Repertoire using engines

if you look at it during a game

1. Is having a Opening's data base up considered a chess engine? (Imo... Yes! That said, what's to prevent someone having a book open when playing a Rapid? I'm of the opinion both are happening all the time. ) 

2. Does having a data base up while you are playing set off any A.I. monitoring bots? (I'm willing to bet NOPE!.... but hopefully I'm wrong! ... I want to be wrong!)

3. Does using a VPN prevent the server's A.I. bots from detecting engine usage? (Yep!!!! )

4. Does Chess.com block the usage of VPN's? (Unknown....??? I don't use a VPN, or a data base, nor have a book anywhere near me when playing. I willing to bet... Chess.com does not prevent the use of VPN's... Please tell me I'm wrong!!! THAT WOULD GO A LONG WAY TO GETTING SOMEONE LIKE ME to start paying for this site.

Too many times on the internet I've see a post of this nature

" I'm 2000+elo here at XYZchess.com I just participated in my first OTB tournament and got beat by a 1000 elo class D player?  (always curious so I look up their stats & to my disappointment Yep... they are 2000+ ) Clueless they just ousted themselves as a cheater... makes sense though... showed their mentality, i.e. that they actually believed they were actually class A or better (while on the silicone sauce)

Hence I take internet rating with a grain of salt... (obviously I don't buy into less than 3% are cheating... heck, 1 out of 6 cheat on their taxes...

Yeah I dont look at it during the game.

My repertoire is currently around 5 to 7 moves per branch. New branches spawn each day as I play with people online.

After each game, I check the game analyzer, which is an engine, to see improvements in my play. Say, in a game I played d5 as Black and I lost. game analyzer does not see d5 as a mistake. Got another app checked on it and yes stockfish agrees it is not a mistake. My idea to improve is simply castle but it's not even in stockfish top 3 moves.

I feel heavy feelings in your response. I share the same thought on cheaters. OTB rating is still the better measure of strength.

Well, no, its not cheating if you build your repertoire with an engine and then memorize this repertoire and use said memorized knowledge during games. Its what GMs do all the time, really, analyze stuff with machines to improve their play.

However if you use nothing but engines to build said repertoire, the problem might be that engines love to consider positions "equal" that are actually very hard to play for human beings, and literally require to learn machine moves by heart that violate all human intuition in order to actually navigate them.

You can hear that mentioned a lot if you for example watch GM Hikaru Nakamura playing rapid or faster. He always wants a position for himself that is easy to play, with obvious plans, while making the play for the opponent as complex and troublesome as possible.

Computers have no concept of this "human" factor and if you build your repertoire with engines, it will not occur either.

I think that "human factor" is what made me post this in the first place. Thanks for bringing it up.