Question: PBeM Security Failure?

[RightDeve]

I'm currently playing a SECURE PBeM, it is now (as of the problem) my third turn, just received the file from my opponent and suddenly that message above caught my attention.

I'm the second player (Germany), hence you can see that the load counter is one increment higher than the quit counter because I had not pressed the quit button.

My question:

1. Why does the opponent's (1st Player, USA) Load and Quit counters show a mere 001 while we're currently at turn 3. At minimum they should show 003.

2. My opponent's FAIL counter is horrendously high: 508. Why is that? I know certainly he's a respected veteran at theBlitz.org so I know cheating is not the problem here.

3. What's more confusing, I have my own FAIL numbers too: 2. This I can tell you for a fact that I've never reloaded any turn, nor I have any crashes with the game.

I believe (if my memory is right), on previous turns, this message showed normal numbers. (I don't remember about the opponent's LOAD and QUIT, but I can remember with certainty that NONE of us had FAIL numbers on the previous turns).

[gila]

Whenever you get those crazy high fail #'s, it was a computer or game crash and he had to reinstall on your opponents side.
I know this becuase it has happen to me
Reinstalling corrupts the security feature.

This in no way means there was any cheating involed and that the game could not be completed however.

[RightDeve]

That's very informative gila, thanks!
I understand that if it's a fresh install then the load and quit counter would be reset to zero, right?

and what do you mean by:

Originally Posted by gila

... and that the game could not be completed however.

Why is it can not be completed?

[Mobhack]

If you are playing a secure game and either of you is "sharing" a PBEM slot for 2 or more games due to some reason - then there is simply no point in playing secure, as the totals for the games will be completely screwed. Stuff for the secure game is stored in a registry on each player's machine - and game 2(or more) of either player will nuke game 1's local registry entries.

A secure PBEM slot must be dedicated to the one ongoing game, swapping several games in and out will lead to utter and total data corruption on the security mechanism.

So will reinstalling, moving to new machines, etc, even if the same path is used

So
- is one or both of you re-using a secure slot for another parallel game?
- have one or both of you reinstalled (after a crash say)
- tried to play on different computers (e.g. a works laptop when started on your home box, or upgraded to a new machine in mid play)


AFAIR - its been a while since I tried a secure PBEM - loads and quits for a player should be balanced. He could load his turn several times, after all, if he is doing several 20 minute visits to an ongoing turn that takes him an hour and a half to fully complete.

It'll most likely be a data-handling procedural error of some sort, given that your opponent is known good (though, does he have experience in this particular game system?). And my guess is that he is most likely trying to use the same slot for several ongoing email games in parallel - which is a pure no-no for secure mode PBEMs.

Andy