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Comment by parasti | Hacker News Reader

I can't help but draw parallels with video games. Aimbots in competitive multiplayer games is a well defined issue: it's considered cheating and frowned upon, players caught cheating are banned from the game. Tool-assisted speedruns (TAS) where a player attempts a world record at completion in a single-player game is another face of the same concept (computers help you win), but one that is socially accepted as long as runs are clearly labelled as TAS.

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The biggest difference would be the fact that you can discover video game cheating through some kind of trace. Speed running communities go pretty hardcore on that kind of thing nowadays.

It's a lot harder to detect cheating when your only trace is how fast someone submitted the string CTF{DUck1e_Pwned}

Sure if the goal is entertainment and sports, you're right. However, unlike chess or counter strike it's downstream from a real needed utility. Like, is there a point to do it anymore? (ofc there is, but still, it's been devalued from the perspective of the 'real utility')

It’s literally not. The most interesting and satisfying CTFs have never been grounded in reality, it’s just been an expression of mastery, both from players and authors, with a few notable exceptions. But they’re that, exceptions, not the rule.

Aimbots in competitive multiplayer games are (almost always) game-breaking abuses. CTFs have always rewarded tooling and automation. They're different cultures.

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