What to do if my code is jacked (stolen)?

I was looking through the successful submissions for POINPOLY only to find a submission adjacent to mine that was a debug version of my solution.

My solution

Solution jacked by terry14

(I’m assuming this was taken from ideone, and I will be mindful of privacy settings in the future).

The give away is the reader/writer utilities which I have been using on codechef since - at least - as early as the beginning of January.

Now the timestamps show I submitted earlier, and anyone who looked through all the submissions I made for this problem would be able to see me debugging over many iterations (including the exact version that was copied).

However, that’s a lot of work and I would imagine the process is automated and imperfect. If this becomes an issue, will the powers-that-be be able to discern who the original author is? Or is there anything I can or should do in order to avoid a problem?

For the record, I don’t actually care about the code itself or that someone else used it. I just don’t want to end up being accused of plagiarism.

  1. Case in point link isnt accessible
  2. Codechef really discourages ideone. If your solution gets public, then it has already hampered the contest good enough. Who knows how many people copied your code? That guy was silly enough to give exact copy, others might be clever. Hence, @admin deals with this case as no less than “intentional helping/cheating”. Sorry, but you will probably be penalized if the detector catches you. In that case, she will send a mail specifying the solutions and the question, along with contest name. Mail back to her with your arguments then for consideration. Thats all you can do.

Lastly, although off topic, Thank you for downvoting without a reason. Always helpful. - this is just immature. I am not commenting on whats right or not, but its immature. When you step out to the world, you will find all sorts of haters, some will hate you for something you did, some will hate you just cause its you. Some will hate you for existing. And so on. You cannot go on and lash out at all of them. Learn how to take constructive criticism and not give any damns on unsolicited criticism. Thats a phase where many, including me, struggle.

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Thank you for downvoting without a reason. Always helpful.

Thank you for responding. 1. For the link I don’t have any other examples of the r/w dating as far back outside of other ZCO submissions; I’ll remove it. 2. As much as that sucks, I can appreciate an expectation of personal responsibility. I also had not considered the negative impact of my oversight on the contest as well as the other competitors; for that I apologize. Lastly, while admittedly immature and snarky, the comment was made without malice … I knew I should’ve added the :). Thanks again.

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