Well hello there, i just want to start with that i am really sad about this situation and want to let you know guys about it, so i don't usually compete in Codeforces since i like ACM format better , however since i want to be a better coder as an individual i decided to push myself into Codeforce's contests in a schedule basis, so i would compete in every contest i could while solving problems in the platform to see how much i can push myself to accomplish my goal which right now is be a way better coder than i am right now.
My situation is as follows, in Codeforces Round 381 (Div. 2) i did a good perfomance solving problem A (which gave me RTE in post tests) and B, i couldn't find a way to solve problem C, however i found out problem D was exactly a problem i already solved, so i decided to just copy and paste my code (since it didn't even had any twists) obviously this solution was AC. I was pumped since i could see my graph go a little bit up, after a while i got "skipped" in the contest. So obviously i was being targeted as a cheater, guilty before proven innocent i guess. Well after that and multiple talks with MikeMirzayanov he told me that me and multiple other users were going to get those stats reversed if we did nothing wrong, well for me nothing happened, i guessed maybe copying and pasting a code that is mine is against the rules.
Here is the comment i posted on that contest forum: http://mirror.codeforces.com/blog/entry/48547?#comment-326625
Long story short i didn't get my stats reversed, and this shady user named _underr had indeed messed with a lot of people. I decided to just keep going with my life and prepare to the new contest.
So new contest arrived: Codeforces Round 382 (Div. 2) , i solved only two problems A and B, since C and D were kinda mathy and i was more than happy to see simple problems crush me so i can be better, i decided to give them a try in upsolving. But guess what? my entire participation in this contest was once again "Skipped", i think there is a guy with a multiaccount just copying and pasting people submissions in their room in another account so they can rise up in ranking. This issue is huge and i am having a really bad time with it since i can't follow up my progress on the page because everytime i am participating i am getting flagged as a cheater.
I just did this to say to the people that is having this issue that is not only happening to them, and let the community know what is happening, i have never cheated on a contest in my life and i usually look up for the outline instead of the code if i can't solve the problem, i really want to get better and of course that goal would be impossible if i cheat.
Thanks for reading and i hope this time this situation is addressed as it should be, best regards.
Edit: I believe i found out the problem, since i was coding in ideone probably there is someone just sitting there waiting for codes to pop up and copy/paste them, can you recommend me a simple IDE for problem solving on windows? i tried geany once and didn't work well but maybe i was a bit lazy with it, i don't want this to keep happening.
Auto comment: topic has been updated by ArepitaDePernil (previous revision, new revision, compare).
I hope this is a warning for everyone using Ideone and similar online editors. These make your code publicly available by default, which is against the rules.
Ideone has an option to make your code private (a small lock icon). I suggest you use that.
what do you mean by this " i think there is a guy with a multiaccount just copying and pasting people submissions in their room in another account"
you cannot copy submissions of a live cf round, well there's one way to do it, retype after you lock the problem and hack someones solution exactly the same, but after locking you won't be able to submit again am i correct?
One could make multiple accounts, solve the problem on one, use OCR to read the code from the hack interface, and submit it on another account.
The problem is he needs to solve the problem on one first (or at least pass the pretests)
chaosagent What you said does sound very much possible .
And if this is happening that is not only very sad but frightening issue. :(
Although I may have a solution .. People should write big templates of their own at the start (even if you don't need them for that particular problem just have them as garbage code).So even if someone is trying to copy your code they have to write painful 100's of lines of garbage codes (which i don't think they will do)
ArepitaDePernil Although this does guarantee anything but at least this makes your solutions safer ...
And those dummy account that are used to do this kind of thing should be found out and banned ..
You think somebody copying code is going to write down 100s of lines of unused template code? This seems like very silly theory.
poikniok You totally misunderstood me :/ ..
ArepitaDePernil pointed out that someone stole his code and submitted it from some dummy account and as a result his submissions were skipped. and chaosagent suspected that it might be possible that . someone in the same room might have passed the pretest of one of the problems then locking the problem as he can see others solution through the hack interface . He could just copy the code point to point and submitted it in the dummy account (and they are doing this to improve their rank) .
this was not my point of view. But i suggested that even if there is 1% chance that is has happened (as chaosagent said in the post that his code was stolen and submitted in another account). Then it is safer to write some template or garbage code . so that the copy cat can not copy anyone's code point to point (cause copying a garbage code point to point can be more than a hardy task).
I am sorry if i was confusing earlier ... :)
Actually using ideone for a running contest(while you have made your code public) sounds like a really bad idea.
And if anyone copies your code his submission will be skipped too, so actually he won't be increasing his rating anyway(unless he takes the time to understand your solution and recode it, which I think is not a smart move for Div2 A,B).
You can use Codeblocks, a very lightweight IDE (as you are a C++ coder) with good features.
All the best in the upcoming rounds.
Who the fuck uses ideone for coding during a live contest? Unless internet is very fast. Those using ideone are definitely cheaters. A real programmer is acquainted with at least one ide of a choice that he is comfortable with and doesnot require internet connection.
bhikkhu i dislike windows for programming contests , and i stopped using dual boot on ubuntu cause it messed with my HDD which is giving me problems, if you consider i am not a programmer because of that or the fact i was using ideone for this contests. Then you my friend are an idiot.
so were you using live booted ubuntu during the contest? what is your conclusion? (you don't use windows and don't use ubuntu) or you now use ubuntu. there are ides like codeblocks for ubuntu. as a programmer, one ought to arrange all toolset necessary for him for programming. do you code only in ideone, don't you code outside of it?
i was using ubuntu as dual boot for a long while until my HDD was giving me issues so i stuck with windows, sadly i dislike windows for programming contest that's why i was using ideone, however i will start coding on a local enviroment,thanks for recommending me codeblocks :) some people already did.
Using multiaccounts he can just disqualify people so he increase his rating on the main account
If your are using online editor like ideone use it in PRIVATE mode, which can only be accessed after making an account in Ideone, there are other secure alternatives like Codechef editor,Although its better to use offline editor like ATOM IDE or ECLIPSE IDE or vim IDE, because there ll be no chance of plagiarism and its secure and safe.
I think codeforces should penalize everyone having same code by doing plagiarism analysis similar to codechef and reduce the rating by more than 80%, it'll reduce the the number of people using multiple accounts and also it'll motivate people to use offline editors and be more secure when using online editors, so that people use them in private mode only.
AFAIK, Codeforces already IS performing advanced checks for plagiarism, that go beyond simple char-to-char comparison. Most likely we will not know the specific checks performed, as that would make cheating the system easier. And after all — the users who do not cheat should in general not be influenced by this anyways
Why don't you just get a text editor and run your code from commandline? No need for IDE's / online editors. Use Sublime or something
Try code::blocks my laptop is Celeron(R) with 2GB RAM and it doesn't lag...a lot.
:)