Don't care about the cheaters. They are just obsessed with their ratings and want it to maximize it. They're not focusing on problem-solving skills and actual grind. They don't know that in current AI era, literally no one even shortlists you on basis of ratings.

Actually being a Pupil/Specialist without cheating is better than Expert/CM with cheating.

Try not to worry too much about cheaters. Focus on solving problems and improving your own skills, because that’s where the real value of contests comes from. Cheating might give someone a temporary rank, but it doesn’t build understanding or long-term progress. If you keep competing honestly, you’ll get genuine satisfaction and steady improvement, which matters far more than any inflated result.

I felt the same thing but how did u know ???, this was my first contest and I've seen everyone solveing problems correctly . well I was ranked 15000 due to several false attempts (I got penalties) , well maybe they are just good ?

Unfortunately its a really cheap and lazy way to add another thing to a resume.

Don't worry about the cheaters, I'll deal with them all. Just enjoy solving the problems!

• sincerely, the author of the div4 :)

dont care about cheaters lmao just give for fun and participate in icpc if you really wanna compete i used to grind a lot but since ive changed my career path from coding to humanities idgaf and just whenever i get free time i solve some tasks and leave and trust me that has got me learn more than things than i could learn while being obsessive about my ratings

They just wanna feel good and show off to others that they are good at coding, where in reality they lack the skills. Just ignore them and let the authorities handle them. No matter how much they cheat here, when they try to get a job they'll fail miserably, so let them dig their own grave.

yeah fr. My own friend cheated, like I solved 4 questions with rigorous dry runs and my guy just opened up claude for the first question :{. my ranking literally dropped to 10k cuz there were so many cheaters.

Cheaters should go to hell.

Just keep practising, people reached M will find themselves don't have to cheat to get a high rating.

Why doesn't Mike build the “anti-cheat” system as strong as Luogu's

I feel like some people think that they can cheat and not get found out. Then, when they go to a job interview (or similar) they can say that they have a high code forces rating. However, they are really just wasting their time as they will quickly get found out to be a cheater when they are asked to actually do something.

In my opinion, most cheaters do not have much of a real reason to cheat; I wouldn't say it to them all. I have been on Codeforces for over 2 years, and at least a year of it was wasted as I severely and very obviously cheated. While nothing justifies cheating, my reason was that I was in a sort of depression around that time. I had moved away from home, and until then, I had never been away from home for long. I really like my home city, no matter how many flaws it might have; maybe because of this, I was depressed. This caused the lack of desire to put in real effort into solving problems; I was always escaping reality by playing games. Then I finally came back home, and a little after, I participated in the first round of my national olympiad. Despite it being really easy, I had barely passed, and after that, I quit cheating, no matter how bad it might have made me seem(I cheated in Vjudge contests, not in Codeforces). Again, this does not justify cheating and unfairly stealing ranks from the people who truly deserve them

Hi. I think many dishonest Codeforces users believe that they can somehow obtain prestigious careers solely through their rating. Which is, to put it plainly, a stupid belief.

I'm an engineer at a pretty reputable quant firm (think in the tier of Jane Street, HRT, Citadel...etc...). I also do technical interviews for intern and grad roles. So I guess my thoughts carry some weight:

1. Your rating isn't that impressive. Anything you share with the firm on your resume, we try to interpret in the broader context of your strengths. If you post a Codeforces rating, we will make an effort to cross-check it with other verifiable results. Have you participated in ICPC? Did you do informatics Olympiads in high school? Without supporting evidence, your rating becomes a very dilute and ambiguous number to us. We are well aware that it can be inflated.

2. You only get one chance at being honest. We persist extensive logs of your initial application, interview reports, OA results and other supplementary comments. We (and, it seems, the majority of reputable firms) take integrity extremely seriously. If we find concerning evidence of your ethics or integrity, we won't hesitate to escalate it. Speaking from hearsay at least, there have certainly been people who have lost their current opportunity (and all future opportunities) over matters of integrity.

3. You can't cheat forever. For any technical role you apply to, you'd be going through 5-6 interviews. Maybe more, if the firm needs extra information. A good portion of them will be onsite, in a controlled environment. Eventually you will have to rely on your own merits, and eventually you will need to show the skills that the firm is looking for. If you're dishonest in the earlier stages, you'd just be setting yourself up for future failure.

On a more positive note though, please don't let this strongly worded post stop you from learning and improving. Codeforces is, and always has been, an absolute joy of a platform to practice competitive programming. No amount of dishonest behaviour can take that away.

I'm sure that those who take genuine pride in their hard work and their intellectual growth will always be rewarded for it.

Nice, everybody should do tests by your skills, and this contesst is developed to help us improve in problem-solving skills

Man in div 2, i literally spent like 1 hour on the first problem just to see like 60 newbies do it in 5 min. that literally pmo.