4 ms·

Absolutely. But finances are pretty standardized, software is vastly more complex. Audits are a good idea, but it's an incredibly hard problem.

tluyben2 11y ago
Maybe parent meant the software in finances, because that also requires external audits to some extend.
DrJokepu 11y ago
I think a better approach would be requiring that developers (and their managers and testers etc.) working on software that could kill or injure people if it malfunctioned have some sort of a professional license, that would be granted and revoked similarly to how medical and engineering licenses are granted and revoked.
- st0p 11y ago
  I'm not opposing this idea, but I'm not sure it would have helped in the VW case. There were some people (engineers? Managers?) who were cheating and they knew that what they were doing was wrong. I don't believe a license would have changed that.
  - michaelt 11y ago
    If a developer is asked to do something obviously wrong they might not feel they can refuse, because they can be replaced with someone willing to do it. If an architect is asked to design a bridge that isn't safe they can refuse, secure in the knowledge they can't be replaced with someone willing to do it, as no licensed architect will knowingly design an unsafe bridge. Of course, a licensing scheme would probably have a bunch of disadvantages.
  - ehvatum 11y ago
    Perhaps the angle is that this would constitute ethical turpitude sure to cause loss of license and ejection from one's specialty.
  - mtbcoder 11y ago
    Perhaps the threat of having their license pulled, thereby nullifying potential future employment might have caused them to think twice about wilfully cheating emissions controls?
    - thomnottom 11y ago
      While the FDA may not be a great regulatory group, if someone at a pharmaceutical were found to cheat like this they could potentially be barred from working in the industry again. This works in some cases, at least in theory.
  - acdha 11y ago
    Other people have raised the question of how well the prospect of losing a license would act as a deterrent. One other aspect which might be even stronger would be if the professional organization had a role not unlike a union in protecting its members’ professional decisions. Imagine if you worked at VW and your boss told you to make a change which affected safety, emissions, etc. – how different might your reaction be if you know that if you refused or reported it to the appropriate regulators and there were repercussions the Bitpackers Guild could provide legal representation and expert witnesses for you, stage a strike where no licensed engineer would work for an irresponsible company, or simply ensure a lot of publicity? Suddenly it's not “go lean on Sally until she gives the engineering sign-off. She can't afford to quit until her kid's out of college” but “do we want a team of professional engineers to hold a press conference saying we're cutting corners over our experts' judgement?” There are certainly potential downsides but … anyone who drives a car, uses medical equipment, etc. might reasonably conclude they're worth it, particularly if the system was structured to focus on transparency and due process rather than the pathology some unions are prone to where members are always defended even when they're in the wrong.
- redcalx 11y ago
  > some sort of a professional license Sure, as per the construction industry. Or perhaps simply the threat of being prosecuted for manslaughter or bodily harm, etc?
- cuckcuckspruce 11y ago
  While I don't agree with the license requirement the least we could require is publication of the source code and validation by an industry body made up for subject matter experts for safety critical code.
w_t_payne 11y ago
Even the possibility of an external source code, revision history, requirements etc... audit would change working practices dramatically ... particularly if there were legal penalties against developers found responsible for introducing bugs.
- logfromblammo 11y ago
  There's no way in Hell that I will consent to be held responsible for the output if I do not have full control over the inputs. If I am an employee of the company, and someone else is telling me what to do for my job, and particularly if they are telling me how to do my job, they must necessarily share responsibility for anything that I do pursuant to obeying those instructions. And threat of retribution leads to stupid practices: public void CoverYourAss() { try { int x = 0; } catch { throw; } } This is a simplified example of a real-world coding standard. At one of my former workplaces, everything had to be wrapped in a try-catch block, including statements that would only ever generate run-time exceptions, like out-of-memory exceptions. It didn't matter if you re-threw the exception you just caught. You just had to make sure the try-catch was there. In every function. Or you're fired. I am not making this up. If the software ever crashed to desktop for any reason, including a bad memory module in the computer running it, or someone nuking parts of the filesystem while it was running, or even a bullet striking the motherboard, someone was getting blamed for it on the development team, and fired. As it would be a witch hunt anyway, the inquisition squad would obviously look at the code written by those most threatening to them, or least popular, or both, before anyone else, and seize upon any irregularity to lay blame. You'd better believe I was sending out resumes the day I found out about that. I can only imagine how bad it would be if the penalty was to be fired plus arrested and/or sued.
  - JoBrad 11y ago
    But if there were a standard set of industry-specific tests that the program had to comply with, it's not like it would just be on you.
    - 11y ago
rayiner 11y ago
That's true, and it isn't hard problem. But note that audits are also a hard problem. Auditing teams don't go through and reconcile every transaction. They conduct spot checks of sample transactions and scrutinize controls, and aggressively follow up when any failure of controls is observed. I think a lot of those concepts could be applied to code audits.

tluyben2 11y ago

Maybe parent meant the software in finances, because that also requires external audits to some extend.

DrJokepu 11y ago

I think a better approach would be requiring that developers (and their managers and testers etc.) working on software that could kill or injure people if it malfunctioned have some sort of a professional license, that would be granted and revoked similarly to how medical and engineering licenses are granted and revoked.

st0p 11y ago
I'm not opposing this idea, but I'm not sure it would have helped in the VW case. There were some people (engineers? Managers?) who were cheating and they knew that what they were doing was wrong. I don't believe a license would have changed that.
- michaelt 11y ago
  If a developer is asked to do something obviously wrong they might not feel they can refuse, because they can be replaced with someone willing to do it. If an architect is asked to design a bridge that isn't safe they can refuse, secure in the knowledge they can't be replaced with someone willing to do it, as no licensed architect will knowingly design an unsafe bridge. Of course, a licensing scheme would probably have a bunch of disadvantages.
- ehvatum 11y ago
  Perhaps the angle is that this would constitute ethical turpitude sure to cause loss of license and ejection from one's specialty.
- mtbcoder 11y ago
  Perhaps the threat of having their license pulled, thereby nullifying potential future employment might have caused them to think twice about wilfully cheating emissions controls?
  - thomnottom 11y ago
    While the FDA may not be a great regulatory group, if someone at a pharmaceutical were found to cheat like this they could potentially be barred from working in the industry again. This works in some cases, at least in theory.
- acdha 11y ago
  Other people have raised the question of how well the prospect of losing a license would act as a deterrent. One other aspect which might be even stronger would be if the professional organization had a role not unlike a union in protecting its members’ professional decisions. Imagine if you worked at VW and your boss told you to make a change which affected safety, emissions, etc. – how different might your reaction be if you know that if you refused or reported it to the appropriate regulators and there were repercussions the Bitpackers Guild could provide legal representation and expert witnesses for you, stage a strike where no licensed engineer would work for an irresponsible company, or simply ensure a lot of publicity? Suddenly it's not “go lean on Sally until she gives the engineering sign-off. She can't afford to quit until her kid's out of college” but “do we want a team of professional engineers to hold a press conference saying we're cutting corners over our experts' judgement?” There are certainly potential downsides but … anyone who drives a car, uses medical equipment, etc. might reasonably conclude they're worth it, particularly if the system was structured to focus on transparency and due process rather than the pathology some unions are prone to where members are always defended even when they're in the wrong.
redcalx 11y ago
> some sort of a professional license Sure, as per the construction industry. Or perhaps simply the threat of being prosecuted for manslaughter or bodily harm, etc?
cuckcuckspruce 11y ago
While I don't agree with the license requirement the least we could require is publication of the source code and validation by an industry body made up for subject matter experts for safety critical code.

w_t_payne 11y ago

Even the possibility of an external source code, revision history, requirements etc... audit would change working practices dramatically ... particularly if there were legal penalties against developers found responsible for introducing bugs.

logfromblammo 11y ago
There's no way in Hell that I will consent to be held responsible for the output if I do not have full control over the inputs. If I am an employee of the company, and someone else is telling me what to do for my job, and particularly if they are telling me how to do my job, they must necessarily share responsibility for anything that I do pursuant to obeying those instructions. And threat of retribution leads to stupid practices: public void CoverYourAss() { try { int x = 0; } catch { throw; } } This is a simplified example of a real-world coding standard. At one of my former workplaces, everything had to be wrapped in a try-catch block, including statements that would only ever generate run-time exceptions, like out-of-memory exceptions. It didn't matter if you re-threw the exception you just caught. You just had to make sure the try-catch was there. In every function. Or you're fired. I am not making this up. If the software ever crashed to desktop for any reason, including a bad memory module in the computer running it, or someone nuking parts of the filesystem while it was running, or even a bullet striking the motherboard, someone was getting blamed for it on the development team, and fired. As it would be a witch hunt anyway, the inquisition squad would obviously look at the code written by those most threatening to them, or least popular, or both, before anyone else, and seize upon any irregularity to lay blame. You'd better believe I was sending out resumes the day I found out about that. I can only imagine how bad it would be if the penalty was to be fired plus arrested and/or sued.
- JoBrad 11y ago
  But if there were a standard set of industry-specific tests that the program had to comply with, it's not like it would just be on you.
  - 11y ago

rayiner 11y ago

That's true, and it isn't hard problem. But note that audits are also a hard problem. Auditing teams don't go through and reconcile every transaction. They conduct spot checks of sample transactions and scrutinize controls, and aggressively follow up when any failure of controls is observed. I think a lot of those concepts could be applied to code audits.