<story><title>Riot Games: Artificial Latency for Remote Competitors</title><url>https://lolesports.com/article/riot-games-tech-blog-artificial-latency-for-remote-competitors/blt44154a33b5d5a616</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jedberg</author><text>I never understood why they didn&amp;#x27;t use randomized length micro batches to solve this.&lt;p&gt;Instead of processing orders instantly, wait between 200ms and 500ms and then process all orders that came in that window in random order.  Then being 5ms closer to the server wouldn&amp;#x27;t matter.</text></item><item><author>gareth_untether</author><text>Reminds me of the cable lengths for black boxes connected to the network in Wall Street. Each cable is the same length regardless of which computer is closer to the access point.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>axg11</author><text>That sounds like a complex solution. Sometimes a dumb solution that works good enough is better than a complex solution that _probably_ can&amp;#x27;t be exploited.</text></comment>
<story><title>Riot Games: Artificial Latency for Remote Competitors</title><url>https://lolesports.com/article/riot-games-tech-blog-artificial-latency-for-remote-competitors/blt44154a33b5d5a616</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jedberg</author><text>I never understood why they didn&amp;#x27;t use randomized length micro batches to solve this.&lt;p&gt;Instead of processing orders instantly, wait between 200ms and 500ms and then process all orders that came in that window in random order.  Then being 5ms closer to the server wouldn&amp;#x27;t matter.</text></item><item><author>gareth_untether</author><text>Reminds me of the cable lengths for black boxes connected to the network in Wall Street. Each cable is the same length regardless of which computer is closer to the access point.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>w-m</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t think I get how that solves the issue: you would have set a fixed cutoff time, where you switch from one window&amp;#x2F;batch to the next. It doesn&amp;#x27;t matter when you arrive within the window. But statistically, even for random window lengths, if you have a smaller latency, you will make the cutoff for the earlier window more often.</text></comment>