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Cheating on Tests

chriswhite

Written by Elecia White.

 

Have you heard about the VW diesel emissions scandal? The software detects that the car is being tested for emissions and changes the engine to function more cleanly. When not being tested, the vehicles do not meet the US Environmental Protection Agency’s emission requirements.[1]

 

I’m incensed at this. Oh, not because I own a VW (I don’t) or because I’m an environmentalist (I am). I’m angry because there is an embedded software engineer who wrote this code and allowed it to get released to production.

 

I can see many paths for this happening. He likely wrote it as a test, to see if it could be done or to verify some other piece of software. When it came time to manufacture the car, the defeat device (the hack that detects testing and cheats) was only supposed to be in for a little while. The plan was that they’d fix the software and update it before shipping. But one thing led to another and, six years later, the hack is still in the code.

 

I can recognize the path where a junior engineer was browbeaten into creating the defeat device and few others knew about it. Maybe the junior engineer was told everyone else did it or that his career was on the line. But who did the browbeating? And how far did it go?

 

I can envision many slippery slopes where one small thing led to another. None of them were all that bad individually. But, the culmination is 11 million cars that emit 10-40 times more than they claim to.[2]

 

What I don’t want to imagine is that some senior embedded software engineer said, “Hey, this is a good idea: let’s make cars that pollute and lie about it so we make more money.” I don’t want to believe in immoral engineers.

 

So, faced with the pressure to allow this to happen, what do you do? Standing up and walking away is an option. Software engineers in Silicon Valley use quitting as a panacea: the new startup is always better. Not everyone has the luxury to job-hop. You can be a whistleblower if you know about the issue. Of course, that is likely to trash your career. How can you be a force for good within an amoral organization?

 

  1. Be the best you can be. Apply your own moral compass to work. Be such a goody two-shoes that no one asks you to do shady things. (Perhaps they’ll ask someone less technically competent and be caught sooner.) And if they ask, make it clear you are not comfortable, possibly not able, to go against your personal code of honor. I use the goody two-shoes method to deflect other unsavory things: asking for an explanation as to why an inappropriate joke is funny goes a long way to avoiding such humor in the future. Likewise, asking how a requested change makes for a safer or more reliant product may help deflect shoddy or fraudulent features.
  2. Do code reviews. Too many people think of reviews as a way to catch bugs (or, worse, a way to enforce syntax guidelines). Consider the code you review as cross-training. The goal is not to determine if this is how you would have implemented it. Instead, ask “what can I learn from this code?” and “how can I make this system better?” If you had reviewed the defeat device software, would you have gotten the (possibly) elegant bit of code and considered the ramifications of it? Make thinking it through part of your personal goals of reviewing.
  3. Say no. There are many ways to say no politely, practice them. You don’t have to start out with “over my dead body” but you do have the responsibility to say “this is a bad idea” instead of staying silent. At ShotSpotter, making gunshot location systems, whenever we talked about privacy, security, or encryption in the sensor, one of the embedded software engineers would say, “We have to do the right thing. I don’t want my face on the cover of Wired magazine as the person who let this all go wrong.” It was a flip comment but it reminded all of use that there are consequences to our choices, making it easier to push back as a group.
  4. Quit. Oh, I know, I said this isn’t an option for everyone. But if the possible outcome is bad enough, I believe you’d rather be out of a job than in jail (charged with fraud and/or negligence).

 

Sometimes you have to make tough choices. The choices are even tougher when surrounded with “only for a little while” promises and “everyone cheats” exhortations. In the end, you are responsible for your code and its consequences. You are who you choose to be.[3]

 

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Note: this is an editorial. As such, it is wholly my opinion, not necessarily the opinion of Element14. Also, I know I promised you a post about BB8 software, it is coming.

 

References

[1] Understanding The 'Test Mode' That Let VW Trick The Emissions Test

[2] Volkswagen admits 11 million diesel cars have sneaky software installed

[3] The Iron Giant (1999) - IMDb

Parents

  • Maybe some non-tech news sites are jumping to conclusions : ( Some seem to imply that it might be a deliberate deception, but I can't find the source for this conclusion, but maybe I have not searched well enough : (

     

    I honestly can't believe this was a deliberate attempt to circumvent regulations. I don't know of any engineers that would try such tricks in general, (although FTDI disappointed in their practice of bricking devices - that has got to be an exceedingly rare exception, and rarer still for large multi-nationals like VW where many engineers would have access to the code and your name would be on the changelog on the software version control forever).

     

    I would agree that the assumption that it was test code that was accidentally kept in place is far more likely.

  • in reply to shabaz

    Despite the media creating hype around the problem, it seems that it's the US cars that are the problem

     

    from http://news.yahoo.com/seoul-summons-volkswagen-over-cheating-emissions-tests-054317465.html

    According to the US authorities, VW has admitted that it equipped about 482,000 cars in the United States with sophisticated software that covertly turns off pollution controls when the car is being driven.

     

    from here http://www.businessinsider.com.au/if-vw-deceived-consumers-about-its-diesel-cars-then-it-has-a-huge-problem-2015-9

    The Environmental Protection Agency has ordered the recall of 500,000 Volkswagen cars.


    from here http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c4f4745c-5f98-11e5-9846-de406ccb37f2.html#axzz3mY8UWw6X

    The authorities ordered VW to recall 482,000 cars

     

    This is from our local paper Volkswagen could face $28 billion in illegal diesel pollution fines | Stuff.co.nz

    Volkswagen could face penalties up to US$18 billion (NZ$28b) after being accused of designing software for diesel cars that deceives regulators measuring toxic emissions, the US Environmental Protection Agency has revealed.

    "Put simply, these cars contained software that turns off emissions controls when driving normally and turns them on when the car is undergoing an emissions test," Cynthia Giles, an enforcement officer at the EPA, told reporters in a teleconference.

    Volkswagen can face civil penalties of US$37,500 for each vehicle not in compliance with federal clean air rules. There are 482,000 four-cylinder VW and Audi diesel cars sold since 2008 involved in the allegations. If each car involved is found to be in noncompliance, the penalty could be US$18 billion, an EPA official confirmed on the teleconference.

    A US Volkswagen spokesman said the company "is co-operating with the investigation; we are unable to comment further at this time."

    The feature in question, which the EPA called a "defeat device," masks the true emissions only during testing and therefore when the cars are on the road they emit as much as 40 times the level of pollutants allowed under clean air rules meant to ensure public health is protected, Giles said.

    The EPA accused Volkswagen of using software in four-cylinder Volkswagen and Audi diesel cars from model years 2009 to 2015 made to circumvent emissions testing of certain air pollutants.

    The cars are not facing recall at this time, the EPA said.

    The diesel-powered vehicles involved from the 2009 to 2015 model years are the VW Jetta, VW Beetle, VW Golf and the Audi A3, as well as the VW Passat from model years 2014 and 2015.

     

     

    So the reality is they did configure the software to reduce emissions when it detected it was on a dyno.

    This was because it was a struggle to meet the strict rules that the EPA mandated.

     

    While the suggestions in the original post suggest no-one would do it, the reality is it was done to meet the emmission testing.

    There are many people who would justify what they do to meet to the objective.

     

    You might want to look at your own CEO/Boss and see if he really is squeaky clean when it comes to glossing over minor issues, or fully reporting to stock holders.

    How many times have you seen the Project Manager manipulating the project to meet the target dealine, while in the menatime there are other aprts falling behind.

     

     

    I do agree that your integrity is the only thing you can control, and once you comprimise it, you are on that slippery slope.

     

    Mark

  • in reply to mcb1

    Indeed Mark I bet they are not the only ones and more to come when they start to look around. I would say  they only looked anyway as a Political measure since they are always in some Ameri-Euro fight off. 

    Any way surely all this as been obvious to Joe in the street for years when Vehicles have been delivering only 70-80% of their stated  MPG figures for years now.

Comment
  • in reply to mcb1

    Indeed Mark I bet they are not the only ones and more to come when they start to look around. I would say  they only looked anyway as a Political measure since they are always in some Ameri-Euro fight off. 

    Any way surely all this as been obvious to Joe in the street for years when Vehicles have been delivering only 70-80% of their stated  MPG figures for years now.

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