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> He decided to publish what he’d found. The post racked up 800k visits in a day. > > It wasn’t knowing about the cheat that made someone a cheater, he reasone

by arp242 3y ago

> He decided to publish what he’d found. The post racked up 800k visits in a day. > > It wasn’t knowing about the cheat that made someone a cheater, he reasoned. It was using it. The platform disagreed. Zwift issued a shadowban, allowing Pollastri to still ride — but no one could see his results. So predictable. "Please keep Mr. Feynman away from the locked safes." It seems really hard to get this 100% fair, because so much relies on physical equipment. E.g. "Elite riders learned the serial codes of batches of smart trainers that overreported a rider’s power, and sought them out on the used market" isn't necessarily "cheating" – if you happen to have one of these trainers but don't know it reports the wrong data. And what's to prevent someone from just hacking these things (e.g. the firmware, or modify it so there's less friction when pedalling, endless possibilities)? Seems basically impossible to detect all of this without physical access to the equipment. The stupid "cycles better than a doped up Lance Armstrong" ones get caught (what did you expect lol), but the more careful people won't.

nico 3y ago
> The stupid "cycles better than a doped up Lance Armstrong" ones get caught (what did you expect lol), but the more careful people won't I know someone who hacked their college system for applying for classes, it was a points-based system and he gave himself some ridiculous number of points, he got caught, ended up not getting in trouble They also told him they had fixed the vulnerability. But they hadn’t, so the guy hacked the system again, and he gave himself a high number of points, just not a ridiculous number. He never got caught again
dktp 3y ago
> It seems really hard to get this 100% fair It is, for all the reasons you mentioned, and nobody is aiming for that. He just found and demonstrated a cheat (bug) that the platform itself should have no issue detecting - changing weight mid race Zwift uploads race results to ZwiftPower and removes any cyclists that are outliers and it assumes are cheating. 8w/kg would be a big outlier. But it looks like the platform calculates w/kg based on the cyclists' ending weight. So if you change your weight to 25kg right after the race begins and back to 65kg before the end - while cycling at 200w, then Zwift's cheat detection system calculates your w/kg as ~3w/kg, which is completely reasonable and would not get caught. But cycling at 8w/kg is far far faster than 3w/kg The article is overblown. He's not trying to end cheating altogether. He found a bug and demonstrated it
- eesmith 3y ago
  > The article is overblown. He's not trying to end cheating altogether. He found a bug and demonstrated it The article says he did more than demonstrate a bug: "He became a founding member of FERA, the Fair E-Racing Alliance, where he works with 25 other volunteers to assess suspected cheats across ~60 online cycling teams. The list of ways to cheat on Zwift he amassed? It’s now up to 127."
  - dktp 3y ago
    I think the article is written in a over-sensationalistic way and I would take it with a grain of salt, but also possible that he's really into finding bugs. Based on the reddit post, he's definitely really into racing on Zwift As a casual Zwift enjoyer, I'm just vaguely familiar with the story, but now I ended up digging the initial (now deleted) article: https://web.archive.org/web/20220223133105/https://zweight241477032.wordpress.com/2022/02/23/the-ultimate-undetectable-weight-cheat-to-win-all-races-on-zwift/ https://web.archive.org/web/20220223133105/https://zweight24... And some reddit post from him, explaining why the article was deleted and his disappointment in Zwift as a company: https://old.reddit.com/r/Zwift/comments/t0n5be/the_article_zwift_hq_doesnt_want_you_to_see/hycwwts/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Zwift/comments/t0n5be/the_article_z...
- Lio 3y ago
  The whole Zwift w/kg category system is inherently flawed even without cheating. If you're in a lower category and right near the w/kg limit you could be 70kg and racing against 100kg riders. If the cat limit was 3.2w/kg you could have 224w a maximum vs 320w for the heavier rider. On the flats they'll destroy you, in the sprints they'll destroy you and on the descents they'll destroy. On the climbs? They'll hang right with you because you both climb at 3.2w/kg. If you get fitter you'll just be bumped up to a cat with higher limits but the same issue. Unless you're an elite cat A rider, where there's no limits, you should treat the races as just a fitness activity. The heaviest fit rider will always have a massive advantage regardless of the course. So why "race" at all?
  - mariusor 3y ago
eitally 3y ago
A lot of the hacks available to users to cheap are the reason why the eRacing World Championships required riders to use smart trainers provided to them by the UCI. And the situation you state isn't at all the most common method of cheating. The hardest to detect (at least a while ago) was software based, where a third party software injection would intercept the data stream from Zwift and modify the power numbers. Before that, the most common cheating mode was probably either weight/height doping or intentionally using a power meter that reads high (frequently pedals). (I race on a Zwift Racing League team, completed my 335th race yesterday, and have spent about 500 hours on the platform so far.) The reality for Zwift is that less than 10% of their user base races and they don't really care about preventing cheating unless it's already in line with their product development plan. I don't think this is why they lost the eRacing WC sponsorship for next year (to oil-funded MyWhoosh), but I'm hoping it will encourage them to take this kind of thing more seriously. Highly doubtful, though, and anyone who trolls their forums already knows the animosity Zwift faces from many (most?) racers re: their refusal to fix stupid bugs.
- LeifCarrotson 3y ago
  Strava has the same kind of problems - many of the casual userbase just want to maintain accountability and get kudos from their friends: "Hooray, you kept your heart rate in the fat burn zone for 45 minutes!" Casual Strava users don't care about the top 1% hunting KOMs at the limits of human capacity. Therefore the Strava dev team don't care about that 1% .And the 5% who inadvertently leave their device recording when they drive away from the park, not to mention the 0.1% who ride a bike just above the running KOM to cheat back their record, completely ruin it. It's very difficult to build a platform capable of fighting intentional fraud, especially when you have limited control of what your users are doing. It's completely hopeless if that fraud has limited impact on your business. Users with limited moderation/review tools trying to fight fraud are fighting a losing battle.

by arp242 3y ago

nico 3y ago

> The stupid "cycles better than a doped up Lance Armstrong" ones get caught (what did you expect lol), but the more careful people won't I know someone who hacked their college system for applying for classes, it was a points-based system and he gave himself some ridiculous number of points, he got caught, ended up not getting in trouble They also told him they had fixed the vulnerability. But they hadn’t, so the guy hacked the system again, and he gave himself a high number of points, just not a ridiculous number. He never got caught again

dktp 3y ago

> It seems really hard to get this 100% fair It is, for all the reasons you mentioned, and nobody is aiming for that. He just found and demonstrated a cheat (bug) that the platform itself should have no issue detecting - changing weight mid race Zwift uploads race results to ZwiftPower and removes any cyclists that are outliers and it assumes are cheating. 8w/kg would be a big outlier. But it looks like the platform calculates w/kg based on the cyclists' ending weight. So if you change your weight to 25kg right after the race begins and back to 65kg before the end - while cycling at 200w, then Zwift's cheat detection system calculates your w/kg as ~3w/kg, which is completely reasonable and would not get caught. But cycling at 8w/kg is far far faster than 3w/kg The article is overblown. He's not trying to end cheating altogether. He found a bug and demonstrated it

eesmith 3y ago
> The article is overblown. He's not trying to end cheating altogether. He found a bug and demonstrated it The article says he did more than demonstrate a bug: "He became a founding member of FERA, the Fair E-Racing Alliance, where he works with 25 other volunteers to assess suspected cheats across ~60 online cycling teams. The list of ways to cheat on Zwift he amassed? It’s now up to 127."
- dktp 3y ago
  I think the article is written in a over-sensationalistic way and I would take it with a grain of salt, but also possible that he's really into finding bugs. Based on the reddit post, he's definitely really into racing on Zwift As a casual Zwift enjoyer, I'm just vaguely familiar with the story, but now I ended up digging the initial (now deleted) article: https://web.archive.org/web/20220223133105/https://zweight241477032.wordpress.com/2022/02/23/the-ultimate-undetectable-weight-cheat-to-win-all-races-on-zwift/ https://web.archive.org/web/20220223133105/https://zweight24... And some reddit post from him, explaining why the article was deleted and his disappointment in Zwift as a company: https://old.reddit.com/r/Zwift/comments/t0n5be/the_article_zwift_hq_doesnt_want_you_to_see/hycwwts/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Zwift/comments/t0n5be/the_article_z...
Lio 3y ago
The whole Zwift w/kg category system is inherently flawed even without cheating. If you're in a lower category and right near the w/kg limit you could be 70kg and racing against 100kg riders. If the cat limit was 3.2w/kg you could have 224w a maximum vs 320w for the heavier rider. On the flats they'll destroy you, in the sprints they'll destroy you and on the descents they'll destroy. On the climbs? They'll hang right with you because you both climb at 3.2w/kg. If you get fitter you'll just be bumped up to a cat with higher limits but the same issue. Unless you're an elite cat A rider, where there's no limits, you should treat the races as just a fitness activity. The heaviest fit rider will always have a massive advantage regardless of the course. So why "race" at all?
- mariusor 3y ago

eitally 3y ago

A lot of the hacks available to users to cheap are the reason why the eRacing World Championships required riders to use smart trainers provided to them by the UCI. And the situation you state isn't at all the most common method of cheating. The hardest to detect (at least a while ago) was software based, where a third party software injection would intercept the data stream from Zwift and modify the power numbers. Before that, the most common cheating mode was probably either weight/height doping or intentionally using a power meter that reads high (frequently pedals). (I race on a Zwift Racing League team, completed my 335th race yesterday, and have spent about 500 hours on the platform so far.) The reality for Zwift is that less than 10% of their user base races and they don't really care about preventing cheating unless it's already in line with their product development plan. I don't think this is why they lost the eRacing WC sponsorship for next year (to oil-funded MyWhoosh), but I'm hoping it will encourage them to take this kind of thing more seriously. Highly doubtful, though, and anyone who trolls their forums already knows the animosity Zwift faces from many (most?) racers re: their refusal to fix stupid bugs.

LeifCarrotson 3y ago
Strava has the same kind of problems - many of the casual userbase just want to maintain accountability and get kudos from their friends: "Hooray, you kept your heart rate in the fat burn zone for 45 minutes!" Casual Strava users don't care about the top 1% hunting KOMs at the limits of human capacity. Therefore the Strava dev team don't care about that 1% .And the 5% who inadvertently leave their device recording when they drive away from the park, not to mention the 0.1% who ride a bike just above the running KOM to cheat back their record, completely ruin it. It's very difficult to build a platform capable of fighting intentional fraud, especially when you have limited control of what your users are doing. It's completely hopeless if that fraud has limited impact on your business. Users with limited moderation/review tools trying to fight fraud are fighting a losing battle.