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A year of digging through code yields “smoking gun” on VW, Fiat diesel cheats

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Re: A year of digging through code yields “smoking gun” on VW, Fiat diesel cheats

#51

Post by srdeveng »

mabbo wrote: post #9

While I certainly don't support the 'rogue engineer' excuse that VW originally gave everyone, the idea does bring up an interesting point. An engineer did write this code. Almost certainly, many of them, working together. Now, their managers told them it was okay to do this, maybe that legal had given the go-ahead or that they had to do it to keep their jobs... But it's still pretty clear that this was not right. The…

> In my opinion (and I welcome disagreement and debate) engineers have an obligation to say 'no' to wiring unethical code.

And, IMO, yours is absolutely the correct one.

As engineers, we are in a unique position to understand the intricacies and associated risk to any one of our functional requirements we satisfy. True, we are under marching orders from a PM who may (or may not) have provided adequate backstory to understand the goals of the company, but it's our duty to express any concern of risk it may present to the company or society.

When verbal warnings don't work, go ahead and put it in writing.

In the US, part of my engineering curriculum included courses on engineering ethics case studies to drive this point home.

I've written exactly 2 of these letters in my 10yr professional career. On both, the PM sharply changed course, demonstrating their knowledge of failure of the ethical litmus. Putting written responsibility upon them to act encouraged further discussion and ultimately a better resolution for all.

Re: A year of digging through code yields “smoking gun” on VW, Fiat diesel cheats

#52

Post by briandear »

bosie wrote: post #15
mabbo wrote: post #9

While I certainly don't support the 'rogue engineer' excuse that VW originally gave everyone, the idea does bring up an interesting point. An engineer did write this code. Almost certainly, many of them, working together. Now, their managers told them it was okay to do this, maybe that legal had given the go-ahead or that they had to do it to keep their jobs... But it's still pretty clear that this was not right. The…

How do you know engineers were involved in writing the software? If there were engineers involved they should have said something if it does endanger the public. After all, it is in their responsibility/regulation to uphold the safety of the public.

Did it actually endanger the public? A silly question, however, what was the actual measurable consequence of this cheat? Did air quality become measurably worse during the period of this? Was anyone actually and measurably endangered?

An older car on the road puts off more emissions than the modified VWs, yet older cars are still allowed on the roads.

Laws should be followed, so I am not excusing the behavior, but making it sound like the safety of the public was materially compromised is a bit of a stretch.

Re: A year of digging through code yields “smoking gun” on VW, Fiat diesel cheats

#53

Post by pbasista »

mikeash wrote: post #36
ma2rten wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I was an evil VP, I would give my eningeers the incentive to do something without giving them a direct order. So, you might tell them: If you can improve gas millage by X% you get a huge bonus and I don't care how you do it.

This is how modern companies break the rules. Management doesn't break the rules, either overtly or covertly. Management scrupulously follows the rules, while placing requirements on their workers that can only be met by breaking the rules. Want your workers to work more, but you don't want to pay overtime, or you run into trouble with regulations about consecutive hours on the job? Just bump up how much work they ha…

You have made some very strong points - thanks for summarizing it together.

I would like to ask: What do you think should an ordinary employee do when they see a behavior like you describe from their management? How to efficiently protect themselves (and their colleagues) from this kind of treatment?

Re: A year of digging through code yields “smoking gun” on VW, Fiat diesel cheats

#54

Post by briandear »

hartator wrote: post #41
mabbo wrote: post #9

While I certainly don't support the 'rogue engineer' excuse that VW originally gave everyone, the idea does bring up an interesting point. An engineer did write this code. Almost certainly, many of them, working together. Now, their managers told them it was okay to do this, maybe that legal had given the go-ahead or that they had to do it to keep their jobs... But it's still pretty clear that this was not right. The…

Don't forget this exact same company literally made weapons for the nazis. Lying on emissions seems nothing.

IBM made computers for the Nazis too; are we going to hold today's IBM culpable for the Nazis?

Re: A year of digging through code yields “smoking gun” on VW, Fiat diesel cheats

#55

Post by LoSboccacc »

bambax wrote: post #48

> In 2015, regulators realized that diesel Volkswagens and Audis were emitting several times the legal limit of nitrogen oxides (NOx) during real-world driving tests. But one problem regulators confronted was that they couldn’t point to specific code that allowed the cars to do this. They could prove the symptom (high emissions on the road), but they didn’t have concrete evidence of the cause (code that circumvented…

the problem is the wording on the emission regulation, you need to respect the limits during the testing cycle and you can't have defetaing measures to cheat - if something it's not intentional, it's a gray area.

a piece of code which purpose is specifically defeating the testing cycle instead, run directly afoul of the regulations, no arguing against multibillionaire company needed.

Re: A year of digging through code yields “smoking gun” on VW, Fiat diesel cheats

#56

Post by majewsky »

bambax wrote: post #48

> In 2015, regulators realized that diesel Volkswagens and Audis were emitting several times the legal limit of nitrogen oxides (NOx) during real-world driving tests. But one problem regulators confronted was that they couldn’t point to specific code that allowed the cars to do this. They could prove the symptom (high emissions on the road), but they didn’t have concrete evidence of the cause (code that circumvented…

> Why would regulators do this in a lab? It's like health inspections that would ask restaurants to send food to be tested, instead of showing up anytime, unannounced.

Because the law on how regulators work was written by the auto lobby. (At least, that's how it is in the EU. Don't know about the US.)

Re: A year of digging through code yields “smoking gun” on VW, Fiat diesel cheats

#57

Post by qbrass »

parennoob wrote: post #10

> In 2015, regulators realized that diesel Volkswagens and Audis were emitting several times the legal limit of nitrogen oxides (NOx) during real-world driving tests. This means that they can detect emissions levels during real world driving tests. What's wrong with just making those tests the actual regulatory ones? So whatever ingenuity automakers can use will be put to minimizing emissions in the exact same scenar…

>What's wrong with just making those tests the actual regulatory ones?

It's easier for automakers to throw resources at lobbying.

Re: A year of digging through code yields “smoking gun” on VW, Fiat diesel cheats

#58

Post by majewsky »

nisa wrote: post #30
parennoob wrote: post #10

> In 2015, regulators realized that diesel Volkswagens and Audis were emitting several times the legal limit of nitrogen oxides (NOx) during real-world driving tests. This means that they can detect emissions levels during real world driving tests. What's wrong with just making those tests the actual regulatory ones? So whatever ingenuity automakers can use will be put to minimizing emissions in the exact same scenar…

> What's wrong with just making those tests the actual regulatory ones? Nothing. But Germany has a strong position in the EU and to a large degree does what VW/BMW/Mercedes want and they wanted to avoid stronger or better tests. This topic is quite often in the news here and it's clear that there is no political will to establish real word tests. There are also a lot of other cheats in this firmware: - Below 14°C? Ju…

> Below 14°C? [...] in the winter

It doesn't take winter for temperatures to drop below 14 °C (57.2 °F). The morning commute takes place between 6 and 9 AM. Even in the summer, temperatures are probably below 14 °C more often than above it at these times.

Re: A year of digging through code yields “smoking gun” on VW, Fiat diesel cheats

#59

Post by throwaway79790 »

mabbo wrote: post #9

While I certainly don't support the 'rogue engineer' excuse that VW originally gave everyone, the idea does bring up an interesting point. An engineer did write this code. Almost certainly, many of them, working together. Now, their managers told them it was okay to do this, maybe that legal had given the go-ahead or that they had to do it to keep their jobs... But it's still pretty clear that this was not right. The…

The problem is that nobody wrote a specific defeat device. You have to understand, Bosch has one basic (extremely complex) piece of software that goes in pretty much every single engine controller. There are some specific functions that are developed at the request of specific customers, but the basics are always the same.

When this general piece of software is set up to control a new engine from an OEM, a multi-year process of calibration starts. The engine starts of failing the emissions tests drastically and over time the calibration engineers tweak tens of thousands of parameters to try to get the emissions to be legally compliant.

This is not an easy process and the calibration engineers have a target, they have to get the vehicle certified for a certain emission class, which in turn is determined by the FTP-75 driving cycle. The news keeps talking about "defeat devices" because the law says that they are not allowed, but reality is much messier. There is nobody sitting there thinking about how to make crazy obfuscated defeat devices, rather there are a bunch of people trying to figure out how to pass the extremely demanding emissions requirement tests without any defeat devices.

Re: A year of digging through code yields “smoking gun” on VW, Fiat diesel cheats

#60

Post by Fiahil »

mabbo wrote: post #9

While I certainly don't support the 'rogue engineer' excuse that VW originally gave everyone, the idea does bring up an interesting point. An engineer did write this code. Almost certainly, many of them, working together. Now, their managers told them it was okay to do this, maybe that legal had given the go-ahead or that they had to do it to keep their jobs... But it's still pretty clear that this was not right. The…

While engineers may have an obligation to public safety in other fields, this is, strangely, not the case when writing software that ends up in automobiles.

If we had a good way to blow the whistle, without ending in jail, we would see less unethical code being written and less shit storms from greedy companies.

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