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Comment by bluecalm | Hacker News Reader

I don't know much about DFS but it seems to me there is a simple solution to information leakage problem:

1)players construct their line-ups and have a local program compute a secure hash of it (with some player specific data in it like arbitrary 10 digit number at the start)

2)only hashes are posted before the game starts (or once a deadline for submissions is reached or w/e)

3)then a player is allowed to post a matching (to the hash) line-up

Failing to do 3) results in a loss.

Are there any problems with that solution?

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I guess, the trivial inconvenience of the user having to return, recreate the lineup from scratch and remember the 10 digit number/salt (or pull from local memory/localStorage if its the same device) . They would have to do this after the start of the first game but before the end of all the events in the event group. I.E before winners are calculated. If you didn't force the players to do this early on, you wouldn't be able to see live rankings which would take some fun out of it I guess. There would be other problems I guess to with edit lineup functionality.

It is a good idea though and would certainly curb this kind of thing happening.

Of course the hash posting and remembering the digits would be done by a DFS client you are using. There could also be intermediares to which you "deposit" your line-ups and they post them for you once the deadline arrives - all is needed is a line-up matching the hash, no authorization from the player required.

Editing the functionality is easy as well, you just replace the hash again. It just requires a local client to do so instead of doing it on the server directly.

Or more simply, you could just make the relevant information publicly available in real-time.

If we are assuming that the actors are bad, why would you trust the information they are putting out?

I guess that depends on your threat model.

It doesn't sound like the companies themselves are intent on profiting from insider information, just a couple of opportunistic employees with privileged access.

Yes, the problem is that it doesn't allow insiders to rig the game. See bitcoin et al. Good idea though.

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