Reply to: Be careful what you design or build for your client

[cojak]

My source is from the Reg. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/0...ionbusting_sw/

Well I expect to see this chap in the clink too if he's found guilty, else the case will stink to high heaven https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/0...rrest_vw_exec/

[NotAllThere]

My source is from the Reg. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/0...ionbusting_sw/

[original PM]

Emotional intelligence. Noun. The capacity to be aware of, control, and express one's emotions, and to handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathically.



So he was bang to rights, and other executives may still be charged.

Interesting the articles tries to imply he was just doing his job.

But as an executive he is responsible for the decisions and so all is well.

[NotAllThere]

Emotional intelligence. Noun. The capacity to be aware of, control, and express one's emotions, and to handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathically.

Also, there's no such thing as emotional intelligence.

As head of the VW's Diesel Competence unit in the US, Liang oversaw the software function that enabled the cars to cheat the emissions tests. He is also the most junior of the eight current and former VW executives that have been charged so far.

So he was bang to rights, and other executives may still be charged.

[original PM]

So you haven't made a career :-) You've walked.

It's interesting this whole "group-think" thing. When you say it out loud "Let's develop a way of cheating the engine tests" ... it's clearly wrong, yet a group of well educate and presumably honest people managed to convince themselves that it was an acceptable approach.

Or could we make a device which recognises when a test is being run and lowers emissions.

And to an extent that is not cheating the test it is just making sure that during testing your engine gives off the lowest emissions.

Doesn't sound illegal now?

[SueEllen]

So you haven't made a career :-) You've walked.

It's interesting this whole "group-think" thing. When you say it out loud "Let's develop a way of cheating the engine tests" ... it's clearly wrong, yet a group of well educate and presumably honest people managed to convince themselves that it was an acceptable approach.

Thing is you are in the UK where we are skeptical of people in charge.

[tomtomagain]

Got to be honest I've made a career out of being the one that points out the bloody obvious and walks

So you haven't made a career :-) You've walked.

It's interesting this whole "group-think" thing. When you say it out loud "Let's develop a way of cheating the engine tests" ... it's clearly wrong, yet a group of well educate and presumably honest people managed to convince themselves that it was an acceptable approach.

[bobspud]

If you worked in a team where everyone else had decided on a course of action then you have to be a pretty strong character to stand up and say "No". Especially when people more senior and experienced than you has decided it's the right course of action. Or you have all come to a group consensus on the decision.

Got to be honest I've made a career out of being the one that points out the bloody obvious and walks and its cost me a few times but I'm not paid enough to stand by and watch the system benefit from something that could land me in tulip.

[greenlake]

And are they lining up the solution architects, the test engineers and those that added the requirements to the project?

They've just made an example and a scapegoat out of that poor sod.

[cojak]

Or hand in your resignation and quietly leave with a decent reference...

[tomtomagain]

The problem with this is that no-one working on this project could have been unaware of what it was used for and why they were designing it.

However I do believe that every one up the chain from them should be locked in the same cell...

Absolutely. This was not a "one-rogue-employee" situation.

They started off trying design an engine for the US market, realised they couldn't meet the targets, and then put a load of effort into identifying when it was being tested and altering the performance to cheat those tests.

That sort of activity is going to take a lot of people, from a lot of different disciplines colluding together for a long time. It didn't just happen by accident.

There would have been meetings, design reviews, proofs of concepts, trials, repeated testing, management sign-off and so on.


Here's the question though: Do you think you would have been strong enough to resist joining in?

The guy in jail is probably a decent, hard working chap.

If you worked in a team where everyone else had decided on a course of action then you have to be a pretty strong character to stand up and say "No". Especially when people more senior and experienced than you has decided it's the right course of action. Or you have all come to a group consensus on the decision.

[bobspud]

The problem with this is that no-one working on this project could have been unaware of what it was used for and why they were designing it.

However I do believe that every one up the chain from them should be locked in the same cell...

[motoukenin]

VW engineer jailed for emissions scandal - BBC News





So VW asks an employee to design something and the engineer goes to jail, not the management?

Very wrong IMHO.

Don't see that if you conspire to cheat people no matter if its designing a device to do so or helping someone to rob a bank the end result is your going to get prosecuted.
It called taking responsibility for your actions

[SueEllen]

The guy at google did what was good and just by pointing out that Google didn't have to be a vicim farm if they'd just recognise the ubiquitously accepted science of the situation.

Also, there's no such thing as emotional intelligence.

Have a read of the CEO of Google's Biography.

[SpontaneousOrder]

The guy at Google had no emotional intelligence and social awareness let alone commonsense.

The guy at google did what was good and just by pointing out that Google didn't have to be a vicim farm if they'd just recognise the ubiquitously accepted science of the situation.

Also, there's no such thing as emotional intelligence.