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Elon Musk emails employees about 'extensive and damaging sabotage' by employee

cnbc.com

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Re: Elon Musk emails employees about 'extensive and damaging sabotage' by employee

#21
post #16

> This included making direct code changes to the Tesla Manufacturing Operating System under false usernames and exporting large amounts of highly sensitive Tesla data to unknown third parties. How do "false usernames" work in a modern development environment where all commits are tied to a single real-world user?

With a vanilla git configuration, it's as easy as: $ vi centrifuge_rpm_controller.cc $ git commit --author "Bob Goodguy " -a -m "Totally harmless changes" $ git push In a high-stakes environment, it's probably worth signing commits. https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Tools-Signing-Your-Work

My company only allows authenticated users to commit changes. Even pull requests on our public repos get scanned and reviewed before human review. And pull requests are infrequent enough that unknown users usually involve some interaction.

It seems like if an organization is allowing randos to push changes, they would also allow randos with valid pgp to push changes as well. So the investigation would change to “Who the fudge is B8956DBFEE7C105C?” instead of “Who the fudge is Bob Goodguy?”

Re: Elon Musk emails employees about 'extensive and damaging sabotage' by employee

#22

I concede it's possible that saboteurs are operating within Tesla, but lashing out at invisible enemies sends a strong "crazy" signal. Elon has been sending a lot of crazy signals lately...

> "NEXT!! NEXT QUESTION!! This question is boring. No more boring questions. No more questions based on facts or analysis of Tesla. Please focus all questions on space travel, the mars colony, big data, SpaceX, with leading questions to imply a merger with SpaceX. If you dont have futuristic questions that defer reality, at least ask questions that let me assure you that I took physics in college and can now ignore basic battery physics in my press releases and stock promotion scam. Now someone pass the cocaine so I can make it through this call. Where’s that kid from YouTube with the fun questions??"

[ insert "everything is fine" meme ]

Re: Elon Musk emails employees about 'extensive and damaging sabotage' by employee

#23
Sounds like all the bad decisions about who to hire (low cost, inexperienced workers) and who to fire (higher cost, experienced workers), how long to force people to work, overuse of automation, etc., has caught up with Tesla. And now Musk wants to externalize it so Tesla doesn't look bad and loose _even_ more orders of the model 3.

Re: Elon Musk emails employees about 'extensive and damaging sabotage' by employee

#25
post #8

At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, perhaps a short-seller paid an employee to sabotage. It is not out of the realm of possibility, especially since $TSLA is at a whopping 33% float short.

Not that anyone cares or asked what I think but I wouldn't be surprised if Elon ends up surpassing Crazie Eddie Antar [0] as far as fraud goes. (I have no idea whether he is a fraud. He just strikes me as likely a fraud.) [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_Eddie

Let me guess, you have never driven a Tesla, have you?

Re: Elon Musk emails employees about 'extensive and damaging sabotage' by employee

#26

Sounds like all the bad decisions about who to hire (low cost, inexperienced workers) and who to fire (higher cost, experienced workers), how long to force people to work, overuse of automation, etc., has caught up with Tesla. And now Musk wants to externalize it so Tesla doesn't look bad and loose _even_ more orders of the model 3.

I think you just have a lot of pot shots to take against Tesla (most of which seem to have no precedent??), and want to project them onto this situation. This story relates to an internal email Musk sent around, telling staff to speak up about suspicious behaviour. It's not like he brought this to a shareholders meeting.

Re: Elon Musk emails employees about 'extensive and damaging sabotage' by employee

#28
post #21
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With a vanilla git configuration, it's as easy as: $ vi centrifuge_rpm_controller.cc $ git commit --author "Bob Goodguy " -a -m "Totally harmless changes" $ git push In a high-stakes environment, it's probably worth signing commits. https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Tools-Signing-Your-Work

My company only allows authenticated users to commit changes. Even pull requests on our public repos get scanned and reviewed before human review. And pull requests are infrequent enough that unknown users usually involve some interaction. It seems like if an organization is allowing randos to push changes, they would also allow randos with valid pgp to push changes as well. So the investigation would change to “Who…

What you might not realise is that the author of a commit is not related to the (authenticated) user who pushes.

You couldn’t merge changes from multiple people otherwise.

Signed commits do fix this although you have to be careful about your threat model. Lots of software (e.g. gitlab) will prevent alice from pretending to be bob but will not protect you against server compromise (because public key directory and signing enforcement are done on the server).

Working at an org which does signed commits, it doesn’t buy us quite as much as we would like.

Also, if you enforce signing you can’t mash a server-side “merge” button anymore because that commit would need to be signed...

This complicates the pr/mr workflow for teams and increases resistance from those who don’t see the value in signing.

Re: Elon Musk emails employees about 'extensive and damaging sabotage' by employee

#29
Ahh, the little man again. The little man has been giving Elon and Tesla problems for a long time.

Early on Musk thought Henry Fisker, who led the design on the Model S then left to start his own EV company was the little man, so he launched a lawsuit against him, but it turned out Henry wasn't the little man, and the lawsuit was meritless.

The little man talked Musk into building falcon wing doors into the Model X, and it wasn't until production had been delayed by many months fussing with those stupid doors that Musk realized he had been tricked by the little man.

Who put the little man up to this? Was it the Koch Brothers? No one knows for sure.

The little man talked Elon into putting expensive autonomous driving hardware into every new Tesla, even though the software hadn't been made yet, and most Tesla buyers weren't willing to pay for it. Don't worry, said the little man, Tesla's will be driving autonomously coast to coast by christmas 2017, and Tesla will be the greatest most futuristic company ever. But Christmas 2017 came and went and Autopilot still sucked. Damn that little man!

The little Man must be Sterling Anderson, the director of Autopilot left the company right after launching HW2, and cofounded Aurora Innovation. Musk was sure Sterling was the little man, so he launched a lawsuit against Aurora, but alas, it turned out the Little man was not Sterling Anderson, and the lawsuit was meritless.

And then there was the time the little man tricked Elon into spending $2.6 billion worth of money Tesla didn't really have on a failing, debt ridden solar panel company. Oh you little man!

The little man one night snuck into the hot tub with Elon and filled his head with visions of a highly automated production line, that the little man dubbed 'The Alien Dreadnought'. The Robots will move so fast you won't even be able to see them, said the little man. Model 3s will shoot off the assembly line like bullets out of gatling gun. Buy Grohman Engineering, said the little man. So Elon did. And many hundreds of millions of dollar later when the Alien dreadnought failed miserably, Musk realized once again he had been tricked by the little man, and all the robots had to be ripped out. Musk is determined, though. Now he has parts of the Model 3 assembly line set up in a tent in the parking lot. Elon will make it happen, even if he has to live on the factory floor. You shall not defeat me, little man!

But it bothers him every night, that little man, who put him up to this? Is it the Tesla shorts? are they the ones who put the little man up to this? Was it May Mcormack? The little man has been out there, corralling the NTSB, the NLRB, the Media, financial analysts, Moody's and the UAW all to conspire against Tesla. Now the little man is setting the paint shop on fire and changing code. I'll get you if it's the last thing I do, little man!

Re: Elon Musk emails employees about 'extensive and damaging sabotage' by employee

#30
post #29

Ahh, the little man again. The little man has been giving Elon and Tesla problems for a long time. Early on Musk thought Henry Fisker, who led the design on the Model S then left to start his own EV company was the little man, so he launched a lawsuit against him, but it turned out Henry wasn't the little man, and the lawsuit was meritless. The little man talked Musk into building falcon wing doors into the Model X,…

As I was going up the stair

I met a man who wasn't there!

He wasn't there again today,

Oh how I wish he'd go away!

When I came home last night at three,

The man was waiting there for me

But when I looked around the hall,

I couldn't see him there at all!

Go away, go away, don't you come back any more!

Go away, go away, and please don't slam the door...

Last night I saw upon the stair,

A little man who wasn't there,

He wasn't there again today

Oh, how I wish he'd go away...

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