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I may be missing something here, but if you take a step back this just seems like a tragedy of misaligned economic incentives. Both the US & EU would have want
by avar 9y ago
I may be missing something here, but if you take a step back this just seems like a tragedy of misaligned economic incentives.
Both the US & EU would have wanted this information from day one, and this whole fiasco cost VW billions in fines.
There would have been any number of engineers at VW and Bosch that knew exactly how this worked, but there was nothing in it for them to come clear about it. They were never going to get charged for writing that code, and they would have likely been out of a job or destroyed their career at those companies if they volunteered to authorities how this worked.
So why don't investigators just offer a huge cash prices to engineers at those companies who can provide details about exactly how this worked, along with immunity as long as they're forthcoming with information about who instructed them to implement this?
You'd have an army of engineers overnight willing to spill the beans, and you'd save millions in investigative costs, and quickly get to the real root cause of the corruption.
Instead some independent team of investigators is left digging through old firmware images posted on forums to reverse engineer how the defeat device worked.
- obstinate 9y agoI don't know for certain whether the concept of a bounty was considered, and if so why it was rejected. But I can think of a few possibly good reasons to not do this. For one thing, it could be thought of as rewarding the engineers who wrote the evil code, maybe even creating an incentive for engineers to add such code in the future. There are precedents for enforcement actions having the unintended consequence of causing more incidents. Another thing is that you may actually wish to prosecute the people who wrote the code, to serve as a disincentive to future engineers considering following management orders on a similar defeat device.
- avar 9y agoYou may wish to prosecute them either way, and you might offer them immunity either way. Doing this would just guarantee that if they were eligible for lenient handling or immunity that they'd get a handsome cash payout by ratting on their management or giving investigators details relevant to the case, but which they didn't think to look for.
- zardo 9y ago>For one thing, it could be thought of as rewarding the engineers who wrote the evil code, maybe even creating an incentive for engineers to add such code in the future. In the development model used here, it not like engineers just indepently decide to add a feature. An autogenerated two line procedure is going to have two pages of documentation.
- d0mine 9y agoWhy do think the notion of whistleblowers or witness protection exists?
- obstinate 9y agoI'm pretty sure whistleblower protections are not a get out of jail free card. If you blow the whistle on actions that you took part in, you can still be prosecuted.
- PhantomGremlin 9y agoThere would have been any number of engineers at VW and Bosch that knew exactly how this worked, but there was nothing in it for them to come clear about it. The USA already has a very workable solution. It's called the "prisoner's dilemma". They were never going to get charged for writing that code Wrong. That's exactly what you threaten them with. Engineers aren't hardened criminals. When faced with the possibility of jail, 99% will instantly sing like canaries. The problem is of jurisdiction. The engineers are in Germany and no fucking way will Germany extradite them. So the usual threats don't work. Well, we did catch one moron who decided to travel to the USA for vacation even though he was a big player in the mess. Edit: I'm presenting the current general situation for the USA. Your idea of bounties is not bad. It has worked spectacularly well in rewarding employees of Swiss Banks. Somewhat ironically, it's something that Germany has done: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/german-city-finds-3-billion-euros-hidden-by-tax-evaders-in-swiss-bank-a-870831.html http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/german-city-find...