Cheaters are like any other members: ICS members register to ICSes to play chess; cheaters just do that too... they just do it a mite differently, that's all.
Cheaters are promoting an advanced form of chess, a more evolved kind of chess for the greater good of the chess world community and internet chess. Cheaters are to today's internet chess what meteorologists are to tomorrow's weather, what astrologers are to people's curiosity of their future: they show the future of chess to honest playing members without charging anything,... albeit maybe a few insignificant rating points. Cheaters were initially thought as insidious minds, corrupted people, when they first appeared in postal chess. After they explained the rationality of their ideas, of the kind of chess they were promoting to ICCF authorities, the ICCF understood them, were convinced and allowed cheating in its playing rules.
"Cheaters are the cause of accelerated pace of time controls among honest-playing ICSes members." That's a total misconception. Only honest-playing members are responsible for that. If honest-playing members choose to play faster time controls, then that's their own responsibilities and faults; not the cheaters'.
Cheaters are misunderstood people. Unfairly treated, persecuted for no good reason, even despised by ICSes authorities (yes, hard to believe but it's true). They are innocent victims of excruciating blind terrors from ICSes authorities and paranoid members. They are rudely treated by admins/sysops who obviously hate them, by furious angry admins/sysops who make unbelievable threats to them, who harass them constantly for no good reason, who even send them hate messages.
Cheaters are not harming any honest-playing ICS members; they don't fool them, they don't abuse them. Not at all, not one bit. They just want to make an innocent casual teasing joke to all the honest-playing members that they consider as ICS friends; that's all. If people can't take a casual joke, then it's their problem.
As a visible minority, cheaters want to have the right to exist on an ICS...because they are members of an ICS. In order to promote their ideas, their advanced form of chess, all they ask is a little freedom to play just a few games like they are doing. Cheaters are shy persons and wish to be anonymously acknowledged, recognized and defended by ICSes authorities.
Cheaters are often victims of slandering attacks, personal vendettas, baseless insinuations, forged accusations, public rage, permanent social humiliation by being forced to edit permanent apology notes. They are also being added forever in public hate lists and public blacklists like abuser list and no-rated list: in those lists, all their names, identities, phone numbers, postal addresses, email addresses are disclosed. They are victims of blind and savage discriminations in ICS tournaments. They can't join other ICSes. They can't play in OTB tournaments. They are blacklisted everywhere and by everyone. They can't even go see a movie or go shopping without having fingers being pointed at them. This madness has to stop!
"Cheaters cheat." That's the worse damaging misconception that cheaters are victims of. When a cheater has to decide his move in a given position, he first considers the position and then decides what he will play. Then, he gets curious about what a chess program would play in that given position. He then inputs the move into the chess playing program and peeks at the analysis window, just to see what the chess program would play. He then verifies that the chess program agrees with his move selection. Finally he plays the move that he had already decided to play, notwithstanding the agreement of the chess program. That's totally different from saying that a cheater cheats. A cheater is just a curious honest-playing member, just a mite more curious; that's all.
"Cheaters want to con, fool and abuse titled members." That's another misconception of what they are truly doing. They just want to play a special wild variant of chess with them; that's all. The purpose of that wild variant of chess is like an "hide and seek" game in which a titled member doesn't know if this or that opponent is a cheater using a chess program. If the titled member suspects the cheater of using one, then the titled member is allowed to decline any rematch request. If he can't be sure of anything, then he must accept all rematch requests from the cheater.
Cheaters are not cheating: the honest-playing members are! It is the honest-playing members who are unethically advantaged when they meet and play them. Honest-playing members are using 4 elements to decide their moves: experience, chess knowledge, intuition and intelligence. Cheaters are using a chess program to do such. Cheaters just use a different tool and only one tool, that's all. That's 4 against 1 in favor of the honest-playing members: a clear, obvious and unbalanced advantage in favor of honest-playing members.
Cheaters shouldn't have to edit apology notes, confession notes, admitting notes, remorse notes, repenting notes of any kind, not even for 1 minute. If a cheater is caught and admits cheating to an admin/sysop and he promises not to cheat again, then why would he have to admit, confess or apologize publicly? Isn't a private tell with an admin/sysop sufficient? Isn't that enough? If they promise to never cheat again, then why mention any of this in their notes, why the obligation to mention past events in their notes ? Why keep living in the past like this?
Cheaters don't care about their rating. True! You see, cheaters are not cowards like many honest-playing members worried by their ratings. They don't fear losing their rating points as they play several games per day, granting several rematches, giving many opportunities to frustrated and rating-obsessed members to recover their lost points.
Chess programs are intelligent beings: their sole defect is that they don't have arms and
hands. Chess programs have the right to be assisted by dedicated good-intentioned volunteer
operators who want to help them play on ICSes.
These volunteers are shy and step away from any glory that could be directed toward them: that's
why a cheater never says that he's cheating and he will decline any public fame for his valuable
undercover work as a chess program operator in the name of the advancement of chess.
Cheaters are very talented, strong and mighty chess players with many years of OTB practice and success. FIDE has not yet sent them their GM, IM, FM title certificates yet: FIDE is very negligent with them. Informants are always slow to update their FIDE ratings or perhaps have just simply lost their data regarding their ratings. Cheaters are not responsible for such mishappenings.
NO PROOF of cheating has ever been gathered. Never. Not one single video-tape of the actual cheating, not one taped confession, not one single photograph of actual cheating has ever been produced. No corroborating eyewitnesses, no fingerprints, no DNA matching. NOTHING. ZERO. Good honest people like tactician5 were simply misjudged and mistreated by fanatical rgcc people brainwashed by conspiracy stories. Tactician5 was just another victim of low-level attacks, slimy baseless accusations, out of pure collective paranoia.
Cheaters are nice, caring, loveable persons; they are shy people, curious people with a special sense of humor. Cheaters are victims of huge discriminatory and arbitrary sanctions that are imposed to them while the cause they promote is so important for internet chess.
Note: The following paragraphs are ONLY for cheaters.
If you are an honest-playing ICS member ,
you must stop reading here and leave this page NOW!
JUST GO AWAY !!
If you cheat and you're accused of cheating, you first need to stay calm and to imagine, think of and use every possible lies that could "pass", forged stories, coherent explanations, morally acceptable justifications, believable exaggerations. If you don't, then you might suffer from (C)-shame later, the worst possible sanction right after total permanent ban. (C)-shame is no less than a permanent sex change operation that is imposed by ICSes authorities on your handle. Many unfortunately were victims of that: of course, they were all innocent of cheating. You must use anything, everything that can divert attention, arouse reasonable doubts, create confusion, water down the gravity of your actions, reduce possible sanctions and/or humiliation...otherwise, it'll be either (C)-shame or total permanent ban.
Here is a limited list of successful replies that have worked well on several fascist ICSes and they should work just fine for you. Just edit a few of them as aliases for best results.
My daughter must have sneaked and cheated with my account again. I warned her not to do this.
Sorry for the inconvenience here. 
This won't happen again.
I downloaded a freeware and just wanted to verify if its estimated rating was a fair one. It
was just an experiment. I won't do this anymore. Promise!
My friend stayed at my home this week: he left hospital and he's recovering from a major
car accident (skull fracture, broken arms, hands, legs). It must have been him while I was at
work. Darn! Could we forget this incident? I'll explain what happened in my profile instead. 
I only cheated in games against computers. I never did it against human opponents. Really! You have to believe me!
I share my apartment with 2 other students: we also share the same account. Could have been either of them. I assure you: it's not me. Really!
This must be a mistake: I would never cheat. All my friends will tell you that. You can trust
me on this.
Ok, ok, I lied. I cheated in about 100 games. There. Happy now?
I'm here to play chess and this is what I do, you know. Take that (C) out of my handle, for God's sake!! I only cheated in 200 games or so. That's all!!
I recently bought a chess program and I only wanted to see how it would do against people within my rating range: I only used it in 100 games or so. No more: I swear!
Your admins are very wrong and absolutely incompetent: I reported *some handle* for comp-cheating. Not only they didn't catch him but now they're accusing me!! This is crazy!!
I'm a Christian and as God is my witness I solemnly swear that I never ever cheated. Never.
I'm a well respected *some profession* in *some city*. You can't just expose me like
that. I have friends who know me on this server!
How can YOU know that I use a chess program?? That is simply impossible to PROVE!!
Ok, ok, I cheated. Is there a way to fix all this? Just lemme have another account, delete
this one and I'll never cheat again. Scout's honor here. Ok? 
Hey! Just chill down a min.! Chess is just a game, right? And cheating isn't the end of the world! I only cheated in 100 games or so. No more. You're not going to (C) me for that? Are you? I'm not like other people who do it all the time. You should do something about these cheating liars.
I have AIDS and I'm dying. My doctor told me that I have only a few weeks to live, maybe 2
months. Please don't expose me! Please let me end my life with the rating I always dreamed to
have. Please 
I caught my son cheating one evening on *an ICS*. You know how kids are these days: sneaky
rascals but we love them . Anyway. I reprimanded him. He then showed me how he cheated. I just wanted to
see if that was possible. I borrowed my son's Christmas present - *commercial chess program* -
for a few nights and used it a few times on my account. Having known in advance that you guys
are so tough on cheaters, I would never have tested that here. Sorry. You are not going to (C)
me now, are you?
Your server is getting less and less friendly: I always give a good game to all the people I
play and no one is thanking me for these games. Not even a simple "tks". Game results
and ratings are not important: learning from your defeats and enjoying chess are the only things
that should matter. Now these people complaining are just sore losers and cry-babies: 
instead of
complaining and falsely accusing me of cheating, they should just try to learn from their own
losses. You're being manipulated here: I'm telling you the truth!
Damn it! REMOVE THAT (C) NOW OR I'LL SUE YOU !!
Are you kidding? (C) me? Just for a few dozens of insignificant games? LOL! You can't be serious! My god, you're out of your mind! Rating points are meaningless here! Besides, everyone else is cheating too! I've met many other cheaters, you know.
APOLOGIZE FOR WHAT??? I'm sure no one complained about me. No one was hurt while playing me! And I'm sure that all those who lost points to me because of my chess program got all their rating points back as we speak now! So just do a rating reset and I'll promise not to cheat again. And then everything will be perfect for everyone. This is FAIR. Oh! and btw, reset my "best" ratings too.
My brother and his family came to visit me last week. His son is a pretty decent chess player: he
always beats me at this game . So, during that weekend, I let him use my account: he was curious and persistent.
I thought he was playing unrated games: that must be it. That would explain why my rating
increased of some 300 points. I hope my explanations are satisfactory here. Otherwise, I can't
help you.
mess *ICS admin* I just noticed a (C) by my handle. This must be a serious mistake. I'm a
well respected member here. I volunteered my time for this server as a TD in the past. I
hope we can discuss this matter and that this (C) be removed asap. Thank you.
As you can see in my notes, I run a chess software store in *a city*, *a country*. Many of my customers often ask questions about the ratings these chess softwares could achieve against humans on *an ICS*, *an ICS*, etc... SSDF rating lists are nice but they don't give a clue, not even a rough idea, of the ratings these programs can achieve against humans. Since I had no info about this, I decided to use them on my account. You see, it was either that or taking the risks of losing sales all the time. I hope you understand.
I'LL (C) YOU IN COURT, ASSHOLE ! 
