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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

#81

Post by unityByFreedom »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #63
nickodell wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say that this argues for the opposite - making firmware closed source and as hard to reverse engineer as possible. Let's say that the software is open source, and you can buy your own microcontroller and turn it into an ECU. There will be people who make their own modifications to it to improve performance. Some of those modifications make the car fail an emissions test, so they make it so that the car acts l…

What you describe already happens in the extremely-closed-source world of today. For most cars you can buy an ECU remap that can be switched from tuned to standard by the flick of a switch. An ECU is not actually that complicated. It reads a few tens of inputs (temperatures, air mass flow, lambda sensors, crank position, etc.), and controls a few tens of actuators (throttle body, fuel injectors, spark plugs, maybe va…

Crap. There will be more programmers in the future who will write defeat code for fun while learning, or pursue it as a business. That's obviously not great for the environment.

Does anyone else feel our current government is not prepared to handle the changes pervasive software will create in the future?

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

#82

Post by metafunctor »

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…

This kind of thing seems to be especially rampant in the auto industry. It's probably the result of a powerful lobby and widespread corruption.

When tires are tested, apparently the manufacturers are asked to send in the tires to be used in the tests. Why on earth would a tire testing entity do that, unless they are receiving bribes from the tire manufacturers? [1]

[1]: http://www.autoblog.com/2016/02/26/nokian-tire-test-cheat-re...

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

#83

Post by nisa »

majewsky wrote: post #58
nisa wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Indeed the Umweltbundesamt PDF (see my other comment) states that it's at least 50% of the time the case! 50%!

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

#84

Post by lmitchell »

Sunset wrote: post #49
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. I respectfully disagree. Engineers have an obligation to do whatever is asked of them by management. If that means building nuke-hand-grenades so be it. Being an engineer( be it software or mechanics ) should be a morally neutral thing. Do the job and keep your morals out of it. This is the only w…

'Once the rockets go up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department! says Wernher Von Braun.' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTKn1aSOyOs

I really really really strongly disagree with this. As the ones who are most knowledgable about the systems they're building, I definitely think engineers have a moral responsibility to make sure they're at the very least following applicable laws and regulations - I would argue that we have a moral responsibility to act ethically even in cases where it's not covered by laws or regulations, but I'll admit that's a bit more controversial.

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

#85

Post by kadavero »

majewsky wrote: post #56
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.)

Funny you should mention the lobby. The US auto lobby was the reason the US NOx diesel emission requirements are more stringent than EU in the first place, specifically disadvantaging European diesel cars (which are much cleaner overall).

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

#86

Post by kadavero »

lb1lf wrote: post #32
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…

-One problem with that approach is that it would make testing for compliance much, much more expensive. One thing would be all the equipment and manpower every test facility would need to invest in (as DonHopkins points out below) - but also, in order to gain initial approval, you couldn't just rely on one or even a few random drives - in order for the numbers to make any sense, you'd need a large sample size - lots…

So in order to get a model on the market, you need to first get in on the market, right?

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

#87

Post by PhasmaFelis »

edejong wrote: post #65

An interesting twist to this would be to change liability. Make the driver liable (not the manufacturer) for driving a car breaking the emission standards. This will set in motion the following steps: - Car users will be offered insurance against breaking emission standards - Insurance companies will hire specialists to lower insurance rates of above insurance - Consumers are disincentivized to modify their ECU in a…

> I'm a firm believer in: you buy it, then you're responsible for ascertaining its safety. If you can't do this, hire someone to do it for you.

This seems like one of those plans that goes

1. Deregulate everything

2. ...

3. All irresponsible companies go out of business when intelligent consumers patronize responsible ones instead

Skipping over the "decades of death/disruption" in step 2, and being awfully optimistic about consumer intelligence in step 3.

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

#88

Post by wmil »

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 standards are very tight. If they aren't well defined and tested in a controlled environment it'd be basically impossible for manufacturers to know if their cars will pass or fail.

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

#89

Post by gruturo »

throwaway79790 wrote: post #59
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…

This. A thousand times this.

They didn't write a defeat device to "fake" emissions, they wrote legitimate code aiming to make the car truly compliant with the requirements.

Then someone made this code not the default and, except when the car is under testing, loaded an alternate mapping of some key parameters which is more tuned for performance and mileage, at the expense of emissions. This is the criminal part, not the first.

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

#90

Post by Sunset »

lmitchell wrote: post #84
Sunset wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In my opinion (and I welcome disagreement and debate) engineers have an obligation to say 'no' to wiring unethical code. I respectfully disagree. Engineers have an obligation to do whatever is asked of them by management. If that means building nuke-hand-grenades so be it. Being an engineer( be it software or mechanics ) should be a morally neutral thing. Do the job and keep your morals out of it. This is the only w…

'Once the rockets go up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department! says Wernher Von Braun.' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTKn1aSOyOs I really really really strongly disagree with this. As the ones who are most knowledgable about the systems they're building, I definitely think engineers have a moral responsibility to make sure they're at the very least following applicable laws and regulations - I…

The problem with "moral obligations" is a person's moral axioms are fundamentally arbitrary. Would you still want engineers to be guided by their moral convictions when you fundamentally disagree with them yourself?
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