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“It wasn't a written rule not to call the FBI...” But it was a written rule not to use a defeat device. This isn’t a case where manufacturers found a loophole

“It wasn't a written rule not to call the FBI...” But it was a written rule not to use a defeat device. This isn’t a case where manufacturers found a loophole and regulators got upset because they wanted manufacturers to obey the spirit of the rules rather than just the letter. This is a case of manufacturers blatantly breaking the explicit written rules.

londons_explore 7y ago
Same thing. If I am designing a printer and you say "it must be able to output 10 pages per minute printing black and white text, and make it as light as possible", then I, the printer designer go to work, tweaking the design of the printer to meet that goal, while keeping the weight down. Seeing nothing about the color printing speed, I don't care about that. It's just black and white speed that matters! I make the black cartridge super fast and super wide. Whoa - gotta keep the weight down! Oh well - I'll make this colour cartridge smaller/cheaper/slower/lighter. Suddenly, we have a printer that does 10ppm of black and white, and only 0.1ppm of colour, because it has to crawl along. We now have a 'defeat device'. It performs great in test conditions (black and white text), and badly in general use (colour pages are common). Did the designer explicitly make a defeat device? Not really... They just only made it work well in the test conditions, and performance in all other conditions suffered.
- pretendgeneer 7y ago
  That is nothing like what these devices in the car's are doing. The defeat devices are if you can only design a printer that can print 1ppm of arbitrary pages, but you manage to tweak the printer so you can print 10ppm of the test pages. Then claiming you have the best 10ppm printer.
- mikeash 7y ago
  The law says you can’t make a device that causes the vehicle to perform well on the test but perform poorly in other routine scenarios. With your example, you’d be stuck arguing to a judge that color printing is not a normal part of your device’s operation and therefore your loophole exploitation is legal. Which isn’t going to get anywhere at all. The law is not stupid nor is it evaluated by machines.
- chmod775 7y ago
  This analogy is just wrong - as in completely incorrect. Car makers didn't optimize what they were told to optimize for, they optimized for the test they knew the regulators would perform. A correct analogy would be you telling manufacturers, "the printer must use at most X grams of ink per square centimeter", but then they go and only optimize it for the specific test printouts you will do. In truth their printer is exceeding that threshold just so they can also advertise higher printing speeds.

londons_explore 7y ago

Same thing. If I am designing a printer and you say "it must be able to output 10 pages per minute printing black and white text, and make it as light as possible", then I, the printer designer go to work, tweaking the design of the printer to meet that goal, while keeping the weight down. Seeing nothing about the color printing speed, I don't care about that. It's just black and white speed that matters! I make the black cartridge super fast and super wide. Whoa - gotta keep the weight down! Oh well - I'll make this colour cartridge smaller/cheaper/slower/lighter. Suddenly, we have a printer that does 10ppm of black and white, and only 0.1ppm of colour, because it has to crawl along. We now have a 'defeat device'. It performs great in test conditions (black and white text), and badly in general use (colour pages are common). Did the designer explicitly make a defeat device? Not really... They just only made it work well in the test conditions, and performance in all other conditions suffered.

pretendgeneer 7y ago
That is nothing like what these devices in the car's are doing. The defeat devices are if you can only design a printer that can print 1ppm of arbitrary pages, but you manage to tweak the printer so you can print 10ppm of the test pages. Then claiming you have the best 10ppm printer.
mikeash 7y ago
The law says you can’t make a device that causes the vehicle to perform well on the test but perform poorly in other routine scenarios. With your example, you’d be stuck arguing to a judge that color printing is not a normal part of your device’s operation and therefore your loophole exploitation is legal. Which isn’t going to get anywhere at all. The law is not stupid nor is it evaluated by machines.
chmod775 7y ago
This analogy is just wrong - as in completely incorrect. Car makers didn't optimize what they were told to optimize for, they optimized for the test they knew the regulators would perform. A correct analogy would be you telling manufacturers, "the printer must use at most X grams of ink per square centimeter", but then they go and only optimize it for the specific test printouts you will do. In truth their printer is exceeding that threshold just so they can also advertise higher printing speeds.