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Remember the Toyota uncontrolled acceleration bug and the report that came as a result of the trial. It seems like software is a bit of a second thought for som

Remember the Toyota uncontrolled acceleration bug and the report that came as a result of the trial. It seems like software is a bit of a second thought for some incumbents too.

lowry 8y ago
It is common knowledge that Toyota uncontrolled acceleration bug was completely imaginary, see for example http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/08-blame-game http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/08-blame-game
- dewey 8y ago
  I started listening to that podcast a few weeks ago, that ones one of my favorite episodes. Can highly recommend it.
- eequah9L 8y ago
  Check out this, and the linked court transcripts linked therein: http://www.safetyresearch.net/blog/articles/toyota-unintended-acceleration-and-big-bowl-%E2%80%9Cspaghetti%E2%80%9D-code http://www.safetyresearch.net/blog/articles/toyota-unintende... The security researchers who were expert witnesses in the Toyota case and that analyzed Toyota's source code testified in court that they managed to reproduce the unintended acceleration with a real car on a dynamometer.
  - lowry 8y ago
    Is it what people call fake news nowadays? I once had a project with a major lobbying organisation with links throughout the automotive industry. The one that published regular reports on real vs declared emissions discrepancies long before the VW scandal. They were unanimous when asked about the unintended acceleration bug. It was a case of mass hysteria.
    - arcticfox 8y ago
      Is it possible that the timing on your contact with them made a difference? It seems that NASA/NHTSA concluded in 2011 that it was a mechanical defect, but research concluding in 2013 showed that it was totally possible to have been caused by the software. At least according to the summary based on sources used for Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%E2%80%9311_Toyota_vehicle_recalls https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%E2%80%9311_Toyota_vehicle...
      - lowry 8y ago
        Hey, The page you refer to has a section "NHTSA and NASA Investigation Verdict" and it says nothing about the software bugs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%E2%80%9311_Toyota_vehicle_recalls#NHTSA_and_NASA_Investigation_Verdict https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%E2%80%9311_Toyota_vehicle...
        linseed 8y ago
        Perhaps have a look at Koopman https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~koopman/pubs/koopman14_toyota_ua_slides.pdf https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~koopman/pubs/koopman14_toyota_ua_... and Barr http://www.safetyresearch.net/Library/BarrSlides_FINAL_SCRUBBED.pdf http://www.safetyresearch.net/Library/BarrSlides_FINAL_SCRUB...
  - intern4tional 8y ago
    The linked trial testimony says otherwise. The engineer states he found bugs, and theoretically it might be possible he was unable to reproduce. Further, he evaluated the software against his own coding standard which was a variant of another. The engineer was questioned: " Q. Now, you have not reproduced in vehicle testing your 25 theory that there's a software bug that opens the THIS TRANSCRIPT IS NOT PROOFREAD 30 1 throttle and then the task dies, have you? 2 A. No." From page 245. Further reproduction questions were all answered with a no further. To get a successfully task death failure (what the engineer wanted to happen) the engineer had to modify the source code. Further in the limited testing even with modifications, the failsafe triggered 100% of the time. Your statement is incorrect.
    - eequah9L 8y ago
      I'm rereading, and I think you are right. I misremembered.
liber8 8y ago
Not sure if you're being sarcastic or not, but the Toyota issues were not caused by any software bug. Most cases were caused by people hitting the wrong pedal. The others were caused by floor mats that were a bit too long, causing the gas pedal to stick. https://www.caranddriver.com/features/its-all-your-fault-the-dot-renders-its-verdict-on-toyotas-unintended-acceleration-scare-feature https://www.caranddriver.com/features/its-all-your-fault-the...
- Twirrim 8y ago
  Regardless of whether the acceleration were caused by the software or not, the testimonies for the software experts called in to review Toyota's source code for the case were eye-popping: http://www.safetyresearch.net/blog/articles/toyota-unintended-acceleration-and-big-bowl-%E2%80%9Cspaghetti%E2%80%9D-code http://www.safetyresearch.net/blog/articles/toyota-unintende... > Skid marks notwithstanding, two of the plaintiffs’ software experts, Phillip Koopman, and Michael Barr, provided fascinating insights into the myriad problems with Toyota’s software development process and its source code – possible bit flips, task deaths that would disable the failsafes, memory corruption, single-point failures, inadequate protections against stack overflow and buffer overflow, single-fault containment regions, thousands of global variables. The list of deficiencies in process and product was lengthy. >There are a large number of functions that are overly complex. By the standard industry metrics some of them are untestable, meaning that it is so complicated a recipe that there is no way to develop a reliable test suite or test methodology to test all the possible things that can happen in it. Some of them are even so complex that they are what is called unmaintainable, which means that if you go in to fix a bug or to make a change, you're likely to create a new bug in the process. Just because your car has the latest version of the firmware -- that is what we call embedded software -- doesn't mean it is safer necessarily than the older one….And that conclusion is that the failsafes are inadequate. The failsafes that they have contain defects or gaps. But on the whole, the safety architecture is a house of cards. It is possible for a large percentage of the failsafes to be disabled at the same time that the throttle control is lost. etc. etc.
  - Avshalom 8y ago
    I mean it's a bit depressing but its only eyepopping if you suffer from murray-gelman amnesia about literally every piece of software even written.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

Remember the Toyota uncontrolled acceleration bug and the report that came as a result of the trial. It seems like software is a bit of a second thought for some incumbents too.

lowry 8y ago

It is common knowledge that Toyota uncontrolled acceleration bug was completely imaginary, see for example http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/08-blame-game http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/08-blame-game

dewey 8y ago
I started listening to that podcast a few weeks ago, that ones one of my favorite episodes. Can highly recommend it.
eequah9L 8y ago
Check out this, and the linked court transcripts linked therein: http://www.safetyresearch.net/blog/articles/toyota-unintended-acceleration-and-big-bowl-%E2%80%9Cspaghetti%E2%80%9D-code http://www.safetyresearch.net/blog/articles/toyota-unintende... The security researchers who were expert witnesses in the Toyota case and that analyzed Toyota's source code testified in court that they managed to reproduce the unintended acceleration with a real car on a dynamometer.
- lowry 8y ago
  Is it what people call fake news nowadays? I once had a project with a major lobbying organisation with links throughout the automotive industry. The one that published regular reports on real vs declared emissions discrepancies long before the VW scandal. They were unanimous when asked about the unintended acceleration bug. It was a case of mass hysteria.
  - arcticfox 8y ago
    Is it possible that the timing on your contact with them made a difference? It seems that NASA/NHTSA concluded in 2011 that it was a mechanical defect, but research concluding in 2013 showed that it was totally possible to have been caused by the software. At least according to the summary based on sources used for Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%E2%80%9311_Toyota_vehicle_recalls https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%E2%80%9311_Toyota_vehicle...
    - lowry 8y ago
      Hey, The page you refer to has a section "NHTSA and NASA Investigation Verdict" and it says nothing about the software bugs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%E2%80%9311_Toyota_vehicle_recalls#NHTSA_and_NASA_Investigation_Verdict https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%E2%80%9311_Toyota_vehicle...
      - linseed 8y ago
        Perhaps have a look at Koopman https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~koopman/pubs/koopman14_toyota_ua_slides.pdf https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~koopman/pubs/koopman14_toyota_ua_... and Barr http://www.safetyresearch.net/Library/BarrSlides_FINAL_SCRUBBED.pdf http://www.safetyresearch.net/Library/BarrSlides_FINAL_SCRUB...
- intern4tional 8y ago
  The linked trial testimony says otherwise. The engineer states he found bugs, and theoretically it might be possible he was unable to reproduce. Further, he evaluated the software against his own coding standard which was a variant of another. The engineer was questioned: " Q. Now, you have not reproduced in vehicle testing your 25 theory that there's a software bug that opens the THIS TRANSCRIPT IS NOT PROOFREAD 30 1 throttle and then the task dies, have you? 2 A. No." From page 245. Further reproduction questions were all answered with a no further. To get a successfully task death failure (what the engineer wanted to happen) the engineer had to modify the source code. Further in the limited testing even with modifications, the failsafe triggered 100% of the time. Your statement is incorrect.
  - eequah9L 8y ago
    I'm rereading, and I think you are right. I misremembered.

liber8 8y ago

Not sure if you're being sarcastic or not, but the Toyota issues were not caused by any software bug. Most cases were caused by people hitting the wrong pedal. The others were caused by floor mats that were a bit too long, causing the gas pedal to stick. https://www.caranddriver.com/features/its-all-your-fault-the-dot-renders-its-verdict-on-toyotas-unintended-acceleration-scare-feature https://www.caranddriver.com/features/its-all-your-fault-the...

Twirrim 8y ago
Regardless of whether the acceleration were caused by the software or not, the testimonies for the software experts called in to review Toyota's source code for the case were eye-popping: http://www.safetyresearch.net/blog/articles/toyota-unintended-acceleration-and-big-bowl-%E2%80%9Cspaghetti%E2%80%9D-code http://www.safetyresearch.net/blog/articles/toyota-unintende... > Skid marks notwithstanding, two of the plaintiffs’ software experts, Phillip Koopman, and Michael Barr, provided fascinating insights into the myriad problems with Toyota’s software development process and its source code – possible bit flips, task deaths that would disable the failsafes, memory corruption, single-point failures, inadequate protections against stack overflow and buffer overflow, single-fault containment regions, thousands of global variables. The list of deficiencies in process and product was lengthy. >There are a large number of functions that are overly complex. By the standard industry metrics some of them are untestable, meaning that it is so complicated a recipe that there is no way to develop a reliable test suite or test methodology to test all the possible things that can happen in it. Some of them are even so complex that they are what is called unmaintainable, which means that if you go in to fix a bug or to make a change, you're likely to create a new bug in the process. Just because your car has the latest version of the firmware -- that is what we call embedded software -- doesn't mean it is safer necessarily than the older one….And that conclusion is that the failsafes are inadequate. The failsafes that they have contain defects or gaps. But on the whole, the safety architecture is a house of cards. It is possible for a large percentage of the failsafes to be disabled at the same time that the throttle control is lost. etc. etc.
- Avshalom 8y ago
  I mean it's a bit depressing but its only eyepopping if you suffer from murray-gelman amnesia about literally every piece of software even written.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]