Fairdice Game Testing

[bethug]

good questions sw2003

[GrandMaster]

It requires cooperation between the software companies and Fairdice. Why would they want to do that with Fairdice?

Fairdice would produce results which are provably fair to all parties, so there should not be any further complaints that "XYZ casino cheats, I lost three hands of BJ in a row there!"

[DouglasReay]

*If* i understand it right from the not-quite-as-clear-as-it-could-be docs....

I apologies for any lack of clarity in the documentation. It is unintentional, and something I would love to improve. Sometimes it is hard to document something you know very well because it is difficult to realise what is not going to be obvious to other people. May I quote from this thread on the Fairdice website to improve them?

if i were the casino operator, i may be a little worried that the result determination leaves me at the mercy of the programmers. Should they turn out to be fraudulent or inaccurate, then I'm screwed.

Quite understandable. I hate trusting software too. In this case though the software is open source. That means that the casino operator doesn't have to trust the original programmer. They can hire one of their own to read the program's source code, verify it does what is claimed, compile it and install it on a machine under the casino's control.

Or, more likely, several different casino associations will all check the code out. And hopefully publish statements of the form "The binary fairdice_server.exe (for windows Longhorn, version 9) has been checked by us to be good. You can recognise you have the same binary not a hacked version because it has file length 129322 bytes and the md5 checksum DEADBEEF1234DECAFBAD9876". Then, as long as the casino trusts at least one of the organisations that has done a verification, all they have to do is:

1. download the right binary for their system
2. check it has the right size and checksum
3. install it on a machine they trust

I had a quick look at the website, I did not see any information about which protocol they use, whether it is new or previously known.

Nice explanation - want to come join the project and write a little documentation? Project Fairdice is a non-profit voluntary organisation. That means you won't get paid but neither will you have any liability or be required to do any more than you wish. What you do get, hopefully, is some satisfaction of having actually DONE something about the state of the online gambling industry.

The general concept of the protocol (using message digests for non-repudiability) is very well known and not at all new. The specific use of it in this context and the details such as the precise order the messages get exchanged between parties, the length of the plaintext and digests, etc are new.

We sent a detailed list of relevant questions to the email address quoted on the press release but that turned out to be a dud

Yes, sorry about that. Chiark, the remote unix server I use for email (run by the maintainers of the Debian Linux distribution) uses some anti-spam software called SAUCE that is new, still slightly experimental and rather complex. It works very well (I get maybe one spam a month, on an email address I've used widely for years), but you do have to remember 4 or 5 steps when adding a new sub address (+fairdice_press in this case). I forget one of those steps in the rush setting things up after making the press release and didn't get around to testing it until later that week.

Even the message board is hard to use.

Ok, I've tried documenting how to use the board better. Have a look at http://fairdice.sourceforge.net/cgi-...ToAskAQuestion and tell me what you think.

A working phone number? Who knows..

Yes, it is more or less working. British Telecom are fiddling about trying to set up an answering service on it. Do give me a ring. (though I'd appreciate it if you didn't phone between 12 midnight and 8am UK time).

the chances of this program being implemented are slim and none

Casinos are competing against each other for players. All it takes is for one casino to decide it might be worth seeing if they can make more money by differentiating themselves from the other casinos by offering provable fairness over big bonuses. Once one casino offers this, it will be up to the players to make clear which they prefer by choosing which casino to play at.

The problem with MD5 was only published 10 days ago, so I am favourably impressed by developers.

If you look at the CVS file http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.p...=0&view=markup you will see that I make the comment about doubts being raised on June 2nd. Several weeks before the actual discovery of a collision was published.

I want to know where is Fairdice going to get money to run this operation? Who is going to fund it? It requires cooperation between the software companies and Fairdice. Why would they want to do that with Fairdice?

It may be optimistic, but Project Fairdice is not a for-profit organisation. It isn't specifically looking for funding. Sure, if some casino thinks this is a great idea and wants to pay one of the developers to work full time on it instead of doing it in their spare time in order to get it all to happen faster, I for one might consider it. But that isn't needed. The project will continue either way.

I'm guessing that the conversation between a casino operator and the company who writes their software will go something like this:

• Operator: I've heard that if we use 'fairdice enabled' software on our website, eCOGRA will let us display a spangly new enhanced seal logo that has been proven to increase a casino's revenue by 10% by attracting new customers. Will your next update be including this option, or should we be looking at moving over to using company X's software?
• Developer: mutter mumble err sure maybe

The casino software developer then hopefully downloads the developer kit from the Fairdice website, spends a few days changing calls to rand() over to calls to frdiRand(), spends a few weeks testing it, then charges the casino an arm and a leg for their new update.

Fairdice get no money from that. However with luck, when the casino software developer is spending a few weeks testing it, grumbling about the fairdice server application being too slow / too unstable / lacking a certain feature their host app needs, they will edit the fairdice source code to add in what they need. And then maybe release their patch back to the project so they don't have to bother adding their custom requirement every time a new fairdice server version comes out.


I hope that helps people understand a little better what is going on with Project Fairdice. I will carry on answering questions here if people would like that. I hope also that you will come join the discussion on the Project's own website.


Douglas

[jpm]

I want to know where is Fairdice going to get money to run this operation? Who is going to fund it? It requires cooperation between the software companies and Fairdice. Why would they want to do that with Fairdice?

Pretty simple I think, the casino would be paying for it (licensing the use). Since the house ALWAYS has an edge (except on full pay deuces wild), then they would have nothing to lose by giving you a fair game. And I believe that real gamblers (particularly BJ players, as GM mentioned before) would flock to a fairdice enabled casino and offset whatever costs there would be for implementation. The casinos running rigged s/w on the other hand, won't go anywhere near it and probably try to discredit it.

[caruso]

I think is is extremely interesting and encouraging if I've got my head around it all correctly:

As long as 1) the software is verified as good and 2) the casino log numbers match with the player numbers - as verified by the player - then the cards in question have been dealt randomly. There is no need of any "disclosure" beyond the code itself - there is no results-testing involved and therefore no opportunity for a rogue regulator to cook the books. All the verification can be done by the player or a trustworthy second party, in the form of a check on the code, to ensure that it's functioning as it should. The only drawback is that it cannot be "forced" on the casino, as the OCA basically was, because it requires their cooperation in running the software. Small inconveniece - any casino refusing to cooperate clearly has something to hide, and players can draw their own conclusions.

I hope this develops speedily.

[sw2003]

I think is is extremely interesting and encouraging if I've got my head around it all correctly:

As long as 1) the software is verified as good and 2) the casino log numbers match with the player numbers - as verified by the player - then the cards in question have been dealt randomly. There is no need of any "disclosure" beyond the code itself - there is no results-testing involved and therefore no opportunity for a rogue regulator to cook the books. All the verification can be done by the player or a trustworthy second party, in the form of a check on the code, to ensure that it's functioning as it should. The only drawback is that it cannot be "forced" on the casino, as the OCA basically was, because it requires their cooperation in running the software. Small inconveniece - any casino refusing to cooperate clearly has something to hide, and players can draw their own conclusions.

I hope this develops speedily.

Players will flock to a FairDice casino over a non-FairDice one, so in a way, it is still forced on the casinos via this thing called consumers' choice.