3 ms·

It's wild to me, and possibly seems like the next development in cheating, that these technologies are functionally catching people who have a sudden increase i

by xracy 4y ago

It's wild to me, and possibly seems like the next development in cheating, that these technologies are functionally catching people who have a sudden increase in performance. Everything's catching major differences in performance. I think the same is true of the chess.com evaluation of Niemann, and a lot of speed runs as well. It seems like the harder cheats to catch are gonna be the ones where they just give themselves a small advantage over the course of an entire run. I'm wondering how big a difference we would've seen if the cheater in question here had performed a more consistent w/kg above his V02Max, (but not signifcantly outside the realm of his V02Max), for the entire race. They say he had a sudden performance of 500+W and his V02Max was in the 400s, I feel like a more smooth/consistent race in the higher 400s rather than a burst at the end would've been a lot harder to catch. Basically... just more plausible smoothing so that no individual piece of the race would come into question.

dylan604 4y ago
So let's say someone takes your suggestion to do so they become a better cheater. What the next move in the cat and mouse game to catch the cheat you just designed? To be a good cheater, you should be thinking in these kinds of terms. If you can think of a cheat, but not how to get caught, you'll not be a good cheater. If you can think of a cheat, then realize how it can be caught, then modify the cheat, think of how to beat that, lather/rinse/repeat, you'll probably be a really good cheat. At that point though, I think you could be a better use to society doing something else with that critical thinking. So unless there's a bunch of money involved, it probably won't be attracting the brightest.
- mlyle 4y ago
  It's not exactly rocket science to spend a few minutes thinking about how to make your cheating look just like an athlete who is marginally better than the rest of the field.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- nradov 4y ago
  It's an ego thing. People love to win even when there's no prize money. I'm a casual triathlete and it's an open secret that many of the top age group competitors are doping. In particular a lot of the older men are on TRT without having an approved therapeutic use exception. The race organizers do little or no testing because it's expensive and they don't want to piss off customers.
madrox 4y ago
We're already seeing this in FPS games. The way advanced aim assist cheats work are so subtle these days that even pros watching replays have a difficult time saying for sure if the person is cheating or just good. I agree, the reason this guy got caught was because it was anomolous performance at the end. If he had managed his cheat differently it would've been nearly impossible to detect.
nradov 4y ago
I think you're mixing up cycling functional threshold power and VO2 Max. FTP is usually defined as maximum average power output that can be sustained over a solid hour. Usually only top male pros can get over 400 W, and 500 W might not even be physiologically possible (at least not without doping). Of course many strong riders can hit over 500 W for shorter efforts. VO2 Max is the maximum amount of oxygen that someone can metabolize measured. The highest measured VO2 Max scores are about 96 ml/min/kg. No one can sustain a true VO2 Max effort for more than about 10 minutes, and there is only a loose correlation with FTP.

by xracy 4y ago

dylan604 4y ago

So let's say someone takes your suggestion to do so they become a better cheater. What the next move in the cat and mouse game to catch the cheat you just designed? To be a good cheater, you should be thinking in these kinds of terms. If you can think of a cheat, but not how to get caught, you'll not be a good cheater. If you can think of a cheat, then realize how it can be caught, then modify the cheat, think of how to beat that, lather/rinse/repeat, you'll probably be a really good cheat. At that point though, I think you could be a better use to society doing something else with that critical thinking. So unless there's a bunch of money involved, it probably won't be attracting the brightest.

mlyle 4y ago
It's not exactly rocket science to spend a few minutes thinking about how to make your cheating look just like an athlete who is marginally better than the rest of the field.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
nradov 4y ago
It's an ego thing. People love to win even when there's no prize money. I'm a casual triathlete and it's an open secret that many of the top age group competitors are doping. In particular a lot of the older men are on TRT without having an approved therapeutic use exception. The race organizers do little or no testing because it's expensive and they don't want to piss off customers.

madrox 4y ago

We're already seeing this in FPS games. The way advanced aim assist cheats work are so subtle these days that even pros watching replays have a difficult time saying for sure if the person is cheating or just good. I agree, the reason this guy got caught was because it was anomolous performance at the end. If he had managed his cheat differently it would've been nearly impossible to detect.

nradov 4y ago

I think you're mixing up cycling functional threshold power and VO2 Max. FTP is usually defined as maximum average power output that can be sustained over a solid hour. Usually only top male pros can get over 400 W, and 500 W might not even be physiologically possible (at least not without doping). Of course many strong riders can hit over 500 W for shorter efforts. VO2 Max is the maximum amount of oxygen that someone can metabolize measured. The highest measured VO2 Max scores are about 96 ml/min/kg. No one can sustain a true VO2 Max effort for more than about 10 minutes, and there is only a loose correlation with FTP.