One of the worst chess inventions, in my view, is the e-recorder. Truly a solution to a problem that never existed, it would be more apt to call it the problem to a solution. Where before players had the horrific burden of having to write their moves on a sheet of paper, now they tap them in on expensive hand-held computers. Some of these units, like those sold as "MonRoi" devices, are dedicated and do nothing else. In theory, they cannot be used to help a player cheat, as the unit's chip is programmed for the sole task of recording the moves. I'm sure that no one could ever defeat that system, say, by opening the unit and putting in a iPod chip or something like that. Nah, that could never happen.
The good news for aspiring cheats is that there's no need to go through all that trouble, as there are e-notating apps for handheld devices. How convenient! This would seem to be a boon to cheaters everywhere...but not so fast. The app is designed so that once it's running, it's "impossible" to switch to another program, like a chess engine. Wow, I am SO relieved to hear that. Governments manage to hack into other governments' national security computers, hackers breach the systems of some of the world's biggest companies and steal the private data of millions of people, but glory be to the heavens: there's just no way to hack e-notation programs! Its designers must be among the greatest geniuses of all time!! (Alternatively, those who believe such claims are among the most naive individuals of all time. I'll allow my readers to decide which possibility is likelier.)
Speaking of geniuses, it would be nice if the ones working at the US Chess Federation would prohibit MonRoi devices and other e-notating devices, but as they have a motive (i.e. $$$) to keep them in use, it probably won't happen unless the scandals mount or someone they deem important (i.e. someone responsible for bringing in even more $$$) makes a big enough stink. Another asinine policy is allowing headphones. In addition to the possibility that the device they're plugged into can receive information from an outside source, there's the problem of "internal" cheating as well. As I've mentioned before, someone could at the very least record tracks on an MP3 player which supply all the needed opening theory. For instance, let's take an "album" on the Ruy Lopez: track 1 gives minor third move alternatives for Black; track 2 has the Schliemann, track 3 the Berlin, etc. These can be given regular musical titles, in case someone takes a quick look at the screen, and could be interspersed with real music. And this is just a trivially simple idea. I'm sure clever, industrious cheaters can think of far subtler ways to use an electronic device.
But back to the e-notation app. There's already a story where it was used to cheat (HT: hylen), or at the very least where the player pretended to use it but only ran engine software instead. The perpetrator claims he only cheated in the one game where he was caught, a claim no one but his mother believes, among those interviewed in the story. Nevertheless, in his last few events prior to the one where he had been caught, his results had been exceptional - way over anything he had done in the past - and he made a decent chunk of change (by the standards of club tournaments, at least). Of course he deserves some punishment (though I hope he doesn't get a lifetime ban, especially as he's only 16), but the most obvious, simplest and most effective solution is to get rid of the devices. For the marginal convenience of making it easier to get one's game scores into one's computer after the game (because gosh, mousing in the moves could take upwards of two minutes for a long game), these devices create new opportunities to cheat and make monitoring the danger much more difficult.
Will the USCF change its policy? I wish I had faith to believe that they would eschew MonRoi's advertising dollars and ban the use of e-notators in tournament play, and the use of MP3 players as well, but I don't. So the bottom line is that cheaters have a green light; they just need to be careful.