I'm not taking sides in this, or suggesting one viewpoint or the other is valid, just trying to establish the problems here that are causing the conflict.

Given all the doubt and speculation over recent events, I'm wondering quite what players here would consider the minimum burden of proof necessary to ban someone from CAL.

Any unencrypted digital data is subject to tampering with, so all submitted demos, by definition, are useless unless the source is trusted. Anyone can generate as much digital evidence as they like against someone, given the time and motivation.

The last thread seemed to establish that you trust neither the admins, nor the system. Presuming a completely neutral admin (i.e. not one of CAL scene **** pimped in the last thread), what would be sufficient to satisfy you guys that someone was a cheat?

The answer appears to be nothing short of blatant aimbotting in a CAL game, which means that most people who are smart enough, should never get caught using some form of hack.

So realistically, you guys either need to trust that admins are carrying out investigations due to external information or just find a league that isn't so aggressive towards cheats. Most hackers are caught out because they boast about what they've got away with or because they are careless when smurfing, not because they are blatant about it in matches. Consequently, most admins will have to be surreptitious about garnering information.

Several people have attacked Hsu in all of this. Now I can't speak for him or CAL, but I think it's fair to say that not only does he have feelings too (so back off), but it would exceptionally difficult to find anyone to admin CAL-NS who wasn't in some way linked to a top tier clan. By definition, all the people suggested in other threads on this topic have all been people who are close friends of CAL Omega and Delta players/clans. To suggest that there is anyone can admin CAL-NS who isn't an interested party in some way, strikes me as a fairly dumb suggestion. *shrug*

So, what's your minimum proof required to ban someone?

As far as cheating goes, demos of matches should be the only sufficent evidence. Usually there is a HLTV so there is an audience, and you can't really 'stage' it. There would also be no reason to 'protect' a user from exposure, because of the HLTV. As far as people hacking in pubs/scrims/whatever/ it's not that it would be excused, there should just be a tolerance level system, kinda like the new valve anti-cheat system. if you check your 'VAC-status' for most people it has something like 'in good standings.' Anyways, If there are any suspission of a player hacking out side of a match, then admins should be allowed to monitor pretty much all activity of that player ingame as they see fit. I don't feel like amnesiac's case was taken care of properly as many can see by the previous thread 'why all the conteversary' It wasn't as black & white straight foward as it was presented by the admins; but, with thier current rules, they *could* technically ban anyone they want for whatever reason they want. (wether or not they player is guilty of the accused or not is irrelevant.)

EDIT:
Consistency needs to be updated aswell.

I really don't understand, from what logic you've presented, why it's so difficult to conceive of an admin that is impartial and not related to anyone from the competitive scene. You simply need a person not involved in the particular game, but someone specialized and experienced in anti-cheat for FPS games in general. CAL has such people. It's a different story to get a full time admin for the league that has the same qualities, but for the purposes of an inquiry into such cases as the one in question it isn't difficult to find someone.

Secondly, the person accused is also human - he also has feelings. However, if he is going to be treated with the "guilty until proven innocent" clause, then so should Hsu and any other admins involved. Alternatively, the normal "innocent until proven guilty" approach can be used. Justice is blind, it shouldn't favor those in power over those that are not. However, this is the CAL organization and only time will tell if there will be any justice served in this.

In cheat investigations, evidence should be tested for validity before the investigator even evaluates it. In the case of NS, the best kind of evidence is demos. Everything else is fatally insecure.

If it is a pub demo, it needs to be backed up by a server log with the same steam_IDs and preferably with a statement from a witness not involved with the people submitting the demo. In other words, if A is caught cheating on server and B submits a demo of it to the admins, then the admins need to get server logs and an optional statement from another player C (unrelated to A and B) that what happened happened. If it is a scrim demo, it needs to be verified by the player in that scrim. An official demo is the best and least troublesome with verification

You might say that anything can be forged, but it is pretty hard to forge demos to pass the testing listed above. You would need a major conspiracy for it. Ideally then, you'd want two different demos (both verifiable) to admit as evidence.

Once you have admissable evidence, there is the problem of how it is analyzed and how cheating is detected. This is often more flawed than the process of selecting admissable evidence and is where mosis's case was mishandled. As for this case, nobody even knows if there is any evidence, if it is valid if it exists, or if it was correctly analyzed and interpreted.

At this point I'm going to leave the discussion, since there isn't any point in submitting myself to yet another 9 page barrage of "groupie love" for either side of the case. People need to learn how to be impartial in these circumstances, or else innocent people get prosecuted. I believe I've argued enough for this stance.

I'll try and do a Grendel here and try not to take sides in this.

The trick is finding someone not interested in the game and willing to give it their attention, or at least to act as oversight in cases such as this.

The only required proof is something that displays a cal player using cheats, that the admins feel is legitimate. And there are ways to deduce legitimacy. I don't agree with the arguement that a ban needs to be proven to the public.

I tend to agree with grendal and roughter box here. There are other things about the CAL disiplinary system that I think could be improved if I understand some of the issues properly. For instance there is no reason to refuse to respond to a player that has been banned and let him defend himself, back and forth PR and getting both sides of an issue is very important to resolving conflicts without creating unessicary ill feelings. But I really don't think there is any nessesity for the CAL admins to be excessively paranoyed about the legitimacy of any evidence they have gathered. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to tell the difference between a demo submitted by a well respected comunity admin compared to one submitted by a morally questionable compeditive rival. I'm not saying that every situation is that cut and dry, but I trust that the CAL admins have at least SOME degree of compatence in analizing the background of a piece of evidence they are receiving.

I thought that Zephor's post was legitimate. It is the CAL-Admins stance on the whole issue, and in my opinion its very valid.

I like how "reasons" become "excuses" when people don't agree with them.

If you feel discredited by anything he said, you might be. Discredibility is an important statistic in any conversation.

There's a difference between discredibility and an attempt at achieving it. Most of the people that Zephor has attempted to discredit are experienced in NS. You do not - do not - have to play in CAL-NS to know what a cheat is and what is is not. At the same time, you do not - do not - have to know what a cheat is and what it is not if you are an admin.

1 - CAL version. People will learn how CAL-NS admins detect hackers.
1 - ANTI-CAL version. People will not learn about CAL-NS admins' inability to tell legit play from cheating.

2 - CAL version. People will question CAL-NS more if evidence is released, this is bad for CAL-NS. People should apply for admin position to prove to me that they're worthy.
2 - ANTI-CAL version. Questionable evidence will definitely lead to decreased CAL-NS admin credibility - exactly what CAL-NS doesn't want. CAL-NS admins decide who becomes the next CAL-NS admin. See a pattern?

The ball is being rolled around in a circle once again. This is why his post is not valid. This is what will lead to this topic getting locked unless a prune takes place soon.

Regardless on the concensus, it does not matter what the community thinks is necessary to incriminate a player using hax. I fully support CAL's decisions regarding how they handle themselves. They have their system in place. They are NOT acting like the tyrants some of you are suggesting, and are really putting a lot of work into the league to keep it above water.

It has become clear that people are being banned based on public demos along with hearsay evidence. This is clearly ridiculous when you realize the ease with which public demos are faked, and I don't think I have to tell anyone how sad it is to ban people based on rumors.

Allowing evidence of this nature leads to some horrible bias. For example if someone were to submit a fake hacking demo of me, I'm sure that Hsu would ban me on the spot since he's been wanting to and then would actually have some evidence if another CAL admin asked to review the ban, and since CAL doesn't have to justify its actions to the riffraff playerbase everything would be wonderful.

Anyone who would like an assist in whipping that demo up feel free to ask me.

cal chooses its admins for a reason, i dont think i need any more proof then their word..

I have 100% confidence in each CAL-ns admin. They the most trustworthy people in the game in my opinion and they do a great job. I'm getting really tired of hearing all these morons give them **** for doing their job. Lay off.

*edit* In the interest of staying on topic I see the sufficient evidence as a demo, status screenshot showing steamid and an ingame screenshot showing the scoreboard be it in a pub, pug or match. *edit*

You guys keep brining up the fake demo thing. Where did that come from? Who do you guys think was ever banned on fake demos?

Zephor explained himself with some good points, I'm going to respect them and if I really had a problem with the process, go learn all about hax and apply for the ac admin. Kind of a shame it took this long to get a response from him though.

On the topic of admins need knowledge and understanding of the game, this is all well and true and I entirely agree. I believe to help make player and league communication better and to judge cheat accusations more fairly, that admins must not be participating in the league that they admin.

but they still have to play the game.
"omg hax, he tracked him through the wall"
"mt..."

Ok so if the conversations isn't that doctored evidence was used in these bans. And we've fairly certain that the admins know what they are doing and can spot hacks, I don't see what the problem is.

And we've still yet to see someone that plays in cal, that wasn't in xen, attack the admins. There is no problem with the admin's credibility, and there is no problem with how things are being run. Regardless of what the people wandering over here from gen disc feel like saying.

You can take out a Photoshop signature easily, by using PrintScreen and saving it as a bitmap in MSPaint and compressing it in another program. (This is assuming that Photoshop doesn't leave an actual watermark in the visible image itself, but leaves something that doesn't change what the image looks like).

Yeah.. so if people cannot read what's on the same page of the topic, then there isn't going to be much success with the discussion.

More passionate finger pointing follows.

The word of a respected CAL-admin is good enough proof for me. The league has a process to ensure it recruits sensible people, and after that point those people are given the opportunity to earn the trust and respect of the players as well as show themselves as impartial judges.

I've worked with Zephor on AC before (remember those days Zephie? ^_~) - he knows his ****, he's proven he's a fair mediator between teams, and it doesn't seem anyone outside the parties already holding an anti-cal grudge really made that big a stink of what's happened. I'm surprised this discussion keeps going on. Trust that your admins aren't stupid enough to take fake demos and doctored screen shots.

By far the largest problem with the system is the inablility of the accused to defend themselves.


Seriously, guility untill proven innocent? How the hell are these accused supposed to prove themselves innocent?


Of course the system sucks. You don't need a laywer to figure this one out. I mean, you have CAL vs. (individual) and CAL then says, "Oh, actually we already know whatever we say is right, so there's no point in taking your input."

Sad... Thank god I don't live in a country that has a court system like that, I'd rather have the guilty go free than the innocent punished.

This is straight from the bible, btw. Would you kill a city of guilty men if there is one in there who is completely innocent? First testament. God then states, no, he would not.


And why not? Because the person who leads an innocent life shouldn't be punished by an angry community/society.


And Sariesel, impartial admins does not nessesarly mean that admins will be perfect in their bannings... no, realisitically, the best way to handle bans is only to ban players who are caught cheating in matches, because cheating in pubs is just too vague, punitive, and even as you have stated the CAL admins themselves would be banned by their own system.


Also, using matches as the only source of proof means that you will have tons of demos/spectators avalible, so everyone will know if the admin makes a bad choice or not.

Right now I'm thinking about police who show up at your door one day, and the next day the inhabients are gone, never to be found again...
Simply put, any indiviual who is being impartial when reviewing the past CAL bannings can easily conclude that the system has way too much potential for abuse, and when the accused actually talk about how they are treated within the system, it's clear that the system is witchhunt started by community members with vested intrests.

Pretty sad this is still the best NS league, huh?

No, actually if you look at the rate of competitive development in NS over its lifetime, it isn't that sad at all. There has never been much of a choice.

By far, the conclusion of this topic has already been reached: CAL admins are right because the majority of the players in that league trusts them, therefore there is no need to question their authority.

Strange conclusion from a strange community.

I trust the CAL-Admins for a number of reason. First, why would they want to falsely accuse someone, especially someone who is cultivating the community (NSlearn), I don't see them as having some hidden agenda they want to fufill.

In addition to that I find NS to be much more leniant on hacking claims than CS. In CS, a single demo and your gone, but with NS it has been collaborated with other reports, logs, and other "evidence".

Finally, going back to the CALadmins, they won't ban on a "hunch", because they know that there are reprocussions throughout the community. And if you don't like their system, the NS community could easily build another league, and leave CAL to die.

I think the minimum required proof is a demo from either a scrim, match, or pub. Because cheating in a pub is cheating other people, and there should be reprocussions for this. Server logs optional. Also a screenshot of the steamid, and the gut feeling(like how the person submitting the items doesnt have a reason to want to person out of CAL, ie jmms providing demos of Mustang hacking before the CAL finals).

Also who has that much free time to doctor all of this evidence

Well, most don't care either way as long as they don't get affected. There's not really any evidence made public to indicate that the league's admins should not be trusted. IRL you can find this kind of thing everywhere. So it isn't really a "young person" trend to be trustful and gullible. Part of a phenomenon called stupidity:

i say it again:

THERE IS NO 100% PROOF

im quite sure that even in a demo you recorded, people could argue if the person cheats or if he is just good...

Calling the people who you're arguing against stupid just totally killed what you were trying to accomplish. If we were stupid we would already be agreeing with you.

Unsportsmanlike conduct. First warning.

Actually, not at all. You're not familiar with stupidity and what it means to be stupid. It does not mean being agreeable. So your retort is completely worthless.

While I'm not a competitive gamer (I can hardly hold my own in a pub, I'm afraid), I've checked in here from time to time and followed this dispute. As it seems that people who are dead-set on it won't trust the validity of any sort of evidence that CAL admins will bring out in the case that they do, the point seems kind of moot, doesn't it? Sure, the rest of the community can look on and debate whether the player is hacking or just exceptionally skilled, but this is, essentially, a private matter between the player in question and the league. The punishments remedy any misplay prior to the conviction of said player, so the teams that have been hurt by this player have been taken care of, so, with the exception of the player's team, it's just himself and the league.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Yes, I do agree that the "Guilty until proven innocent" clause is a tad over the top. However, what sort of case can the player present when the evidence is there? "I wasn't at that game at that time"? It comes down to an alibi versus possibly illegitimate evidence. I wish that there would be some way to prove that the source is, in fact, the real thing, but the only case that I can see if CAL allows both open evidence and defense in the regard that I'm taking it, is that people continue to argue over it based on which side they believe to be the most trustworthy. Which seems to be the same thing that's going on here. Some people trust CAL, others are skeptical, and yet, the only thing I can see coming of the proposed revisions to CAL, are the same arguments in a different context.

Personally, I'll trust CAL. If someone goes through all the trouble of setting up a league to professionalize and promote e-sports, I'm doubtful that they'd reduce themselves to petty squabbles over popularity. You might say that it's the admins themselves that are out to do it, and not higher-ups, and if that's the truth, then it's a shame, but it's my view that they're responsible for both the image of CAL and it's well-being, so they'll keep the greater good in mind and try to stay as impartial as they can.

Anyhow, to actually reply to the reason of this topic, I believe that a demo and screenshots of the person's steamid, as well as testimony should be sufficient. However, pub demos shouldn't be used to ban. They're just too easy to fake and they're too susceptible to ulterior motivation. However, with actual matches, you have HLTV and a variety of spectators who can testify. That's not to say that the pub demos should be disregarded entirely. Rather, just taken as a warning to take a closer look at this person in games. If they seperate their hacking between pubs and competitive gaming, while they're still hurting the scene, CAL doesn't seem like it would have enough evidence to actually ban a player. Well, that's my belief as to where the line should be drawn anyhow. After all, the pub admins can have a field day and ban them, and if enough people realize that they're banning the same SteamID, perhaps special circumstances can be achieved in CAL.

Oh yes, just a note to Sarisel. You seem to have missed the point in Albino's original post on stupidity. He was stating it as if you would have to be mentally handicapped to agree with your side, not in the manner in which you appeared to percieve it.