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Volkswagen Boss Blames Software Engineers For Scandal (bbc.co.uk)
hattig writes: Today VW's Michael Horn is testifying to Congress and has blamed the recent scandal on engineers saying: "It's the decision of a couple of software engineers, not the board members." However, 530,000 cars in the U.S. will need to be recalled for significant engine modifications, not a software fix. Only 80,000 Passats are eligible for the software fix. There is no word on the effects these modifications will have on the cars' performance, fuel consumption, etc. The BBC reports: "The issue of defeat devices at VW has been a historic problem, points out a Congress panel member questioning VW US chief Michael Horn. In 1974, VW had a run-in with US authorities regarding the use of defeat devices in 1974, and in December 2014 it recalled cars to address nox emissions."
The previous events seem to point towards a problem in the company's culture, rather than just a couple engineers. Maybe I'm too cynical. But that's what it "smells" like.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Yeah, I'm sure, a few rogue software guys got together and said, "Gosh, how can we cover for the people who built the engine that isn't as efficient as it is supposed to be? Surely there's no legal ramifications for cheating on federal emissions tests!"
It doesn't make sense on too many levels. What a bunch of crap.
Love sees no species.
"That's bullshit!"
No software engineer has the ability to do that on their own, without management approval. Here comes a "lost email" from VW, wherein the engineer who seeks confirmation of the "Hey, the test is illegal to fake out, are we sure this won't be used there?" gets a verbal "Just do it".
That company executives rarely know what is going on in their organization.
What do they get paid to do again?
As an executive, you take on the responsibility and risk for your department/BU/company/team/whatever and the people under you. *That* is why you get the big bucks, not for any other reason.
If somebody you are responsible for screws up, it is YOUR JOB to know about it!
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
Software engineers have little natural incentive to make the car perform differently for testing than for regular use. If the car is incapable of meeting emission standards without this sort of hack then that's an issue for the mechanical engineers, not the software guys. There's no reason to believe this was the result of anything but orders from on high.
Do you have ESP?
Such lack. No surprise.
Other than waving their dicks around, what is the purpose of them talking to Congress?
Aren't there actual mechanical parts of the engine which simply weren't even implemented and then this kludge was done in software?
You can't design this way of cheating without people who know the details of the engine signing off on it.
This is so much bullshit it isn't funny.
A software engineer could not have made the decision to leave off the components which were supposed to make clean diesel.
This is purely about finding a scapegoat.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
If they were really engineers they would be civilly and legally responsible and would have to carry malpractice insurance.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Shocked I say!
Well, not that shocked.
Seriously. Who didn't see this coming?
Hardware blames software, etc.
"and the boss promised us a large bonus if we can do it with software, and he says "I don't want to know HOW you do it, just do it, lalalalalalalala"
When everything comes out, it will be unsurprising if you can't just re-use the conclusions of the Challenger investigation.
Fritz: Hey, Hans, you know how we are both software engineers working for Volkswagen?
Hans: What a strange question, Fritz. But yes, I suppose I do know that.
Fritz: Well, I was thinking, these new U.S. emissions standards are actually pretty stringent, and I don't think our diesels can pass them.
Hans: Yes, this is obvious. So?
Fritz: Well, what if we changed the software so that, while the cars were being tested, they behaved in a completely uncharacteristic way so that they could appear to comply with the standard?
Hans: You mean if we wrote a test-detection and -subversion routine into the car's firmware?
Fritz: Yes, of course.
Hans: But how would we personally stand to benefit from that?
Fritz: Well, we'd be able to sell more cars in America that way.
Hans: We? You mean Volkwagen. Sure, until they caught on. But Fritz, we're just engineers--we get paid the same either way.
Fritz: Well, we could tell the executives about it later, and maybe they would reward us.
Hans: No, trust me, the executives won't want to know about it.
Fritz: Yes, they do certainly value integrity over the bottom line. Completely unlike an engineer. Oh well. I guess we'll just have to do it without telling them, and for no good reason at all.
Hans: Yes, that sounds reasonable.
First rule of leadership: Everything is your fault.
Cloudiot: A person who does not see offsite storage as a way to lose control over access to his or her own data.
As possible pointed out elsewhere, the collaboration between hardware and software is needed for such a scheme to work.
Properly detecting the condition of being under test would definitely require collection from multiple hardware sensors.
Also, didn't they perform the QA testing on such software? Doesn't this require testing units and a testing program to be agreed upon across departments?
Or did they blindly put some untested software in control's of car's electronic and engine?
It seems impossible to me that this can be pulled off just by a "couple of software engineers".
Even doing that on a single car of a single model would have required much more than that. Let alone with such a pervasive extent.
Yea Right. If someone found and 'undocumented feature' that allowed turning on the emissions cheat I could believe it was just the software developers. But this has a direct impact on the vehicle's performance that would have been caught by multiple levels of the organization. There are more heads to roll yet in this issue not the least of which is the software developers that didn't call foul when asked to code it it.
The mechanical engineers' tests would have come out wrong if the software crew went rogue.
No chance.
This lying sack just showed unequivocally that he needs some jail time. It could only be corruption or criminal negligence imho, and on a scale that necessitates harsh penalties. Fines alone aren't enough. Big fines plus things like jail time, probation, community service, being banned from holding corporate positions and so on.
Come on Volkswagen execs, you really expect us to believe that?
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Blame the engineers all you want, but the issue really comes down to bad foresight in the leadership department.
I'm guessing they produced an efficient diesel engine that only considered CO2 emissions, and loved it. Then they sent it to their testing engineers who discovered the NOx output was too high. Someone fixed it with software, in case they needed to produce the car ASAP. Then it went back to the performance engineers who were upset at the modifications. They probably took up the topic with the team management and discussed possible solutions, of which were to design a Urea in the car or have an Eco and Power mode built into the car. The an engineer probably discussed the benefits of the Eco/Power software vs Urea to a CEO, lower cost per car, no delay in production, and repercussion if they got caught. Everyone probably laughed it off and decided on the Eco/Power solution with plans to add Ureas "next year", but they never did. Sure a couple engineers thought of the idea, but the fact is the whole team had to know.
Hey, guys, let's write some code that no one will ever give us credit or raises for to make our awesome bosses more money: a conversation no engineer ever had.
Do you want to work on iconic cars like the VW Bus? Design the next one, and then we'll throw you under the bus!
Since electrical, mechanical engineers have strict certifications in the EU (mind that more in Germany) with additional ramifications, and how software as an industry is still willie-nilly, throwing the s/w engineers under the bus is a slap in the face for the profession. And likely a easy choice for the CXXs of the corporation.
When 3D printing your diesel VW at home, which I've been assured is a mainstream technology, be sure to click "no cheating firmware" before you 3D print your car.
VW identifies the specific engineers and those engineers testify in front of congress specifically who was in the meeting when the decision was made.
DougM
It was probably more like
Manager: "here is a change I need you to make to lines X thru Z"
Software Engineers: "ok, that's our job"
1) Upper management are morons that have no idea what is going on in their company. It's the equivalent of a farmer claiming he had no idea that his 'organic' corn is actually bio-engineered and covered with Round-Up.
2) That they personally are directly and legally responsible by failing to manage their employees. The buck stops at the BOSS, not the janitor.
3) Are also committing the Wage-Theft by not doing their official declared job of MANAGING their employees.
Claiming ignorance, stupidity, and incompetence is not a valid legal defense.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Why would the engineers do this unless they were specifically asked? Based on prior information that it was external software, I really don't think in a company like VW an engineer could drive the software order process and requirements like this.
up up down down left right left right b a
Managers typically do not understand how software works and are not able to check what have been put into it. We may build a secret Software Engineer Bilderberg Group and rule the world!
I'm thinking there should be a new motto for corporations in late-period capitalism:
"Nothing is True; Everything is Permitted."
You are welcome on my lawn.
The upper management has always created documents that are secret, which are lawyered to provide sufficient deniability to people who sign them, if they ever let it get to the level of signature. The whole culture built on "how can I grab as much money as possible" "how can do as little as possible" "how can create escape hatches and set up fall guys to take the blame if this thing blows up" "how can I position myself to take full advantage if the engineering actually delivers what it promised".
Is it any surprise they blame the software engineers?
Let us see, if the software engineers will fall on the sword or they dig up all the check-in comments, pull-requests and approvals and bring down the entire chain of command that authorized it. Couple of rogue software engineers? If that is true, VW has a much larger problem. We can't trust anything in the VW engine control module. It is the job of the upper management drawing humongous salaries to make sure couple of rogue engineers can't pull off anything this big.
I know someone who works in retail. When they close the store, the two employees very very low in the corporate ladder had to attest that one deposited the cash counted by the other. And VW, an ISO-9600 company or whatever had such lax procedures? Would anyone believe this?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I can guarantee more then just two software engineers knew. For one, the power train team had to know their engines were failing emissions. Then you have a systematic plan in place for years to circumvent the emissions when driving. So you had to have some cooperation from engine software management and engine development on how best to do this. All of this most likely as with any company had to be approved from upper management. People in specific areas of a manufacture just don't make these changes without approval. Its possible some did not know the details but they knew it was happening.
The EPA representative detected increased methane emissions in the congressional chamber during testimony. On further inspection, it was found that Volkswagen's new CEO is indeed full of shit.
This isn't some little project where one or two rogue engineers can throw a commit into github without oversight. We're talking about a major, multi-million dollar engineering project that spans both software and hardware, goes into a production run of many thousands of vehicles, and is regulated by many governmental bodies across multiple countries.
At a minimum, you'd need the involvement of:
The software engineers
The hardware engineers
The integration engineers
The software QA testers
The hardware QC testers
The integration testers
The production engineers
The production QC testers
Various compliance managers
Whoever is submitting the test vehicles to the government testers in each country.
The managers and supervisors of all of the above
With that many people involved... and that's probably a conservative list... it's hard to believe that there wasn't some C-level approval or direction. Massive fraud in a major engineering project doesn't bubble up from one rogue employee or two. It's rolled from the top down.
Imagine all the people...
According to this article: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/...
It should turn out to be a lesson for all top management who think they can throw the nerds under the bus. It should also turn out to be a good lesson for all software engineers to create a complete record of change history. Even if you get a oral order to implement something and the boss refuses to leave *any* paper record, and you are not really in any position to defy the boss, leave it in the source. Leave comments and pull-req messages saying "Adolf and Erwin asked me to make this change".
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Just jail all the senior execs in solitary for 90 days, and then hold a public trial, after using their assets for the victims.
That would help clarify whose responsibility it really is.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Michael Horn is woefully ignorant or lying. A big company like VW, especially a German company creating products with people's lives at stake, must have a software development process. I'd bet its more sophisticated than say your average game house. Probably very waterfall oriented with sign-offs along the way. The software engineers must have been implementing and testing against requirements. And those requirements must have been signed off by management. If that weren't true then VW should shutter its doors forever, because it would simply not be competent to produce people-movers with embedded software inside.
Anybody want a peanut?
The link does not go to the article. Could somebody post the actual link?
Here are some other sources:
http://www.newser.com/story/21...
http://www.theguardian.com/bus...
http://www.npr.org/sections/th...
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Had the CTO claim he ordered one thing when he actually ordered exactly the opposite. He was counting on the "document retention" system to have long since deleted any emails documenting his original order. Pity that, as a properly paranoid software engineer, I had archive folders with retention settings of "retain forever" with copies of all relevant emails for any project I worked on (so I wouldn't lose the context of technical decisions or relevant requirement/spec changes) and could produce copies of his own emails with his actual instructions in them.
I hope the VW engineers had the foresight to do something similar, because this smells to me of management looking to find a scapegoat so they don't have to face the consequences of their decisions.
Updating the firmware is an easy task that could underperform to lower power unwanted by the customers of these cars.
Why not to replace the entire engine?
Rule 211: Employees are the rungs on the ladder of success. Don't hesitate to step on them.
and
Rule 239: Never be afraid to mislabel a product
Until a big company burns for this kind of behavior all of them will keep doing it.
Hit them with maximum fines and demand immediate payment. As these fines will be to the government, it can force immediate payment. Freeze and seize assets until everything is paid.
Then make VW give everyone who purchases one of these pollution boxes, a brand new VW or equal or greater value to the adjusted value of the VW they originally bought.
After that Max sentences for the board in a max security prison. No white collar club for them. The last time Germans screwed up this bad we held trials at Nuremberg and those guys didn't get to go to prison.
How is Exxon doing on paying up on the Valdiz oil spill?
How is BP doing on their spill payments?
How are the bank execs and traders who were responsible for the mortgage melt down? They in prison doing hard time?
Until some corporations begin to burn for this behavior, the only people who get hurt are the tax payers.
I work as SE for other big german company. I want to say This is ridiculous!
..I'm gonna get authorization!
When i heard about this; it reminded me of the unpimp the auto commercials running around ..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1MNEqCr748
and the boss promised us a large bonus if we can do it with software
Now I know this is fanfic because no-where in any real company have I, as a software engineer, been promised a bonus for doing ANYTHING.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
And the Software Engineers will have to answer to their governing body [none] and have their [imaginary] license revoked , and possibly face [no] censure from their professional body.
At the very best, they can be subject to simple civil penalties.
Real Engineers would:
-Have their license revoked
-Answer to a licensing body
-Suffer penalties invoked by the above, in addition to penalties given by the civil courts.
Lets just call them run-of the mill programmers, code-monkeys, typists, whatever, and leave the real engineering to real engineers.
This is pure scapegoat-ism. Capitalism 101: pursue profits at all costs, escape hatch - management throwing employees under the bus.
We fired the engineers who weren't prepared to cheat, and the remaining guys cheated. It's the engineers' fault for cheating.
... to blame for this. The software only lied about compliance, it still required that the hardware was non-compliant. Not that I'm saying lying about it is acceptable, but there's no possible way I can see that the people who built the non-compliant hardware can be any less responsible.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
From what I gather, VW put a lot of money into developing a new Diesel engine that turned out to not balance all the tradeoffs the way they wanted. They can get power, but at the cost of fuel economy and emissions. They can get lower emissions, at the cost of fuel economy and power. They can get fuel economy at the cost of power and emissions. To redesign the engine would have been very costly, so they decided that instead of making a better engine, they'd adjust the tradeoff depending on the operating conditions. So what's going to happen now with the recalls, if they meet emissions requirements, they won't get fuel economy and performance that are competitive with petrol engines, and lots of VW customers are going to be very unhappy, and they're going to lose a lot of business to vehicles that have the performance and fuel economy characteristics people want.
So what's likely to have happened within VW is that they built and tested engines and found that they were never going to meet all the requirements at once. So engineers reported this to managment who made the decision to add "defeat device" software to violate emissions standards under normal operating conditions. And I'm sure it went pretty far up the chain of command, because no one engineer is going to want to bear the weight of that decision, nor can they because all of this would require the involvement of lots of engineers. And since this mechanism was formally added to the design, then they'd have formal testing procedures that ensure it behaves the way they intend, so the testing engineers will also be aware of all of this as well.
So who is at fault? It's a cascade:
- The emissions laws are incompatible with consumer demands.
- The laws of physics make it very hard to meet consumer demands while also meeting emissions standards.
- The engine design engineers produced a design that couldn't balance all the tradeoffs.
- The software developers took carefully planned steps to develop the defeat device.
So, basically, those to blame are God, hardware engineers, software engineers, lawmakers, and consumers. Basically the whole universe.
That they were "encouraged" to do this by some marketing division head who talked (but never electronically) to some dev lead and strongly implied that both he and his development department would rapidly be shipped to lower Slobbovia if he didn't cooperate?
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
No matter. in most any case , A company is fully responsible for the acts of any and all employees.Period!
In my position as an engineer for one of the largest computer companies in the world, I would find this situation to be impossible.
Yes, the "Board" wouldn't know about the software issue. However, any software engineers would report to a technical manager that would know what was going on. That manager would then report to a superior who would be given a synopsis of any issues. If something halts the release of a new product, it usually gets attention higher up the management chain for tracking and corrective action.
Typically, most organizations like this would have a "code review" meeting where peers, with management present would walk through each line of code being written, checking for errors before releasing to production. Any revisions would also go through a similar review process.
Changes would be documented so corrections wouldn't be omitted in the rewrite process. Each code revision code would have linked to it, the changes made for that particular code revision.
So yes, "top management" wouldn't know of the code issues but *lower management* WOULD.
Saying that a "couple of engineers" caused this situation is ludicrous.
Before: 150 HPs with emissions of NOx in excess.
After: reduced to 99 HPs without emissions of NOx in excess.
Do you want it?
If not, to reclaim to the company VW the money that you paid this illegal car (forbidden to use this car that is unregulated environmentally).
No, it was not the software engineers intentionally designing and placing cheat software in VW vehicles. It was the janitor. He's been caught sneaking into offices and forging top executive's initials on memos before, and this time he's gone too far. Two months suspension with pay, effective immediately. No need to look for any other culprits, it was entirely a one-man operation. That Hans, what a card!
More likely:
Manager: "Hey, you promised a year ago that you could hit both NOx and MPG targets by Oct. 1. It's September already. How close are you to done?"
Engineers: "We promised what? You're sure? We said it would be a software fix? Really? OK, software guys- what's the hold up?"
Software engineers: "The guy who promised that left to join Facebook a year ago."
Manager: "Tough. Will you have the problem solved by Friday, or do I have to ask headquarters for another week?"
Software engineers: "This is a tough problem. I'm not sure it can even be done, but even if it can, it will take a year to do it right."
Manager: "I don't care about doing it right. Bash something together to make it pass the damn tests. Just do it."
Software: "It's really hard...
Manager: "OK, you have until Monday. Or you're all fired."
Software: "Uh, you said anything? As long as it makes the problem go away?"
Manager: "I'm giving you carte blanche. Don't worry about documentation, total quality, all that ISO s@#!t, I'll cover for you. Just make it pass the test."
Software: "Anything, huh? OK, we're on it."
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Pressure from management, to do one of two things: 1) Deliberately cheat, 2) Demand what is only possible by Deliberately cheating.
(If at first you don't succeed, do it different next time!)
Exactly! We all know they're all a bunch of racist misogynerds! Sexist evil cis male programmers who are trying to rape the Earth Mother! /s
Perhaps the IT engineers should teach him some manners by leaking all his dirty secrets.
It is time that the parasitic psychopaths in management learnt to show some respect for the people who they free-load off.
If you are going to take the big money then you have to also accept responsibility for how your company operates without playing childish blame games.
That is the bottom line, it made the company a lot of profit and the executive would have earned additional millions as a consequence. Blame who you like, but you still have to pay back all of your your ill-gotten gains.
A subordinate in engineering should follow order (verbal or written) otherwise s/he can be fired for insubordination, or should quit, or become whistleblower. In this case, considering that multiple systems are coordinating to detect "pollution test runs", most likely it came from top to all those sub teams that implemented that. Those sub teams (engineers) cant be liable for following orders. Btw, it is a matter of time, whistle blowers will crop up to caugh up the truth [hush money may keep put-a-lid-on-it for a while not forever].
Guess who drew the shortest straw...
Website Just Down For Me? Find out
Of course, it's the engineers fault for following orders.
"It's the decision of a couple of software engineers, not the board members."
He said it was their decision, as in they took the initiative to make it happen. He doesn't say they were the only ones in the know nor that they approved it. For all we know these "couple of software engineers" could be mid to high level managers who go approval from the board before working with hardware to make the change.
I stole this Sig
An executive wants to take all the credit and kick the blame down hill? Well slap my ass and color me surprised!!
Hitler's ghost blames holocaust on single soldier.
Sorry Mike.
Requiem for the American Dream
This is a "comply with the spec" kind of thing, as opposed to "comply with the intent of the spec". It's very easy to fall (via groupthink) to fall in to a pattern where the appearance of compliance is as important as compliance. Someone in management, somewhere, made an interpretation of the requirements as "what's important is passing the test" as opposed to some speculative "emit lower pollutants". That is, verification of a successful test implies "emit lower pollutants", because that's the testable artifact.
(we leave aside such fuzzy things as "no gaming the system", no "test only modes not allowed")
Management says "pass the test"
Engineers implement "pass the test"
Alles in ordnung.
Zu Befehl!
I agree. There's usually very little incentive for engineers to cheat like that.
For one, their paychecks won't very that much between cheating and non-cheating. They'll likely get a paycheck whether the car is profitable/successful or not. People rarely cheat this big unless there is a clear and large benefit to them.
Being fired due to a downturn in sales is always a worry, but in this case there is a roughly comparable risk of being fired by management for cheating.
Engineers risk being caught by both managers AND the public (external people). If top managers cheat, they only have to worry about being caught by the public.
Thus, the engineers have to weigh the incremental possible raise if sales are successful versus the risk of being fired if caught by management. I don't see a clear net benefit here.
Upper management and CEO pay/incentives are usually much more leveraged on the rise or fall of sales and profits.
Unless something really odd is going on, it's not the rank and file engineers who made the final call. It would take more than one engineer to pull it off, and a group of engineers will know that the "incentive math" is not in their favor.
Generally the group of engineers needed to pull it off haven't chosen each other, they are just happenstance co-workers such that it's not comparable to a say self-selected crime gang.
Table-ized A.I.
VW states a few rouge software engineers were able to deliver illegal code into a production vehicle
What guarantee is there that the safety delivery practices within VW are not all liable to the same issues?
What about the code that manages the breaks, airbag, traction control?
VW, making a statement like this will probably damage you badly. It is all very sad.
Move along, nothing to see here.
(seriously though I suspect the engineers main mistake was not getting this particular feature request in writing - aka being politically naive)
In 1974, VW had a run-in with US authorities regarding the use of defeat devices in 1974.
At least they were consistent!
The company should have had quality procedures in place to detect this kind of discrepancy and prevent it. Blaming the engineers for something that should have been stopped by policy doesn't cut it as an excuse.
Obviously nothing but the truth - why else would you need new hardware (mechanical upgrades on the vehicles in question) to fix a software problem.
First rule of leadership: Everything is your fault.
First rule of Bosshood, everything that goes wrong is someone else's fault.
Anyone want to guess whether Michael Horn is a leader or a boss?
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
... suspected that new intern was up to something.
To paraphrase the head of VW: Let's thrown 'em under the bus we will, let's throw 'em under the bus!"... Sorry asshole, but this didn't get implemented without senior asholery approval! Engineers would NOT have had the authority to implement this without YOUR approval. So I say, let's throw YOU under the bus!
Don't blame the managers, directors, marketers, or anyone else. Blame the people who have the least control over what they do, software development has become an industry of everyone else telling us how and what to do and we just get stuck with the work.
Which is why I tell all my bosses that I control the code and that's all there is to it.
What then? That's really why this is blowing up so much. Seriously. VW is going to get fined a couple of billion. That's not even chump change. Nobody at that level gives two shits about pride, and the average consumer will forget this same as they forgot Toyota's acceleration problems. What _has_ come out is that _everyone_ was cheating, they were just better at it so that when they got caught there was some doubt and nobody got in real trouble. So what the hell do you do if you're an engineer and this is industry practice?
It's like a buddy of mine who used to drive truck and followed the rules. He went from company to company and they all promised him he'd never drive over limit. And when he didn't they eventually stopped giving him runs. For all you're talk that's not the way the real world works.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
click the Red 'X' instead?
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
depending on the local laws. The phrase "Engineer" has a legal meaning in most countries. It's why you can't call yourself a "Microsoft Certified Engineer" in Canada. As an Engineer you're signing off that the work you did was correct, and you're legally liable if it's not. Of course, in the old days Engineers were so well paid that it didn't matter. Not sure about the rest of the world but in America we treat our Engineers like dirt and are constantly trying to lower their pay.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
if a few engineers are responsible, then will the board sue them to prove its claim in court?
oh hey, lets write some code to cheat on the emissions test cuz reasons.
Oh, I thought the car became self aware and the on-board AI decided that it needed to past the test to stay alive! :)
1st rule of leadership - everything is your fault.
OK here are the players. One is a consumer who has a VW that will consume 20% more fuel if they get the modification but will generate negligibly less pollutants for themselves.. If they don't get the modification the amount of pollution they will generate for themselves is negligible but they won't use way more fuel. They are the only player in this game, what will most decide?
Software engineers generally (always, in my experience) do what management tells them to do, and nothing more - with the pressure of hitting a deadline, no engineer wants to miss a deadline and then tell their boss that the reason they missed it was because they were getting creative with the code and requirements.
However, I can see a scenario where this might be laid at the feet of a couple of software engineers.
Presumably, the ECM is capable of dynamically switching the engine mode depending on a range of factors - sensor measurements, controls in the cabin, driver actions, and so on. Presumably also, each engine mode is used in a variety of different scenarios.
So if a manager tasks one particular software engineer with, among other "minor changes", detecting when an emissions testing rig is attached and setting a flag in the system (or even when *anything* is attached to the port used by the testing rig), then that engineer is probably not going to see anything untoward in the request - the system might want to log that a test rig has been plugged in on a particular date and time for any number of reasons relating to the servicing, maintenance and operation of the vehicle.
Separately, and maybe at quite a significantly later date, a manager might ask another software engineer to tweak the controls on the ECM, so that if a particular flag is set, the engine is put into super-low-emission economy mode.
If the two engineers are feeling un-curious or if the instructions are phrased in a highly innocuous way, then it would just be one of a number of commits to the version control system by those engineers, probably with no record of managerial requests, and as there would also be no record of any management discussions about this - informal "chance" meetings over lunch in the management canteen rarely have detailed minutes of the meeting - it is laid at the door of a couple of hapless engineers.
What's the point of having managers if they don't take responsibilty? My impression always was that upper management gets paid big bucks because their main job is to take responsibility for the company, in good AND bad times. It's bad enough that a lot of managers just leave like a whipped dog when the slightest problem arises, but not taking responsibility for your company's strategy and staff while in cahrge is another level.
In response to the "preferred possible outcomes" poll some week ago, I made some predictions on what would actually happen, including the "blaming rogue employee" bit; http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
I thought I was making a joke.
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It is the responsibility of management and ultimately of the executive team to ensure that the work is done correctly, especially on important matters. To claim some roque software engineers did it is to simply claim that the company leadership is incompetent.
he should blame the nazis and that adolf guy, worked like a charm the last time
The regulations ask that the car emit less than a certain amount when tested, which is what VW satisfied.
It's not the fault of VW if the regulators' test does not reflect reality.
Sure, they gamed the system, but they had specs and they met them.
It was the work of rogue engineers practising the black art of software programming. It' wasn't us! Honest! It was them witches! Burn them at the stake!!!
A company like VW would involve people at all levels in the design of a vehicle. Performance requirements would be specified at an early stage. If a product suddenly started performing well above spec due to broken tests, the discrepancy would be obvious to all concerned.
VW are not a backyard operation.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
VW of America has not made a profit in several decades (if ever).
So having worked at a number of car companies I can estimate why they said it was the product of a couple of engineers. Manager to Engineer 1) "We need you to set up a software routine to make sure than our new TDI is compliant with emissions standards. Make sure you tie it to a CANBUS flag that we can modify in testing to show that the software is working." Manager to Engineer 2) "I need you to write a routine to modify the state of this CANBUS flag. If all four wheels are in motion we want it off. If only the front wheels are in motion we want it on." I love how it always boils down to an engineer or two and not a business decision.
Coffee: The lifeblood of intelligence in civilization.
Protecting the one really responsible for the mess, the old boss that fell on his sword. Blaming the Engineers to protect the chain of command is a real pussy move.
did it?
and forced him to lie when he "found out" what was going on... yeah right
if "Faith" could be proved with facts - would it still be faith? So why does "Faith" try to present beliefs as fact? -
If an engineer fudges something, you can believe it's at the direction of either upper management or project managers trying to please upper management. Engineers pride themselves on putting out correct data.
Ops, I shuld have usd the prevuwe but in.
"The great liability of the engineer compared to men of other professions is that his works are out in the open where all can see them. His acts, step by step, are in hard substance. He can not bury his mistakes in the grave like the doctors. He can not argue them into thin air or blame the judge like the lawyer. He can not, like the architects, cover his failures with trees and vines. He cannot, like the politicians, screen his shortcomings by blaming his opponents and hope the people will forget. The engineer simply cannot deny he did it. If his works do not work, he is damned...." The Author is President Herbert Hoover. Still true today.
Life is in a state of dynamic equilibrium, it both blows and sucks
This is not believable. The automotive (mechanical) engineers had to know that their baby did not come close to meeting the requirements. The software engineers may have come up with an idea to "solve" the problem, but it's not credible that the automotive engineers did not know about it. To believe this one would have to believe that the automotive engineers were struggling with the problem and then suddenly found it solved, like magic, and did not question how this might have come about.
Look VW - if you are going to sit their and lie through your teeth, at least make it a credible lie.
This lie? It makes no sense.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
The real problem here is that the government tests were done using the car's own sensors from the test plug. That is lazy and cheap. But it is like asking the food corporation if they tested for salmonella and then taking their word for it!
Do the real test with a test stand and gas sensors in the tailpipe. 8-)
http://www.scientificamerican....
It's another massive pay-for-play system. The US does not actually have emissions standards -- every make, model, and year is evaluated in secret, on a case by case basis.
Note that California earns a lot more in taxes from a gallon of gas than a gallon of diesel. That's a heck of an incentive to block diesels by dropping the NOx limit to levels far below the EU standards.
If CARB and EPA do not have published standards, or have monetary incentives to increase taxation on the public, in secret, as described above, VW should be thanked for exposing them -- prior to dissolving CARB and CAL-EPA, and completely reforming FED-EPA.
It makes no sense to have one federal standards body and one state standards body, and then ban all other states from having their own EPA. They don't even publish a standard!
It's the deep blue progressive democrats, fleecing the public and the automakers again -- and passing the cost to We the People.
I suspect it's more like a virus, and spread to many more companies. Here's some additional thoughts on why this might be: http://geekcrumbs.com/2015/10/...
- The Kessel run is for nerf herders. I can circumnavigate the entire Central Finite Curve in a lot less than 12 parse
VW stop. Just stop. I don't believe you. Anyone who would obviously has never owned a VW. It's over. WWII you chose the losing side. You just repeated History. Never again.
Spoken like a hypocrite and a braggart.
Easy enough for little men with tiny hearts to say
when it's not their job thats on the line.
When not speaking to a child or student
sporting your holier than thou,
"do as i say, not as i do" , attitude
is itself a childish game to play.
Volkswagen boss should resign apologized to the public and customer Volkswagen . for the good of all parties, http://www.paketkreditmobilhon...
They are claiming that Software engineers choose to do this hack, when the engine engineers, along with management all the way up to the CEO, were the ones on the line with this. Really? Does anybody fucking believe that? NOT A CHANCE IN HELL WAS THIS THE CASE.
Seriously, this had to go all the way to the CEO for them to try and blame it on the ppl that had the least to gain and the most to lose.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
You god-damned neo-cons/tea baggers scream that US gov is the source of all evil when it is obvious that others are doing this. This gets so fucking old that not a one of you have even as much brains as a squirrel. EPA is not the issue here. It is the fact that you neo-cons/tea* underfunded them and so they are not able to test everything.
BUT, you are right that this SHOULD be investigated but not by you neo-cons/tea* (or the dems). This really should be polical neutral groups, or even 3rd parties that do this. You bunch of fuck-heads continue to destroy America while blaming the very gov that you idiots created.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
First rule of leadership: Heads I Win. Tails You Lose;
Board: This car has to be done by next week no matter what ...
Eng-Lead: But the emissions are way off the chart
Board: We don't care, this car has to be done by next week, fix it.
Eng-Lead: We could do this tiny hack
Board: whatevs, just do what it takes