VW made several defeat devices to cheat emissions tests: sources

[KamaAina]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/17/us-volkswagen-emissions-software-idUSKCN0SB0PU20151017

Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) made several versions of its "defeat device" software to rig diesel emissions tests, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters, potentially suggesting a complex deception by the German carmaker.

During seven years of self-confessed cheating, Volkswagen altered its illegal software for four engine types, said the sources, who include a VW manager with knowledge of the matter and a U.S. official close to an investigation into the company.

Spokespersons for VW in Europe and the United States declined to comment on whether it developed multiple defeat devices, citing ongoing investigations by the company and authorities in both regions.

Asked about the number of people who might have known about the cheating, a spokesman at company headquarters in Wolfsburg, Germany, said: "We are working intensely to investigate who knew what and when, but it's far too early to tell."

[Blue_Tires]

1. Yeah, that "just a couple of rogue programmers" bullshit never seemed real

[hobbit709]

2. There's a reason both VW and Diebold made their source code proprietary.

If you can't look at it you can't tell what hooks are in it.

[snooper2]

3. All companies make their source code proprietary

unless you want to go Open Source!

depending on what you do of course....



I'm working with some vendors right now and the most important line you put in any contract is basically-

Yo, if you go belly up- You give us access/rights to the source code

[hunter]

4. Vote counting and emission controls on cars and factories are the sorts of things...

... that MUST be entirely transparent in their implementation.

Otherwise cheating is just too damned easy for those with slippery or non-existent ethics.

I avoid proprietary code as best I'm able.

For every penniless code genius who makes a fortune with proprietary code, hundreds more are crushed or bought cheap and disposed of by the corporate giants.

Bill Gates didn't create the original DOS. He bought it from Seattle Computer Products, allegedly for $50,000, and then licensed it to seventy or so companies as MS-DOS, and also to IBM, allowing IBM to call it IBM PC-DOS. Brilliant business that! Gates is a free market predator, that's his genius, not computers, education, philanthropy, or anything else. Gates is a shark. I don't think he's evil, anymore than a great white shark could be evil, he's simply a creature who is very successful and very well adapted to the current way of "business."

My first commercial computers were Atari 8 bits. I still love those machines. I have them emulated on my desktop, along with every other computer I've owned or used since my first 1802 microprocessor homebuilt.

For a few years I lived in "PC compatible" hell, from DOS 3.3, through DR-DOS with Geoworks, through Windows 98 SE. I first signed onto DU with a 98SE machine, a legal 98SE base, patched and twisted to my own purposes in a few ways Microsoft might not have approved of. See ReactOs and Wine.

My first real operating system was BSD in the late seventies and early eighties. When Debian Linux came along with good web browsers and text processing it was like coming home again.

[Rex]

5. True, third party software can be confusing.

For some that is a feature, not a bug.