Cheating on Tests

RE: Cheating on Tests

Former Member — Sat, 02 Jan 2016 03:16:54 GMT

The FAULT lays at the feet of the US Federal government Anti-circumvention laws, the DMCA!

IF peer review of the embedded were permitted, it would have been found up to a DECADE earlier!

Fear of prosecution prevented scientific review of the embedded code by honorable coders!

http://cloudigylaw.com/volkswagen-copyright-dmca-scientific-integrity/

RE: Cheating on Tests

gadget.iom — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 15:13:11 GMT

According to the BBC Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn has resigned over manipulation of US diesel car emissions tests.

“I am shocked by the events of the past few days. Above all, I am stunned that misconduct on such a scale was possible in the Volkswagen Group.

As CEO I accept responsibility for the irregularities that have been found in diesel engines and have therefore requested the Supervisory Board to agree on terminating my function as CEO of the Volkswagen Group. I am doing this in the interests of the company even though I am not aware of any wrong doing on my part.

Volkswagen needs a fresh start – also in terms of personnel. I am clearing the way for this fresh start with my resignation.

I have always been driven by my desire to serve this company, especially our customers and employees. Volkswagen has been, is and will always be my life.

The process of clarification and transparency must continue. This is the only way to win back trust. I am convinced that the Volkswagen Group and its team will overcome this grave crisis.”

Volkswagen Group Ad-hoc-Release: Statement by Prof. Dr. Winterkorn

RE: Cheating on Tests

Dudley — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 10:20:45 GMT

I can recommend this book from an engineering moral ethics perspective : Destination Disaster. While reading, ask yourself at what point you would have spoken up or done something different.

RE: Cheating on Tests

shabaz — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 07:29:38 GMT

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.

RE: Cheating on Tests

Former Member — Tue, 22 Sep 2015 17:18:11 GMT

Caveat: I am not a car guy, but here is something that attempts to explain the tradeoffs involved in the cheating:

https://np.reddit.com/r/engineering/comments/3lhhjk/have_you_ever_been_asked_by_your_boss_to_violate/cv8ypjk?context=3

With that context I suspect this is more a case of the engineers skirting the law to be achieve the "higher" goal of better MPG. Or maybe one group was worried about passing the emissions tests (worrying about NOx) and another about optimizing for MPG. But, in the end the big picture of these two goals fighting each other wasn't fully seen (or was willfully ignored) because both groups "succeeded"

RE: Cheating on Tests

gadget.iom — Tue, 22 Sep 2015 16:38:45 GMT

Interesting to read the "Switch" operation parameters in the first link. Thanks [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-187dbc13-a879-49ad-b257-89c88d36df3b/contentimage_5F00_1.png:16:16]