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I remember when the "Tesla source code" leaked and I was a decent programmer, so I was curious and looked through some of the posted code... I have never sat in

I remember when the "Tesla source code" leaked and I was a decent programmer, so I was curious and looked through some of the posted code... I have never sat in a moving Tesla vehicle since that day. Even if that code never drove a mile, the fact someone writing code for them saved it somewhere as progress scared me. [Edit to delete references to LIDAR]: Then front radar was disabled/disconnected https://www.carscoops.com/2023/05/tesla-is-disabling-radar-sensors-from-customer-cars-during-routine-service-checks/ https://www.carscoops.com/2023/05/tesla-is-disabling-radar-s... Then he stepped into his problematic political role. It is hard to imagine any technically competent buyer getting past either of the first two, given they trust the vehicle with their mortal shell.

user20202 1y ago
[flagged]
bastawhiz 1y ago
> Then LIDAR was disabled/removed. Radar, not lidar. Tesla cars never had lidar.
- leakycap 1y ago
  Thank you for correcting this, I've edited it in an obvious way so I don't misinform. There's enough of that on Tesla already. I recall Tesla having vehicles in their testing with Lidar and had no idea they never shipped it. My 2015 towing VW has two radar sensors on the front for adaptive cruise and 5 cameras for lanekeeping. The cameras constantly come on and offline depending on visibility, cleanliness, and even weather. The radars have never once misperformed. I can't imagine even trusting automatic cruise control to "vision only", much less what they are calling self-driving features. Having driven plenty of cars with adaptive cruise using only one front radar, I can't really even suggest that - false positives are likely to happen to any driver that racks up mileage when the brakes can be fully applied based on single forward radar sensor covered in bug guts.
gruez 1y ago
>I remember when the "Tesla source code" leaked and I was a decent programmer, so I was curious and looked through some of the posted code... I have never sat in a moving Tesla vehicle since that day. Even if that code never drove a mile, the fact someone writing code for them saved it somewhere as progress scared me. Have you looked at other car manufacturers' source code? AFAIK Toyota's source code got scrutinized as a result of the unintended acceleration lawsuits, and it was also criticized for sloppy coding. edit: https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~koopman/pubs/koopman14_toyota_ua_slides.pdf#page=36 https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~koopman/pubs/koopman14_toyota_ua_...
- laweijfmvo 1y ago
  probably the same can be said for any car company, any tech company, any company of sufficient size and most small companies too. looking at you Boeing!
  - leakycap 1y ago
    What other examples could we look at? Boeing seems like low hanging fruit but as I try to think of other examples it is hard. I can't think of another transport/medical/safety related software leak that left the same kind of impression on me. I was somewhat considering a Tesla back then, but the source code stopped me from that idea.
  - tim333 1y ago
    It's interesting that the recent AI 171 crash may be software related. At least if looks so far that both engines were shut down at the same time which happened once before on a 787 due to the "Thrust Control Malfunction Accommodation" system. Time will tell.
  - Zigurd 1y ago
    There are high reliability providers of software for mission critical tasks. The egregiousness with which Tesla pursues, cowboy engineering is one reason why Green Hills, which makes mission critical RTOSs, CEO Dan O'Dowd has created demonstrations of the dangers of Tesla's software. There are standards for this type of software and there are products that meet those standards. Maybe we need different standards for software that's meant to blow something up versus software that avoids sudden energetic outcomes, but these aren't new problems and there's no excuse for not establishing, updating, and meeting standards.
jazzyjackson 1y ago
I remember an old twitter thread that purported to be stories from a programmer just out of their NDA, lots of juicy tidbits about just SSHing into cars to fix bugs. https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1032939617404645376 https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1032939617404645376
- leakycap 1y ago
  Horrifying - wow. The amount of photos I've seen purported as leaks from Tesla getting camera access or access to saved images makes it easy for me to believe. I seem to remember one of the leaked images was rumored to be from Elon's own garage showing an odd item he owned at the time.
- goalieca 1y ago
  This is actually extremely common across the tech industry. Backdoors are standard.
  - Ivoirians 1y ago
    It's one thing to have a backdoor so your engineer can unfreeze someone's phone or fix their smart lights. These are motor vehicles carrying people inside of them on highways.
dzhiurgis 1y ago
If it’s so bad - why all of their cars top safety charts?
- bigyabai 1y ago
  Probably because ICE safety charts aren't super applicable to the dangers of an EV.

user20202 1y ago

[flagged]

bastawhiz 1y ago

> Then LIDAR was disabled/removed. Radar, not lidar. Tesla cars never had lidar.

leakycap 1y ago
Thank you for correcting this, I've edited it in an obvious way so I don't misinform. There's enough of that on Tesla already. I recall Tesla having vehicles in their testing with Lidar and had no idea they never shipped it. My 2015 towing VW has two radar sensors on the front for adaptive cruise and 5 cameras for lanekeeping. The cameras constantly come on and offline depending on visibility, cleanliness, and even weather. The radars have never once misperformed. I can't imagine even trusting automatic cruise control to "vision only", much less what they are calling self-driving features. Having driven plenty of cars with adaptive cruise using only one front radar, I can't really even suggest that - false positives are likely to happen to any driver that racks up mileage when the brakes can be fully applied based on single forward radar sensor covered in bug guts.

gruez 1y ago

>I remember when the "Tesla source code" leaked and I was a decent programmer, so I was curious and looked through some of the posted code... I have never sat in a moving Tesla vehicle since that day. Even if that code never drove a mile, the fact someone writing code for them saved it somewhere as progress scared me. Have you looked at other car manufacturers' source code? AFAIK Toyota's source code got scrutinized as a result of the unintended acceleration lawsuits, and it was also criticized for sloppy coding. edit: https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~koopman/pubs/koopman14_toyota_ua_slides.pdf#page=36 https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~koopman/pubs/koopman14_toyota_ua_...

laweijfmvo 1y ago
probably the same can be said for any car company, any tech company, any company of sufficient size and most small companies too. looking at you Boeing!
- leakycap 1y ago
  What other examples could we look at? Boeing seems like low hanging fruit but as I try to think of other examples it is hard. I can't think of another transport/medical/safety related software leak that left the same kind of impression on me. I was somewhat considering a Tesla back then, but the source code stopped me from that idea.
- tim333 1y ago
  It's interesting that the recent AI 171 crash may be software related. At least if looks so far that both engines were shut down at the same time which happened once before on a 787 due to the "Thrust Control Malfunction Accommodation" system. Time will tell.
- Zigurd 1y ago
  There are high reliability providers of software for mission critical tasks. The egregiousness with which Tesla pursues, cowboy engineering is one reason why Green Hills, which makes mission critical RTOSs, CEO Dan O'Dowd has created demonstrations of the dangers of Tesla's software. There are standards for this type of software and there are products that meet those standards. Maybe we need different standards for software that's meant to blow something up versus software that avoids sudden energetic outcomes, but these aren't new problems and there's no excuse for not establishing, updating, and meeting standards.

jazzyjackson 1y ago

I remember an old twitter thread that purported to be stories from a programmer just out of their NDA, lots of juicy tidbits about just SSHing into cars to fix bugs. https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1032939617404645376 https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1032939617404645376

leakycap 1y ago
Horrifying - wow. The amount of photos I've seen purported as leaks from Tesla getting camera access or access to saved images makes it easy for me to believe. I seem to remember one of the leaked images was rumored to be from Elon's own garage showing an odd item he owned at the time.
goalieca 1y ago
This is actually extremely common across the tech industry. Backdoors are standard.
- Ivoirians 1y ago
  It's one thing to have a backdoor so your engineer can unfreeze someone's phone or fix their smart lights. These are motor vehicles carrying people inside of them on highways.

dzhiurgis 1y ago

If it’s so bad - why all of their cars top safety charts?

bigyabai 1y ago
Probably because ICE safety charts aren't super applicable to the dangers of an EV.