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How Did Volkswagen Cheat Emissions Tests, and Who Authorized It?
Lucas123 writes: The method by which Volkswagen diesel cars were able to thwart emissions tests and spew up to 40X the nitrogen oxide levels set by the Environmental Protection Agency was relatively simple. It was more likely no more than a single line of code used to detect when an emissions test was being performed and place the emissions system in an alternate mode — something as simple as a software "on/off" switch. Volkswagen AG CEO Martin Winterkorn, who stepping down as the result of his company's scandal, has said he had no knowledge of the emissions cheat, but software dev/test audit trails are almost certain to pinpoint who embedded the code and who authorized it. You can actually see who asked the developer to write that code," said Nikhil Kaul, a product manager at test/dev software maker SmartBear Software. "Then if you go upstream you can see who that person's boss was...and see if testing happened...and, if testing didn't happen. So you can go from the bottom up to nail everyone."
Correction: "You can nail everyone that's in the official audit trail."
The people at the top that authorized it (or at least didn't condemn it) probably never actually sent a traceable e-mail to anyone. Nor did they touch any code. Nor do they appear in any meeting minutes. These sorts of discussions tend to happen over a drink in a bar somewhere, and for good reason.
It's cute how he thinks no one thought about this and sanitized the audit trail. I'm sure he also thinks his 4096-bit disk encryption thwarts even the most determined ne'er-do-wells.
#DeleteChrome
On the other hand, the code could be in Java. Those programmers are so verbose, all you have to do is search for the cheatOnEmissionsWhileRunningEPATest() functions.
Support microSD: in a post 9/11 world, it is unwise to carry your data on media that you cannot comfortably swallow.
Supposedly the "cheat mode" is an extension of the "testing mode", where the car knows it is running on a Dyno because one set of wheels is turning at a high RPM and the other set are stationary. For a car with traction control this is normally a freakout event so they have to check for it and make sure not to go crazy just because the machine is strapped into a test harness. Once you have the otherwise required detection code in there, adding a single line to fully open the EGR valve when in that mode would be a piece of cake.
I read the internet for the articles.
Someone should have leaked this a looong time ago. Perhaps some dev, why not.
Hell it would have saved VW a lot of money! Think about recalling 1mln cars instead of 11mln!
Did VW really think it could get away with this indefinitely?
Fucking corporate morons...
Sometimes but not always. This cheated the test both with and without a computer. It was instead detecting when it was on a rolling road. Emissions tests are always done with the car stationary but the wheels moving, and that'll be what the software was detecting.
From the sound it of it wasn't actually putting the car into a special 'mode'. It was turning on all the measures to reduce emissions. When the car was on a real road it was turning them off to get better performance and fuel consumption at the expense of emissions. So it sounds like the car does technically meet the regulations, but ignores them when it's on the road. So expect the recall to turn them on at all times, which'll mean you don't need the car/engine replaced, but will mean you pay more at the pump and see your car's less nippy than it was before.
EPA Cheat Code: Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A
"Never give up, for that is just the time and place when the tide will change." -Harriet Beecher Stowe ^_^
It's been a while since I watched my car being tested but do they hook up the car to a computer terminal of some sort? Could those be used to trigger test mode?
The test mode was triggered by monitoring which wheels were turning, position of the steering wheel, etc.
Basically they wanted to avoid the cost of installing a urea injection system so they cheated instead. Honda engineers were reported to be perplexed about how they managed to do this miraculous feat of engineering.
Here's a good article about what is known so far:
http://www.msn.com/en-us/autos...
Or, "If they're cheating on this, what other things did they cheat on?"
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
According to news reports (BBC etc.) it used a combination of inputs. Steering wheel position, barometric pressure variation over time, rate of acceleration, speed, g sensor stability etc.
Also, to enable the cheat mode the engine would have had to load a different set of operating parameters. Those parameters must be stored somewhere, and doubtless constitute more than a single line of code.
Some thought must have gone into this fraud.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
The engineers who designed the engine - yes.
The engineers who coded the software for the engine computer? Why would they know what this does? The software is enabling a signal, hell the signal might even have a vague name, when a condition is met. The condition's name might not very clear.
Yes, a spec saying "when the car is undergoing a test then enabled the cheat mode to get past the test" would clearly implicate the developers.
But most likely it was: "when sig_x and sig_y and indicator_a are set, then set sig_Z to 1 in pattern P for n nanoseconds blah blah blah"
Someone knew what they were doing, and it probably went like this:
Engineer: We can't make this engine pass NOx tests.
Message goes up the chain to a certain decision making level, possibly the board. Marketing chimes in: We can't have this, we're already sending out teasers about our new urea-less engine technology, etc, etc.
Eventually a message comes down to fix it, in vague terms, entirely forgetting the original message that it's unfixable.
Engineers: struggle for ages.
In pub: Well, we could enable a special testing mode to pass the tests?
In work: Shall we do this -> up the chain. Original context is half forgotten. Approved.
Changes made. Software specs made. Timebomb implemented.
I worked for a Small software house that made SAP type ERP software before SAP ate the majority of the market. This was 1998 or so...
We had a customer come to us and ask for certain modifications. Then a few more. Then a few more.
Not unusual, we made a lot of money from change orders. So the first few were done. All were acceptable in the Generally Accepted Accounting Practices guidelines.
Somewhere along the line the GAAP accountant realized that this last modification set would, taken in combination with all the other mods, make a check disappear from the system and become untraceable.
We refused to do it, and the customer dropped the product, saying we were too hard to deal with. A million+ of revenue were lost, no small amount for the company.
That customer? MCI Worldcom.
They clearly had picked apart the source code and found the edge case that triggered the behavior. I had left the company before MCI blew up, but my understanding is that they were called to give testimony/evidence in the trial.
This could be the same thing, a series of unrelated changes that trigger a diagnostic mode when hooked up to the test equipment.
If so, it would be very hard to trace who made the ultimate decision to do this, as it might be spread across many teams working independently.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
It's fascinating to see how many posters here automatically assume that it must be the PHBs who pressured the engineers into this. Very few assume that the engineers saw an opportunity for a bonus or for the PHB to owe them one, and added the cheat function voluntarily. I've not seen any posts so far that suggest an engineer thought of the cheat and suggested it to a PHB.
A reminder that we tend to think of our peers as being much more ethical than "them" and look for reasons to think of them as victims of force or circumstances, and assume that "they" are only motivated by sheer callous greed. Whoever the "them" is.
It's an American thing.
Employers here don't care about holding onto skilled programmers or other skilled people, because PHBs think they can just hire replacements on a whim.
Yes, in reality new ones are hard to find and take a while to get up to speed. The PHBs will even acknowledge this when they're trying to hire.
But once they have one employed, they don't care about keeping him happy, because they think they're al interchangeable cogs.
If you're seeing a giant disconnect here, yes, there is. This is how American corporations think; it makes no sense at all. I can't explain it. It's the same phenomenon where corporations will give a big salary offer to a new engineer, but once he's employed there, they'll just freeze his salary or give him paltry CoL raises, while giving new hires even bigger salaries, causing employees to switch jobs every 2-4 years (in Silicon Valley, it's 12-18 months).