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FBI Arrests Volkswagen Executive On Charges Related To Dieselgate (cnet.com)
According to CNET, the FBI has arrested Volkswagen executive Oliver Schmidt over the weekend on charges of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. relating to the ongoing Dieselgate emissions scandal. From the report: Schmidt headed VW's regulatory compliance office in the U.S. from 2014 to March 2015. The FBI's official Criminal Complaint states that during that time VW employees -- Schmidt included -- knowingly installed secret "defeat device" software in 475,000 diesel cars in the U.S., hiding during emissions testing the fact that those cars emitted up to 40 times the legally allowable pollution levels when on the road. The complaint asserts that by knowingly installing this secret cheat software, Schmidt and VW conspired to defraud the U.S. by impairing and impeding the Environmental Protection Agency and violating the Clean Air Act, leading to the arrest on Saturday. Schmidt is due to appear before a Federal Court in Miami on Monday.
Nothing will come of this. Corporate executives almost always get a slap on the wrist and a scolding, and that's it. Particularly under the next administration, if anybody believes that we will be holding corporations accountable for stuff like this, I have some beach front swampland you may be interested in.
for their dumb job that could land them in jail. Talk about screwed up priorities.
What you gonna do if Bill Gates is ever involved in a scandal? Call it Gatesgate?
Here's hoping this leads to some actual changes.
Nope, no sig
Why is this worthy of Slashdot? This is just an executive being busted by the FBI.
Because the exec was responsible for validating code that was found to not be doing what he said it did.
Do you have anybody in your company doing QA? Or auditing code? Think they might be interested in this?
Nope, no sig
Speak for yourself. I find this, as a former developer, to be very interesting. People aren't generally arrested over bad programming. I couldn't care less about yet another review of whatever the latest el-cheapo hobbyist gadgets are.
I don't respond to AC's.
I agree. Since this boils down to someone writing software whose explicit purpose is to cheat on government-mandated tests, I'd say it's a very interesting technical story that involves a scenario that may play out in many areas of development. Being a programmer doesn't mean moral, ethical and legal considerations cease to exist.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Was it bad programming or was it programming that performed exactly according to specifications?
You are welcome on my lawn.
I think anyone who cares that the laws of the land are enforced cares. If emissions standards are set, and someone cheats on those standards, then they should be punished. Maybe we don't get the top people involved, but is that an argument against anyone being prosecuted?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I expect they will be arresting Elizabeth Holmes as well? Or is this an American philosophy arrest, where defrauding the health of people isn't nearly as offensive as financially damaging defrauding.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
And - no - this is not hyperbolic. That's my air those VW's are polluting. I've often been asked if I would just stop breathing and my answer has always been "no, thank you". I'm really addicted to breathing. It's a shame I can't get the same high-quality air I used to get last century.
To the extent that banker types get their way, the VW execs will be in prison for a long time. Prior to the scandal, VW was trading at over $200/share, as high as $250. After the information came out, it dropped to $100. That's about $80-$100 billion or so that investors lost.
That's a bit more than the losses from Enron. Enron executives got prison sentences of up to 24 years (later reduced to 14 years).
The damage to investors side of the issue is on top of the EPA / environmental crimes.
There were plenty of scandals Bill Gates was involved in: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
How did we miss this Florida Man opportunity!?
This forum Sig is licensed under the LGPL.
About fucking time. How the bank robbers at Wells Fargo?
It's a shame I can't get the same high-quality air I used to get last century.
If you could have their air, but also had to live with their technology and medicine too would you still take the trade?
Meanwhile, depending on where you live, 100 years ago was pretty filthy... London air quality in 1917.... sulpher dioxide and soot from the smokestacks... and that was on a good day... 100 years ago puts you right in the middle of World War I ... a little soot in your air would be right pleasant compared to the 50,000 tons of chlorine, phosgene, mustard, and other gases that some of your 100-year-ago contemporaries would have been dealing with.
Meanwhile, smog and acid rain, are on the decline in North America thanks to environmental regulation and pollution controls... and with the mass market arrival of electric city air quality is actually poised to get even better in the future.
I do not see anybody 'down in the trenches' just out of the blue or love for the job decided to do it single-handed. I would be surprised any of the softies there realized this is very illegal. Ethically perhaps they may have doubts quickly resolved by their bosses.
I'd expect that in big corporation, like VW, the programmers are just gears in the machine. I am one for sure. They were told to improve test results and performance results. Sbdy (likely team+1/2 levels of mgnt) there decided to optimize these two cases separately hence detecting each use case. They even consulted this with VW legal team and upper mngmnt, got approval and went ahead. Than they all collected the bonuses.
If there is not written evidence for all of these then their document retention policies are "well tuned" albeit since they must be ISO9xxx certified they must have something left in the decision chain. Hence Schmidt was charged with conspiring to fraud, evidence must exist he knowingly allowed it as he's not charged with negligence of duties of sorts (AINAL).
4wdloop
Performance wise it was very good software, it "knew" when it was in a test environment and behaved in a manner totally at odds with normal day to day operation. Sadly for them, researchers began a study on emissions discrepancies between European and US models of vehicles, Portable Emissions Measurement Systems showed totally different values from test rig results and the rest is yet to be played out.
They would have gotten away with it if it hadn't been for those pesky kids at the International Council on Clean Transportation!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
Not quite true that *nobody* was jailed. Here are 35 bankers sent to prison:
http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/2...
Also some who didn't go to prison did get fines over over $100 million.
Compared to the 1980s S&L crisis, there were certainly fewer prosecutions. One career prosecutor who is knowledgeable about both says that one reason for that is the the Obama administration, unlike the Reagan administration, was hostile toward white-blowers who could have enabled prosecution.
Where my post says "white-blowers", that should be "whistle-blowers". In the 1980s, whistle-blowers gave leads to investigators and testified against bosses. The Obama administration has of course been hostile to whistle-blowers.
Guaranteed loss of job vs small chance of landing in jail.
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
If there is not written evidence for all of these then their document retention policies are "well tuned" albeit since they must be ISO9xxx certified they must have something left in the decision chain.
ISO9xxx isn't about documenting a decision chain.
ISO9xxx is about insuring that the company can build the same thing repeatedly, despite things like personnel with critical knowledge leaving the company or dying, and being replaced by ignorant newbies.
ISO9xxx is perfectly happy if the instructions for a step of building widget X are written on a designated whiteboard in a designated cubicle, or sitting in a basket on top of a designated file cabinet, as long as this is documented properly so it can be rediscovered the next time they need to do a run of widget X.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The law says auto makers are specifically not allowed to have a "defeat device" (like this software) that causes the car to run differently when being tested.
Can't they just summon him? Arrest make sense for dangerous people, and this one is not going to harm anyone over the weekend.
Looking at the pattern of your posts I sincerely hope that you get in touch soon with someone who cares about you.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder can be cured.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Just one guy? Obvioulsy a token sacrificial goat, probably set up by VW themselves. You can't tell me the whole of the VW upper management didn't know about and agree to this.
I think it was Hillary who said a lot of nasty things about some white blowers.
There's already been a Gategate, although as the redirect shows I think it was more commonly known as "Plebgate".
It may be etymologically dumb, but it's a handy bit of syntax. Sort of like "-aholic" for being addicted to something other than alcohol.
And - no - this is not hyperbolic. That's my air those VW's are polluting.
The affected VWs produce no more NOx than contemporary diesel cars and their particulate emissions are exceptionally low. This is a regulatory compliance issue, not an air quality issue.
It's a shame I can't get the same high-quality air I used to get last century.
At no point in the previous century was the air in the populated parts of the West as clean as it is now.
Take a look at page 64 of this presentation (PDF): http://roma.faster-it.de/temp/...
Some guys decompiled the firmware and found the tables that control the engine modes, based on time and distance travelled. Note how the very narrow low emissions bands match the European test cycles perfectly.
It was clearly very deliberately, very carefully planned, must have required extensive testing and couldn't have been done without the assistance of Bosch who designed the control unit.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I highly doubt that Volkswagen executives struggle to feed their families.
for their dumb job that could land them in jail. Talk about screwed up priorities.
Obviously you have never had a family depending on you.
It's easy for a young child like you to judge others.
A man understands that people sometimes have to do things they would not otherwise do because circumstances force it.
Obviously, you've been raised by unethical parents. It's easy for you to rationalize your bad behavior instead of getting off your ass and finding a legal/moral solution. Stop blaming others for your problems, and grow up.
Just another day in Paradise
Sure, let's just punish the shareholders instead of the jackasses who were actually responsible. If Merkel is dumb enough to start a trade war over that, then so be it.
Just another day in Paradise
Plenty of ACs have posted here that the U.S. is only going after non-American firms. Well, here's your red meat...
http://abcnews.go.com/Business...
Just another day in Paradise