to note that we cannot have absolute proof in such cases. We cannot see private conversations with AI tools, chats with other people, or other external sources of help. The only reliable data available to us are the submissions. Because of this limitation, some decisions are based on some red flags we see rather than a single definitive proof. If we do not act this way, we will get overwhelmed by a wave of cheaters. Therefore, we believe this is the only effective way to respond to the recent increase in cheating.
After the appeal, we reviewed the case and collected the following observations.
1. Codeforces Round 1085
- The submissions 365891594, 365892799, 365894412 and diffs to previous submissions in each look suspicious.
- The unnecessary renamings and spacing changes like
m1,m2->min1, min2here. - The unnecessary constant
min_infapperars and disappears from the template all the time. Does people even make such constants for-inf? Even for stress testing, would anyone even add it in such rush? - Each submit took him like 5 minutes and he claim that at tne same time he stress tested solutions, switched IDEs. Who could ever do all these things so fast? If it's possible, he barely had time to make so many solutions.
- Spacing changes are not consistent, for instance here some appeared and some disappeared, if it really was just IDE reformat it would be consistent.
- More than that he solved E2 in only 4.5 minutes. Only a few legendary grandmasters achieved a similar speed. At the same time, there was a noticeable loss of time due to implementing essentially the same logic in a different form in the following submissions: 365890875, 365893579.Can you imagine a person who would even touch that part which is already written in a rush? Who would rename an array while doing that? With lgm speed?
It indeed is enough for a ban, you can't just say "he codes chaoticly and thinks about all problems at the same time" to justify all these miracles.
2. Codeforces Round 1082
Reviewing earlier rounds, we identified additional cases that raised concerns.
364093865 — solved only 28 minutes after the previous problem, again at a speed typical of very strong grandmaster-level participants.
364083892 — a relatively large implementation written in 24 minutes, very custom structure, while AhmetKaan usually writes similar logic without using structures.
3. Codeforces Round 1081
363899193 — a major change compared to the previous submission, completed in only 9 minutes, with AI-like naming he's not tend to do. Both the code size and the underlying idea changed significantly.
Overall, these three consecutive contests stand out massively and has some red flags. He almost got from purple to 2500 in just 3 rounds, during mounths before he wasn't even close to that level of performance. Each contest individually raised some concerns, together they form a noticeable pattern.
4. Related accounts
We also found accounts that appear to be connected. He literally used alts two years ago which violates the platform rules:
- Kastamonu — an account that seems to have been used by multiple users, including him.
- KKKonya — another account used by the same person. Comparing submissions from the same period suggests a strong similarity in coding style: 199987492, 192884638.
5. Previous confirmed cheating cases
We also found previous instances of cheating:
Additionally, there are several more cheating cases from the past we just found:
- 164748868, 164767139 and 164767964 (he obviously just gave solution to his friend)
- 168172651 and 168158838 (note that the second one was submitted later)
And some more cases with the same person.
Many community members would consider these systematic violations sufficient reason for a ban on their own. We also consider it as a reason to not trust all excuses we got.
Final note
The only question we tried to answer was whether the original ban decision could have been incorrect. After reviewing the case, we believe that the collected indicators support the original decision.
awesome, can you please also ban Coder-Ramesh while you're at it?
2100 rating in 9 contests is mental. These people don't even hide it anymore
Hm.. hm.. hm... at least he could have waited 11 contests
Because of these cheaters from India, the reputation of India on Codeforces has become worse.
With billion population on developing country, the stats will count, I even heard case about chess cheating news also from India *facepalm. Also many scam center calls from India (source: Youtube).
Idk about chess but yeah there are many scam call centers which are operating in india and they scam innocent people(otp scam) mostly I hope this all ends soon
Hopefully, but I believe that it will only get worse since now they can get rid of their Indian accents with AI. Also, if AI really does end up taking a lot of programming jobs, a lot of Indians will be out of legitimate jobs, and some of them will resort to fraud.
yeah coz in india jobs are less and population is more so there's very tough competition in almost every field so many people cheat to add the tag in the resume and get interview call/job but it's not usefull in life
He did.
sevenseas as well, PHSCO (small school contest) author pilliamw has already made a post about this and layed out evidence here.
I can understand why not all cases are reviewed, but I'm sure you could definitely get a community run cheater reporting system to send users who are widely accepted as cheaters over to moderation to have a pool of near guaranteed cheaters to look at to ban.
It's Actually Over
Thank you for your service and making codeforces a step more free from cheaters! ^-^
For what its worth nicecoder37 is his brother.
Also you mentioned
168172651 and 168158838 (note that the second one was submitted later)but clearly the second submission is sent earlier. (first one is sent at 19:34:15 , second one is sent at 18:57:39 , in my timezone gmt+3)So that means his only cheating incidents in the past were , entering a kotlin raffle with 2 accounts and giving his code to his brother (sharing code).
I still think that it should be a skip rather than a ban since the recent suspicions are the only ones that really should count towards a ban.
Nonetheless, thanks for your efforts. I dont expect the decision to change as codeforces has strict rules that should apply to everyone objectively. But the situation is sad considering that his account might have only got skipped if he didnt tried to win a kotlin tshirt or he didnt shared his solutions with his brother.
Well, wrong case, I wanted to point out this one 168128321, 168118072. Which means he not only gave codes. But how does the fact of them being siblings make it any different? It's direct encouragement of cheating anyway.
I also don't like change of the point from "for 7 years he was strongly against cheating" to "well, he has been consciously violating here and there for 5 years but it was 2 years ago", you say it as if 5 years of lies isn't here (and lol, what if we just missed something not that old). I don't see why he should be treated differently from any user who cheats the way to high rank.
I wasn't aware of those submissions as they are not flagged as skipped. Moreover, if the policy of codeforces is treating these all incidents as "confirmed past cheating", there is nothing more to be said about the topic.
Dude, you're the best, keep it up
Thank you for taking time and carefully analyzing the submissions.
Since I read the accusations, I have also been analyzing the submissions and trying to figure out explanations, and even I, as someone who chose to trust him, found myself stuck in many parts.
For instance, in many of the submissions, code shifted from using tabs to 4 spaces constantly throughout. This would be impossible to notice to someone who is using tabs 4 spaces wide in their IDE, but it is very clear in codeforces as tabs are 8 spaces wide. We have mentioned that he has 2 IDEs, but even in that case, he has to be changing his IDE constantly while writing the code. I also don’t think neither vscode nor geany would randomly change between tabs and spaces, so that’s out the window too. Even if you assume that the code was written by AI, having this much inconsistency feels impossible without major editing on the code. Sometimes the majority of the lines use spaces, sometimes the majority of them use tabs, and whichever ones you blame on the AI, a new submission pops that doesn’t match your assumption. The only explanation I came up with is that his dog ate his submissions.
Even though I can confirm some parts of AhmetKaan’s defence, it doesn’t feel enough. Yes, he does indeed have a strategy of changing between problems, but we can’t prove whether this is the case in the past rounds. Yes, he indeed has 2 IDE’s on his computer, but we also can’t prove that he used both in the contests. I do trust most of his statements, however, it is impossible to provide proof to most of them.
AhmetKaan is a friend of mine, and a person I have known for a long while. However, under the heavy accusations against him, I have to admit that it would just be better for the account to stay disabled, even though this is not what I had wished for, because this would be the conclusion I would arrive at if AhmetKaan was a person I didn’t know and stood %100 objectively.
+1. A comprehensive and objective inquiry.
When we first wrote the blog post and the "I vouch for him" comments, we didn't look at the codes; we needed to look at them ourselves.In the end, not every question was answered clearly. If we have caused any inconvenience during the last four days, we sincerely apologize.
Thank you for thinking rationally and objectively! We've learned that "Even chess Grandmaster could cheat", so we need to treat everyone equally and objectively. I know the reality is sad, we live in unfair world, but as unfair as possible please don't be affected and become "unfair" itself!
Great Work! It is really great to see that coordinatiors have worked very hard to reach a healthy conclusion. O7
why are you giving all this evidence so cheaters know what to avoid doing
As Albert Dubois(from Fish in a Tree) would've said: "It seems illogical"
Those kind of evidence isn't something you could avoid by knowing it.
Not necessarily. People grow suspicious of you if you change your code too much for no real reason and submit too frequently, considering how much you change. Knowing this, cheaters can avoid this most of the time, though they will obviously slip up from time to time
why you marked as cheater in cf cheater database vercel app?
That is because I did cheat when I first started Codeforces. I did not take anything seriously and cheated for some unknown reason. As I am still young and have a lot to achieve in the Olympiad world, I have quit cheating.
Vladosiya is so based, orz
Looking at it objectively, this is probably for the best. I didn’t really notice how much evidence was stacked against him. I still do not think he cheated during this round, but the ban staying is pretty logical. Thanks for all the work.
Awesome, can you please also ban darkmatter_druid while you're at it , these guys are fully qualified to be sent to cry's basement :)
put him in my https://cf-cheater-database.vercel.app/ for now
whatever happened to longago_06 ?
he was blatantly cheating right ?
While some of the things feel normal to me (eg. m1 --> min1 etc), many coincidences happening at the same time is too sus.
I don't have any objections to the decision or anything, but I personally think that to honor him (for his services to his national Olympiad community), the account should be banned from participating in contests from now on, but should not be disabled.
can you pls ban autocrat2005
Hey can you look at my case i dmed you aswell
vlad sorry for pinging and desrupting this recent actions check your dm one last time
Is it going to be the same for other profiles as well? (Kastamonu, KKKonya and nicecoder? Are there any chances for AhmetKaan to make a new profile and join contests?
I'd say there's nearly 100% chance he will do this