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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

#111

Post by javajosh »

vinceguidry wrote: post #98
unityByFreedom wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only heroes put the good of the many over their own needs, and you can't expect everyone to be a hero. > ... > it will never happen while the idea of a guild / union for software engineers is still anathema. Sounds like you're waiting for a union and that's the only solution. In the interim, we can and should encourage people to be heroes. Let's face it, there are other programming jobs out there. Do you truly need…

I'm not waiting for anything. I'm simply recognizing that "encouraging" engineers to be heroes is the lazy way out and is not a real solution to anything. This is a political problem, it can only be met by an appropriately collective effort. > Let's face it, there are other programming jobs out there. OK, let's run with that for a moment. Where else would you have expected the VW whistleblowers to get jobs? Not every…

Maybe, maybe not. This is speculation, unless you've done a study to sample a statistically significant portion of the population. I agree, your speculation sounds reasonable. But neither of us knows, and both of us have certain biases that this speculation confirms - and therefore it should be mistrusted until confirmed.

Frankly, I think there is a bigger problem than job security itself. It's that the whistle will be ignored by the general population. Even if you are willing to sacrifice to do what is right, it may not matter because no-one wants to believe, or the spin is so good that no-one believes it anyway.

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

#112

Post by __david__ »

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 I agree with you, it's a real easy thing to say and a much harder thing to actually do. Having been in a similar situation myself (not quite as drastic—no lives were in danger and no laws were broken), we (the engineers) argued vehemently with the CEO (there may have been yelling involved), but eventually capitulated with a "ok, but this is on your head" attitude.

Maybe if it were more important I would have fought harder. But I honestly don't know.

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

#113

Post by unityByFreedom »

bicubic wrote: post #102
unityByFreedom wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only heroes put the good of the many over their own needs, and you can't expect everyone to be a hero. > ... > it will never happen while the idea of a guild / union for software engineers is still anathema. Sounds like you're waiting for a union and that's the only solution. In the interim, we can and should encourage people to be heroes. Let's face it, there are other programming jobs out there. Do you truly need…

> In the interim, we can and should encourage people to be heroes. In reality it's just not black and white like that. I expect a lot of engineers aren't sure if they should be blowing the whistle about a particular thing. And they have no one to turn to for advice, especially not with the NDAs they will typically sign. So the position they'll find themselves is this: blow the whistle on a morally gray issue which ma…

> In reality it's just not black and white like that.

I made it clear in the last paragraph it isn't black and white. Everyone has their own situation. I can still support people to come out before they actually do it.

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

#114

Post by rangibaby »

mcguire wrote: post #93
vinceguidry wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this is that it localizes the consequences of defiance on the weakest part of the chain, all but guaranteeing failure. You can't even expect engineers to blow the whistle on their soon-to-be-former employer. Ethics is about protecting the weak from the strong, not offering up the weak to get eaten by the strong. Only heroes put the good of the many over their own needs, and you can't expect everyone…

A professional organization can only be strong, safe, and protecting if it has enough teeth to put moral obligations on workers. That seems unlikely.

Ford did that by paying his workers very well; imagine Foxconn paying their workers enough to buy iPhones! On the odd side he had a team of moral police who would show up at your home unannounced to make sure you were living like a good American.

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

#115

Post by andrei_says_ »

unityByFreedom wrote: post #73
vinceguidry wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this is that it localizes the consequences of defiance on the weakest part of the chain, all but guaranteeing failure. You can't even expect engineers to blow the whistle on their soon-to-be-former employer. Ethics is about protecting the weak from the strong, not offering up the weak to get eaten by the strong. Only heroes put the good of the many over their own needs, and you can't expect everyone…

> Only heroes put the good of the many over their own needs, and you can't expect everyone to be a hero. > ... > it will never happen while the idea of a guild / union for software engineers is still anathema. Sounds like you're waiting for a union and that's the only solution. In the interim, we can and should encourage people to be heroes. Let's face it, there are other programming jobs out there. Do you truly need…

Encourage as in create a fund for whistleblowers which would cover their legal and life expenses until they get hired again?

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

#116

Post by unityByFreedom »

andrei_says_ wrote: post #115
unityByFreedom wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only heroes put the good of the many over their own needs, and you can't expect everyone to be a hero. > ... > it will never happen while the idea of a guild / union for software engineers is still anathema. Sounds like you're waiting for a union and that's the only solution. In the interim, we can and should encourage people to be heroes. Let's face it, there are other programming jobs out there. Do you truly need…

Encourage as in create a fund for whistleblowers which would cover their legal and life expenses until they get hired again?

Sure, I think that's a great idea. Lots of ways to encourage.

Note there may be existing support groups for this such as the ACLU. I'm not exactly sure which non-profits employ a legal defense staff and cover tech issues.

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

#117

Post by unityByFreedom »

vinceguidry wrote: post #98
unityByFreedom wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only heroes put the good of the many over their own needs, and you can't expect everyone to be a hero. > ... > it will never happen while the idea of a guild / union for software engineers is still anathema. Sounds like you're waiting for a union and that's the only solution. In the interim, we can and should encourage people to be heroes. Let's face it, there are other programming jobs out there. Do you truly need…

I'm not waiting for anything. I'm simply recognizing that "encouraging" engineers to be heroes is the lazy way out and is not a real solution to anything. This is a political problem, it can only be met by an appropriately collective effort. > Let's face it, there are other programming jobs out there. OK, let's run with that for a moment. Where else would you have expected the VW whistleblowers to get jobs? Not every…

> I have wondered if a distributed whistleblowing network ala Wikileaks but focused on putting public pressure on the most egregious offenders would be a worthwhile thing to build.

Perhaps WikiLeaks could be rebuilt. But I think we should try to learn something from v. 1.0 which became politicized very quickly. I think the takeaway is you want someone who is very trusted within our community to run it. An entrepreneur with a good track record of being honest, and perhaps also has a law degree.

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

#118

Post by edejong »

crowbahr wrote: post #69
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…

Problem is that the US Government guarantees that vehicles sold here have met minimum safety requirements. The public relies on the government to have done that legwork. Beyond that you would immediately get into jargon and confusing packaging for insurance and vehicle emissions. I was just buying dental insurance and the 4 different plans provided by a single provider had 30+ different fields each of which was subtl…

Simple solutions: buy sensors to detect emissions or regularly check your car yourself. Spend money on experts, optionally working together with other owners of similar brand (community). Insist on buying models with open software.

The point is, regulation here is failing because it is not community led. We need to take matters in our own hands to understand the difficulties, simplify and source it back to the government, if needed.

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

#119

Post by jgaa »

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…

May be the code was written by Russian contractors? The ones that normally write bots for twitter to manipulate elections?

The sad truth is that many programmers have no ethics at all. If we all did, there would be no spam, no maleware, no Windows 10. (And no systemd!)

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

#120

Post by edejong »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #87
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…

I don't want to deregulate everything, especially not all security regulations on cars. What is needed is removing distance between regulators and users.

Would you rather buy a locked down laptop which is factory protected against viruses (with a known set of them) but no chance to modify nor understand the virus protection system. Or, choose for a regulating system that punishes those who help spread viruses because no scanner was installed?

The latter teaches the users more and keeps them closer to the product. It creates a market where more parties can enter and provide security advice.

Lastly, the 'stepping over death and destruction' is obviously a straw man. We have seen many deregulations that we in dire need and worked out well. It all depends on transparency and communication.

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