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Nasa Says Metals Fraud Caused $700M Satellite Failure

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Re: Nasa Says Metals Fraud Caused $700M Satellite Failure

#171

Post by ddingus »

toss1 wrote: post #159
CharlesColeman wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We need to build with high-quality American fakes, not high-quality Chinese fakes! It's entirely possible that American manufacturers are forced to compromise quality like that due to the competitive pressure of low-cost Chinese fakes.

Mo question, Chinese fakes and theft are an enormous problem, and I'll be among the first to speak against it. However, no one was forced to compromise quality. One can always step away from that business or project, stating that if they cannot do it right (or cannot do it right at the demanded cost structure), they will not do it. I've stepped away from deals for the same reason -- I'm not going to compromise qualit…

Definitely.

And when one knows it won't work?

Say that, say why, decline and cite cost to make it a success exceeds client expectations and or ability to pay.

When they do it on the cheap, fail hard, know that cost exceeds just doing the right work with the right materials every time.

When they come back, quote them with confidence.

Re: Nasa Says Metals Fraud Caused $700M Satellite Failure

#172

Post by munk-a »

gnode wrote: post #133
abakker wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>because it isn't a human. This is especially interesting in the context of corporate personhood[1]. You can't send a corporation to jail, but you can disband it entirely, or prevent it from operating. A lot of the practical solutions try to leave badly behaving company operating, though, since if we shut them down there is a lot of collateral damage in the form of lost productivity in the economy and lost jobs. IANA…

> As I understand it, if a company actually goes to trial and is convicted, they are not allowed to operate anymore, hence the plea deals and fines. This isn't true (a counterexample: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/pge-found-guilty-obstru... ). The reason for plea deals is that neither prosecutors nor defendants typically want to go to court and have a jury trial with an essentially random high-stakes outcome.…

I am quite a bit more cynical and see these DPAs as a way for the corporation to be absolved of the nebulous liability that comes from "We did bad stuff, we're still waiting to see if anyone notices" with a slap on the wrists. A DPA seems like literally the closest you can get to pardoning without actually slapping the corporation on the back and publicly saying "Good job buddy, do some more of that"

A measure of how unjust our culture is is whether crimes that violate these DPAs go unpunished or not... compared to first time drug offenders that get decades behind bars for possession.

Re: Nasa Says Metals Fraud Caused $700M Satellite Failure

#173

Post by elliekelly »

fencepost wrote: post #158
elliekelly wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As I understand it, if a company actually goes to trial and is convicted, they are not allowed to operate anymore, hence the plea deals and fines. You know, I am a lawyer (a corporate one who freelances as a white collar crime journalist at that!) and I don't even know how this would work. I can't even think of a single criminal case against a corporation that I've reported on that went to trial. It just doesn't re…

you can't charge a "person" with a crime if that "person" isn't there to defend themselves Individuals charged with crimes are defended by attorneys without visibly participating in their criminal trials all the time. I can't imagine a criminal conviction of a corporation would dissolve the entity. No need to dissolve it, simply place it under the same kind of restrictions that someone in prison is placed under - no…

> Individuals charged with crimes are defended by attorneys without visibly participating in their criminal trials all the time.

Lack of visible participation is far from lack of participation. In the US due process requires the defendant's presence to commence a criminal trial. Once charges have been brought the defendant has a right (that can in some circumstances be waived) to attend and participate in every stage of the trail. Barring a few narrow circumstances[1] once proceedings have commenced a criminal trial in absentia is unconstitutional.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_in_absentia#United_State...

Re: Nasa Says Metals Fraud Caused $700M Satellite Failure

#174

Post by munk-a »

closeparen wrote: post #119
derefr wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theoretically you could sentence a corporation to community service. I.e., forcibly rewrite its charter into that of a social benefit corporation, where the social-benefit goals are “doing whatever the government says.” Sort of half-way between commandeering a resource and nationalizing a corporation.

Staff are at-will. The only thing a government really gets from that is the corporation’s assets, which it would rather have in cash than in i.e. durable equipment. Hence fines.

The problem lately, though, is that the government has been really conservative at metting out an appropriate amount of fines. Human beings are regularly deprived of decades of their lives for silly stuff like possession - if a corporation is forced to pay more than a quarter's profits everyone gets up in arms.

So I agree that a collection of liquid assets is more reasonable, but it the volume is an issue.

Re: Nasa Says Metals Fraud Caused $700M Satellite Failure

#175

Post by vkou »

abakker wrote: post #99
gnode wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it’s shocking nobody is going to jail in relation to a fraud guilty plea. They are though. From the justice.gov article: "Dennis Balius, the SPI testing lab supervisor, led a scheme to alter tests within SPI’s computerized systems and provide false certifications with the altered results to customers. Balius also instructed employees to violate other testing standards, such as increasing the speed of the testing ma…

>because it isn't a human. This is especially interesting in the context of corporate personhood[1]. You can't send a corporation to jail, but you can disband it entirely, or prevent it from operating. A lot of the practical solutions try to leave badly behaving company operating, though, since if we shut them down there is a lot of collateral damage in the form of lost productivity in the economy and lost jobs. IANA…

> A lot of the practical solutions try to leave badly behaving company operating, though, since if we shut them down there is a lot of collateral damage in the form of lost productivity in the economy and lost jobs.

There's a lot of collateral damage with sending the family's breadearner, or a mother, or a father to jail, but we do it anyways.

Re: Nasa Says Metals Fraud Caused $700M Satellite Failure

#176

Post by godzillabrennus »

nerdponx wrote: post #132
godzillabrennus wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if you don’t know that your actions are illegal? Who could reasonably do a job as an employee if they didn’t have that liability shield? The justice system is broken enough in the USA (unless you are rich) that I can’t imagine introducing more issues.

What if you don’t know that your actions are illegal? Who could reasonably do a job as an employee if they didn’t have that liability shield? This isn't an excuse for private citizens, so why should it be an excuse as an employee? That said, we should propagate responsibility as high as possible. If you are a rank-and-file employee and your manager is asking you to do something illegal, unless you have enough profess…

Private citizens are employees. Employees have agreed to exchange their labor to another party that intends to profit from it. Why should the labor face the liability when ultimately it is the company that interfaces with the public and profits from their efforts?

Re: Nasa Says Metals Fraud Caused $700M Satellite Failure

#177

Post by mikeash »

cr0sh wrote: post #149
TallGuyShort wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the kind of crowd you end up running with if you do things like trying marijuana in college. edit: Real question, though. I'm often called to report for jury duty but have yet to actually sit on a jury. My understanding is the jury is explicitly charged to reach a "guilty of accusation" or "not guilty" decision. And sentencing is a whole separate phase of the trial in which the jury is not involved. I'm sure t…

> am I missing something about how you were asked as a juror to consider that sentence? It was probably asked during the "voir dire" phase; that's where if you actually perform jury duty and have to go down to the court, your group might be called in to sit for "voir dire", where the lawyers for each side (prosecution and defendant) ask each potential jury member certain questions regarding the case. The questions ar…

Your guess is correct, it was during the jury questions before the trial began. They mostly asked us stuff like whether we had anything going on that would be problematic if the trial ran long. (This being the DC area, several people said yes and then, when asked about the nature of the problem, answered with a polite version of "I could tell you but then I'd have to kill you." The judge, having presumably heard this a thousand times before, took it in stride.)

At one point, they asked if we would be able to consider the full range of punishment during sentencing. Naturally, we asked what that range was, and both lawyers and the judge all had to confer to decide whether or not we were allowed to know. (Apparently that question was new to them. Weird.) They finally decided we were allowed to know, and the answer was up to 20 years in prison. At that point I stated that I could not possibly consider 20 years in prison for the crime of receiving stolen property. I was subsequently cut from the jury, probably because of that, although of course they didn't say why.

Incidentally, one of the guys who had important classified stuff going on at work that would pose a big problem if the trial ran long ended up serving on the jury. I hope for his sake that it didn't actually run long.

Re: Nasa Says Metals Fraud Caused $700M Satellite Failure

#178

Post by nimbius »

this kind of fraud is absolutely rampant in the automotive industry for example.

Speaking from experience as an engine mechanic, Ive had to replace transmission parts for a certain well-known japanese SUV maker. They also make a "luxury" version of this SUV with more horsepower and a turbocharger setup. The transmissions however are virtually identical with a very major exception: the M5PVL transmission gear for the luxury SUV has 15% more nickel than the non-luxury. These parts are not interchangeable, but shadier parts dealers will often interchange them. placing the regular gear in the luxury SUV has life-threatening consequences, and this has been documented in recall data from the manufacturer.

under turbo-load, once the gear is engaged, it basically explodes. These failures often exit the transmission case, breach the cockpit of the vehicle and wound the occupants.

Re: Nasa Says Metals Fraud Caused $700M Satellite Failure

#179

Post by nwallin »

naringas wrote: post #13

the best thing is how the "company" (or corporation) is to blame. so none of the actual individual humans who did this is at fault here. at worst they would be fired and go to work somewhere else. which is compeletely fine. and with a fine like that, this is just a "cost of doing business" for the corporation. maybe one day terribly criminal corporations should be forcefully disbanded as punishment.

> so none of the actual individual humans who did this is at fault here. at worst they would be fired and go to work somewhere else.

From the actual criminal complaint:

> Dennis Balius, the SPI testing lab supervisor, led a scheme to alter tests within SPI’s computerized systems and provide false certifications with the altered results to customers. Balius also instructed employees to violate other testing standards, such as increasing the speed of the testing machines or cutting samples in a manner that did not meet the required specifications. Balius pleaded guilty in July 2017 and was sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to pay over $170,000 in restitution.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/aluminum-extrusion-manufactur...

Re: Nasa Says Metals Fraud Caused $700M Satellite Failure

#180

Post by Kenji »

nimbius wrote: post #178

this kind of fraud is absolutely rampant in the automotive industry for example. Speaking from experience as an engine mechanic, Ive had to replace transmission parts for a certain well-known japanese SUV maker. They also make a "luxury" version of this SUV with more horsepower and a turbocharger setup. The transmissions however are virtually identical with a very major exception: the M5PVL transmission gear for the…

Sounds like a design mistake. Use the 15% more nickel transmission gear everywhere or shield the transmission better.
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