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The rumours of the death of honesty in business in the U.S. have been greatly exaggerated, despite media portrayals.
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I thought the very same, down to the last word.
GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- ++>+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP. -- TNCaver
"When you have eliminated the JavaScript, whatever remains must be an empty page." -- Mike Hankey
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Munchies_Matt wrote: Why the hell did they confess to cheating?
They were caught by independent testers so I guess they thought the game was up. They were first caught out a few years back and did indeed blame it on a glitch, but the testers didn't give up and passed their finding onto the authorities and the pressure stayed. They will have simply looked at the source and found the offending code.
If they continued to deny it they'd only make things worse for themselves in the long run. Also I think the CEO's contract was coming to an end anyway? He probably thought he'd fess up then resign. Which he has done. I'm sure he'll find another equally well paying job at an equal position in some other company though. He probably starts on Monday.
Also I think the same issue effects European cars too.
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F-ES Sitecore wrote: They will have simply looked at the source and found the offending code.
Who gave the US authorities the code, and even then they could have pretended it was just test code that got into the product by mistake. After all, its happened to everyone in the IT industry!
Doesn't matter if everyone believes or not, right now, they are up for being sued for every car they made in the last 15 years!
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A car's ECU is no different from a PC...the code is stored on a ROM and you download the contents of the ROM and disassemble it. People have been doing this with car ECUs for years. I think it's "harder" in the US due to local laws, but in the UK you can't patent software and there is no protection against decompilation. Ultimately the US government will have the power to demand the source if independent testers couldn't access it itself, so VW will have known the gig was up.
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Confessing is not a good solution. Your solution about a software glitch is what they should had done.
GM confessed and it cost them cash and reputation. Toyoda never admitted anything and even though they lost a ton of cash, their reputation is still intact. Edge -> Toyoda.
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The same reason politicians "come clean" about their peccadillos - they had already been caught and a newspaper was threatening to expose them. As soon as they were phoned up with "we are going to run this story - do you have any comments?" they decided to become all honest.
(There's a smokescreen metaphor somewhere but I can't make it work myself)
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They should have stuck to it. How many of us have had test code end up in our product by mistake? Its very easy, stick to the story, destroy some paperwork, lose some emails, and its all taken care of.
Works for the US govt, and the global warming scammers!
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You WANT them to lie and cheat and steal? Sorry, but your moral/ethical compass seems to be a little stuck.
IMHO, I think it's better for the company to fess up and take their medicine. They need to fix their reputation. Even if they cover stuff up and avoid prosecution, people will find out via rumors, media, etc. if the company is shady or not. I give them kudos for cowboying up and cleaning up their mess. Or at least starting to.
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Well, actually I'd prefer a dishonest company to a dumb one. One can be dishonest at times but if he's dumb he's always dumb.
After all they didn't cheat the customers but the insensate regulations of an abusive organizations, which goes as far as defining the acceptable range of curvatures of bananas. The things I care in buying a car are:
- reliability;
- safety;
- upfront cost;
- maintenance cost;
- comfort;
All the rest is marketing.
GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- ++>+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP. -- TNCaver
"When you have eliminated the JavaScript, whatever remains must be an empty page." -- Mike Hankey
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Those are the things YOU care about in buying a car. But some people do include environmental issues in their decision. Those are the people who have been cheated. They advertised a car that had a certain feature, and it didn't really have that feature.
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I'm not sure if covering it up would have saved them much. They were pretty much caught and exposed on the get go by EPA.
It's like saying you didn't take the cookie from the cookie jar while your hand is still in it.
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Silvabolt wrote: while your hand is still in it.
*while everybody's hand is still in*. Since they are most probably not the only ones to do it, they could have underestimated the outcome.
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Munchies_Matt wrote: Why the hell did they confess to cheating?
Because it was proved that the software reacted differently when the drive pattern of the emission test was detected. I know of no "SW glitch" that actively detect a drive pattern and only in this case change the emissions. I know a lot of people are SW illiterate, so you can explain a lot by "well, it's software", but there is a limit you cannot overcome, I think.
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Basing on the amount of silicon I'd have swore it was in Hollywood.
GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- ++>+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP. -- TNCaver
"When you have eliminated the JavaScript, whatever remains must be an empty page." -- Mike Hankey
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That would be Silicone Valley, and there are countless of them running around on two legs.
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a f***ing golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?"
"You mean like from space?"
"No, from Canada."
If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns.
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And then there is Chilicon Carne, don't forget that!
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant Anonymous
- The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they're genuine Winston Churchill, 1944
- I'd just like a chance to prove that money can't make me happy. Me, all the time
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That's one of the first things you learn the hard way when you live in west Texas.
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a f***ing golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?"
"You mean like from space?"
"No, from Canada."
If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns.
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CDP1802 wrote: That would be Silicone
Damn mute "e" - I thought there was too much ambiguity
GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- ++>+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP. -- TNCaver
"When you have eliminated the JavaScript, whatever remains must be an empty page." -- Mike Hankey
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Enough with the Paris posts now... !!!
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant Anonymous
- The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they're genuine Winston Churchill, 1944
- I'd just like a chance to prove that money can't make me happy. Me, all the time
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Nice post
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The weather isn't that good, its often cold and foggy in SF in the summer.
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Agreed: I know that area well and lived in Marin for some years. It is wet and cold in the winter and you get the marine layer at the coast which can last all day up there. Still, other than that, it is a beautiful part of the world, particularly Marin. Forget Sausalito, Tiburon is the almost the same without the tourists.
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