Is it acceptable for software to lie (like in the ESP Game say)?

One might imagine having a service lie to, for example, make it look more busy (so as to attract more users) and/or to detect cheating. Is this a reasonable thing to do? See for example how the ESP game lies: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~biglou/ESP.pdf. In particular, take a look at the sections on Pre-Recorded Game Play and Cheating.