There are several problems with this response.
Longer-term, we have a plan to block this kind of mid-event weight exploit …
First, this exploit is easy to execute, so “longer-term” is not acceptable. You need to close the exploit immediately. We don’t know if “longer-term” means next week, next couple months, or as long as it took to fix the London gradient graph. (Reported May 2020, reported to be on Zwift’s to do list in June 2020, about 95% fixed in the last client update in early 2022.)
Second:
…we would like to address the suggestion made by the originator of the post that this is ‘The Ultimate Undetectable Weight Cheat on Zwift’. This is not true. Our server captures changes made by players to their profiles.
If the servers capture the information, then why was Luciano not flagged shortly after the race? Also, in the first bit I quoted, you basically admitted that this exploit is feasible. That could be read as contradicting the quote directly above.
Third,
Players who weight-dope in a race are routinely detected by other participants by putting out suspiciously high w/Kg values … community reports are investigated by a human who can readily find weight changes made to a rider’s profile mid-ride.
The mid-ride changes to your weight don’t appear to make it to Zwiftpower. Hence, we wouldn’t be able to see someone doing this after the fact. Also, those of us who have ever raced or ridden hard will almost surely agree that it’s hard to think straight and to type on your phone. If you are relying on the community to systematically find weight dopers, that’s a losing strategy, because not everyone will notice, and not everyone who notices will file a report - assuming they even know the functionality is there.
Fourth, back to the ban - if Luciano had emailed you without publishing the article, would you have acted? Others have asserted that they’d reported this previously. If this is true, then A) how long was this known and not dealt with, and why is the answer not immediately? B) If reporting exploits to Zwift through standard channels is ineffective, then are you sure you want to go hide behind your terms of service?
Luciano said that he was told by a teammate that this was possible, indicating that the knowledge is out there already. A few days before this blew up, this Redditor was asking about live height adjustment. One guy said no, this doesn’t work, a few other guys gave him grief or asked him not to do it … if only we’d known. I appreciate that code is complex, but it doesn’t look good if you’re unaware of a pretty basic exploit. If you were aware earlier on, it looks even worse. Either way, the company reaction gives the impression of being angrier at this coming to light than about it being abused.
