Opinion

A Nation of Cheaters?

There is a cultural trend that bodes ill for CSOs—an epidemic of willful disregard for rules and regulations.

By Derek Slater

November 01, 2006 — CSO —

A few years back, Yahoo Games instituted an online chess ladder. A ladder system essentially ranks

all the players from top to bottom, and you move up by beating people ranked higher on the ladder.

Losing (or not playing) slowly lowers your ranking.

I'm a decent player—I won the state championship of Kentucky in my salad days—but

couldn't begin to approach the top of Yahoo's ladder.

But guess what? The people at the top weren't playing chess at all!

They were cheaters, a closed circle of players passing the crown around by systematically losing one-

move games to each other. Player No. 2 challenges Player No. 1, makes one move to start the game,

and then Player No. 1 resigns the game and they switch rankings on the ladder. Isn't there something

weird about spending hours maintaining your rank as top chess player without actually playing the

game?

Alas, this is not an isolated occurrence. In 2004, David Callahan wrote a book, The Cheating Culture,

about the pervasiveness of rule bending in America today. Most of the examples Callahan cites have to

do with cheating to achieve economic gain, career advancement and so forth. Kids fudging tests and

papers in college to ensure that they can get a good job. That kind of thing. (Just so you won't be

surprised if you get the book, Callahan serves up his points with a clear political slant. He's been

described as "a liberal who argues that America has lost its moral compass.") But Yahoo Chess Ladder

suggests that some people will cheat with even less incentive than that. A little temporary status, a little

convenience—people will cheat for next to nothing.

What are the ramifications of the cheating culture for CSOs? You have to imagine that preventing policy

violations, theft and other crime is harder when gaming the system has become the national

pastime.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has the incredibly difficult job of trying to enforce

copyright in an era where, among their target consumers, copyright is a dead concept. It's a legal

construct, but one that presents zero moral imperative to the generation most likely to consume music.

The RIAA just announced lawsuits against another 8,000 file sharers in 17 countries. But of course, the

more aggressively the record companies have pursued enforcement and restitution, the more they have

alienated themselves from the potential consumers they covet.

There's a loss prevention job I don't want.

Though it's an extreme example, all CSOs and CISOs face a similar challenge to some degree. Whether

you're in retail or banking or government or anything else, your job is harder in a world where neither

• Email
• Print
• Comments
• Digg This
• SlashDot