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How would it be anything other than circumstantial that it "actually happened"? Those cars crashed and people died. You could make the same case about any bug

How would it be anything other than circumstantial that it "actually happened"? Those cars crashed and people died. You could make the same case about any bug; "I duplicated the behavior, but that doesn't mean it actually happened in the original bug report". That kind of developer comment would raise eyebrows. Toyota's original defense was that it was user error because unintended acceleration couldn't happen; they blamed it entirely on driver error. They were making a "forall" argument, and all Barr had to do was show an "exists". He did. Toyota was completely wrong.

lambdaelite 12y ago
> How would it be anything other than circumstantial that it "actually happened"? Because the fault could trigger a DTC. Barr's argument was that the right kind of bit flip event could cause a fault and it would not be logged as a DTC. The beauty of Barr's theory is that it leaves no evidence if it was the cause of a real-world accident. The plaintiffs successfully argued that Barr's theory was the most plausible explanation for the accident, not that it was the cause. > You could make the same case about any bug; "I duplicated the behavior, but that doesn't mean it actually happened in the original bug report". I think this analogy is misplaced, here, there would be no bug report other than "the system crashed" (no pun intended). In which case, your statement would be accurate and proper. > Toyota's original defense was that it was user error because unintended acceleration couldn't happen; they blamed it entirely on driver error. They were making a "forall" argument, and all Barr had to do was show an "exists". He did. Toyota was completely wrong. Toyota's defense was that user error was the most likely explanation; the plaintiff via Barr argued that a software defect was the most likely. The plaintiff prevailed, but that has no bearing on what actually (or likely) happened.

lambdaelite 12y ago

> How would it be anything other than circumstantial that it "actually happened"? Because the fault could trigger a DTC. Barr's argument was that the right kind of bit flip event could cause a fault and it would not be logged as a DTC. The beauty of Barr's theory is that it leaves no evidence if it was the cause of a real-world accident. The plaintiffs successfully argued that Barr's theory was the most plausible explanation for the accident, not that it was the cause. > You could make the same case about any bug; "I duplicated the behavior, but that doesn't mean it actually happened in the original bug report". I think this analogy is misplaced, here, there would be no bug report other than "the system crashed" (no pun intended). In which case, your statement would be accurate and proper. > Toyota's original defense was that it was user error because unintended acceleration couldn't happen; they blamed it entirely on driver error. They were making a "forall" argument, and all Barr had to do was show an "exists". He did. Toyota was completely wrong. Toyota's defense was that user error was the most likely explanation; the plaintiff via Barr argued that a software defect was the most likely. The plaintiff prevailed, but that has no bearing on what actually (or likely) happened.