I’ve been busy with so many things, the least of which has been the Maelstrom controller. Another project is moving ahead that hasn’t been announced. 2/3ish people are not becoming more “linked” to Titan Lab Inc. to see if it provides the challenges they are looking for. However, after a failed filming of some new Ceramic Speed Driven footage I ended up scrapping the video. Why? Well, when people who think they understand bikes and mechanics are reporting on something they don’t understand, the coverage is lax and wrong. The split shifting shifting didn’t fix anything, but one quiet “timing” innovation did — but nobody really mentioned it or showed it. Only went I was editing I notice is for about 3 frames in report. Ya, 3 frames or 1/10th of a second changed everything. So lots of footage thrown out. So I plan to cover this as none of the media could properly explain it (and one should be smacked hard for comparing it to a Dual / double clutch transmission).
Something has been in the back of my head for a while though and this seems like the time to bring it up. When there was a talk by Brad Dixon, it got picked up by a lot of people — a lot more than my initial video did. But it’s no better than just running a simulator. You’re intentionally cheating. You must actively decide to cheat using your own hardware.
What if you could make other people cheat without knowing? That’s what I demo here. Normally I’d like something more comprehensive, but with winter sneaking up I might actually want to use Zwift seriously and now that I’ve ousted myself it might be like putting a target on my back. So I demo the concept in an intentionally more limited way but also to capitalize on the fact someone took the old method I used without randomization and actually cheated! It was obvious this was going to happen and my proposed solution would have stopped it dead in its tracks if implemented. There was lots of naysayers, but I never lost hope for people to cheat. Anti Cheating needs to be implemented in this stuff. Also, if this were to go into the Olympics I’m a believer that the core code MUST be opensourced. Why? Otherwise people could game things. If they know the math behind it the playing field is level.
This time around I exploit that ANT+ is just looking for a few characteristics and timings. If you can block the real signal and cause the receiver to search you have a chance to be the one it connects with. So I build a little “screamer” and block the signal to my Garmin. 100% clickbait-ish title going on since Zwift is the unified system that has had money invested to make e-competition profitable. That means they want that money back somehow, and thus believe competition is the path.
As shown, it can be hit or miss. There are ways of improving this but to develop them means I have a use case…. I do not. I did come upon a limitation on my challenge response key method and incorporated a small fix in how it could work. Again, this is next gen cheating.
However, imagine if people gambled on e-racing like they do on Keirin racing in Japan? It would be trivial to use this method to rig results. Like beyond trivial. Someone with my background could be paid a few thousand to build an “interceptor” that is deployable so they could rig results. It’s possible and even likely.
So again, re-proposing a governing body validating Powermeters and holding magic keys.