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Great read, two things I found interesting: 1. The whole mental gymnastics of tournaments’ attempts to depict courtsiding as illegal, it feels reminiscent of m

Great read, two things I found interesting: 1. The whole mental gymnastics of tournaments’ attempts to depict courtsiding as illegal, it feels reminiscent of many moral outrage arguments these days. It’s not enough to say that a certain behavior is wrong, we now need to broadly paint everyone who doesn’t follow our rules as bad people. I see this everywhere nowadays and I don’t like it, nuance and mutual understanding is the only way any adversarial situation ever achieves resolution. 2. You’d think that it’d be very easy with today’s technologies to remain undetected while transmitting these simple pieces of information. I'm curious how these spotters actually find courtsiders, especially those with no history in the industry.

toxik 8y ago
I think demonizing your adversary is as old a trick as any, really. We have seen the end of the one-way media era, in which people believed that other people around the world all sort of thought the same thing about most things, but of course it was never so. I also agree that it should be fairly trivial to hack up some bluetooth device with whatever buttons you need and have it relay using your phone to some server, then you just push those buttons in your pocket, virtually undetectable.
kthejoker2 8y ago
As they note in the article, there's only a small amount of known courtsiders, they have their pictures, they're taught to look for them. One of the courtsiders even says he just keeps his phone out, because it's his face that gets him caught. "iirimets said that since just his face is enough to get him kicked out, he doesn’t make much of an effort to hide his cell phone anymore. For Pete, it’s the same. And I can see how they’re both distinctive-looking enough to stick out like sore thumbs—Rainer is tall with close-set eyes and thick eyebrows, while Pete has big, glowing eyes that take up much of his squarish face. The first catch instantly halves the viability of a courtsider’s career; the hundredth means it’s almost pointless to continue."
- huebnerob 8y ago
  Yes, I read the article. I'm wondering how they catch those new to the game, how that record gets started. If you're telling me that all they need to do is rotate out the cast, sounds pretty simple, but I naturally doubt that it is just that easy.
ansible 8y ago
> You’d think that it’d be very easy with today’s technologies to remain undetected while transmitting these simple pieces of information. I'm imagining a pocketable Bluetooth device (paired with your phone) with a few buttons for the common stuff. That should be easy to conceal and use surreptitiously.

toxik 8y ago

I think demonizing your adversary is as old a trick as any, really. We have seen the end of the one-way media era, in which people believed that other people around the world all sort of thought the same thing about most things, but of course it was never so. I also agree that it should be fairly trivial to hack up some bluetooth device with whatever buttons you need and have it relay using your phone to some server, then you just push those buttons in your pocket, virtually undetectable.

kthejoker2 8y ago

As they note in the article, there's only a small amount of known courtsiders, they have their pictures, they're taught to look for them. One of the courtsiders even says he just keeps his phone out, because it's his face that gets him caught. "iirimets said that since just his face is enough to get him kicked out, he doesn’t make much of an effort to hide his cell phone anymore. For Pete, it’s the same. And I can see how they’re both distinctive-looking enough to stick out like sore thumbs—Rainer is tall with close-set eyes and thick eyebrows, while Pete has big, glowing eyes that take up much of his squarish face. The first catch instantly halves the viability of a courtsider’s career; the hundredth means it’s almost pointless to continue."

huebnerob 8y ago
Yes, I read the article. I'm wondering how they catch those new to the game, how that record gets started. If you're telling me that all they need to do is rotate out the cast, sounds pretty simple, but I naturally doubt that it is just that easy.

ansible 8y ago

> You’d think that it’d be very easy with today’s technologies to remain undetected while transmitting these simple pieces of information. I'm imagining a pocketable Bluetooth device (paired with your phone) with a few buttons for the common stuff. That should be easy to conceal and use surreptitiously.