FBI Arrests Volkswagen Executive On Charges Related To Dieselgate (cnet.com) 106
According to CNET, the FBI has arrested Volkswagen executive Oliver Schmidt over the weekend on charges of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. relating to the ongoing Dieselgate emissions scandal. From the report: Schmidt headed VW's regulatory compliance office in the U.S. from 2014 to March 2015. The FBI's official Criminal Complaint states that during that time VW employees -- Schmidt included -- knowingly installed secret "defeat device" software in 475,000 diesel cars in the U.S., hiding during emissions testing the fact that those cars emitted up to 40 times the legally allowable pollution levels when on the road. The complaint asserts that by knowingly installing this secret cheat software, Schmidt and VW conspired to defraud the U.S. by impairing and impeding the Environmental Protection Agency and violating the Clean Air Act, leading to the arrest on Saturday. Schmidt is due to appear before a Federal Court in Miami on Monday.
Toothless (Score:1, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
If executives are held accountable, the terriz have already won.
Re:Toothless (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Wait, are you telling me Slashdot's reliable standby, the car analogy, just broke down?
Re: (Score:1)
Bernie Madoff...
Unrelated; he was running a ponzi scheme, not a bank.
VW cost investors $80 billion, more than Enron (Score:2)
To the extent that banker types get their way, the VW execs will be in prison for a long time. Prior to the scandal, VW was trading at over $200/share, as high as $250. After the information came out, it dropped to $100. That's about $80-$100 billion or so that investors lost.
That's a bit more than the losses from Enron. Enron executives got prison sentences of up to 24 years (later reduced to 14 years).
The damage to investors side of the issue is on top of the EPA / environmental crimes.
Re:VW cost investors $80 billion, more than Enron (Score:5, Informative)
35 bankers in prison, but yeah the Obama admin vs (Score:4, Informative)
Not quite true that *nobody* was jailed. Here are 35 bankers sent to prison:
http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/2... [cnn.com]
Also some who didn't go to prison did get fines over over $100 million.
Compared to the 1980s S&L crisis, there were certainly fewer prosecutions. One career prosecutor who is knowledgeable about both says that one reason for that is the the Obama administration, unlike the Reagan administration, was hostile toward white-blowers who could have enabled prosecution.
typo: whistles-blowers (Score:3)
Where my post says "white-blowers", that should be "whistle-blowers". In the 1980s, whistle-blowers gave leads to investigators and testified against bosses. The Obama administration has of course been hostile to whistle-blowers.
Hillary didn't like white blowers (Score:2)
I think it was Hillary who said a lot of nasty things about some white blowers.
Re: (Score:2)
It was totally a freudian slip, I am sure!
Wouldn't Monica Lewinski be a white-blower?
Re: (Score:2)
It's extremely difficult to prosecute banking crime that didn't involve direct theft. The issue is often abstract enough, often involving complex math and difficult economic concepts, in addition the evidence is often difficult to interpret often involving forensic accounting which again involves complex mathematics. Finally the defendant's in the cases are often wealthy with significant funds available for good lawyers such that the prosecutors have a very hard time convincing a jury of guilt.
Re: (Score:2)
White-blower hostility was more of a Clinton administration thing.
Re: (Score:2)
Even more evidence that the legal system is broken by design.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Smart executives don't leave a written trail. They call in a couple blokes just below their rank and tell them in person what they "must do" do to either get a raise, and/or to not get fired. The boss has "that stare".
In court it's then word against word, which is rarely enough to convict by itself.
I've been asked to do slimy stuff multiple times in the work world, unfortunately, and the boss(es) never use email. It seems to happen more often during slumps when people have fewer employment options.
I'm always amazed when someone will do something (Score:1)
for their dumb job that could land them in jail. Talk about screwed up priorities.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
I highly doubt that Volkswagen executives struggle to feed their families.
Re: (Score:2)
for their dumb job that could land them in jail. Talk about screwed up priorities.
Obviously you have never had a family depending on you.
It's easy for a young child like you to judge others.
A man understands that people sometimes have to do things they would not otherwise do because circumstances force it.
Obviously, you've been raised by unethical parents. It's easy for you to rationalize your bad behavior instead of getting off your ass and finding a legal/moral solution. Stop blaming others for your problems, and grow up.
Why is this story worthy? (Score:1)
Re:Why is this story worthy? (Score:5, Informative)
Why is this worthy of Slashdot? This is just an executive being busted by the FBI.
Because the exec was responsible for validating code that was found to not be doing what he said it did.
Do you have anybody in your company doing QA? Or auditing code? Think they might be interested in this?
Re:Why is this story worthy? (Score:4, Interesting)
I do not see anybody 'down in the trenches' just out of the blue or love for the job decided to do it single-handed. I would be surprised any of the softies there realized this is very illegal. Ethically perhaps they may have doubts quickly resolved by their bosses.
I'd expect that in big corporation, like VW, the programmers are just gears in the machine. I am one for sure. They were told to improve test results and performance results. Sbdy (likely team+1/2 levels of mgnt) there decided to optimize these two cases separately hence detecting each use case. They even consulted this with VW legal team and upper mngmnt, got approval and went ahead. Than they all collected the bonuses.
If there is not written evidence for all of these then their document retention policies are "well tuned" albeit since they must be ISO9xxx certified they must have something left in the decision chain. Hence Schmidt was charged with conspiring to fraud, evidence must exist he knowingly allowed it as he's not charged with negligence of duties of sorts (AINAL).
Re: (Score:2)
If there is not written evidence for all of these then their document retention policies are "well tuned" albeit since they must be ISO9xxx certified they must have something left in the decision chain.
ISO9xxx isn't about documenting a decision chain.
ISO9xxx is about insuring that the company can build the same thing repeatedly, despite things like personnel with critical knowledge leaving the company or dying, and being replaced by ignorant newbies.
ISO9xxx is perfectly happy if the instructions for a step
Re: (Score:3)
Take a look at page 64 of this presentation (PDF): http://roma.faster-it.de/temp/... [faster-it.de]
Some guys decompiled the firmware and found the tables that control the engine modes, based on time and distance travelled. Note how the very narrow low emissions bands match the European test cycles perfectly.
It was clearly very deliberately, very carefully planned, must have required extensive testing and couldn't have been done without the assistance of Bosch who designed the control unit.
Re:Why is this story worthy? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why is this story worthy? (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree. Since this boils down to someone writing software whose explicit purpose is to cheat on government-mandated tests, I'd say it's a very interesting technical story that involves a scenario that may play out in many areas of development. Being a programmer doesn't mean moral, ethical and legal considerations cease to exist.
Re: (Score:2)
Was it bad programming or was it programming that performed exactly according to specifications?
Re: (Score:3)
They would have gotten away with it if it hadn't been for those pesky kids at the International Council on
Can we stop adding GATE to every scandal? (Score:5, Insightful)
What you gonna do if Bill Gates is ever involved in a scandal? Call it Gatesgate?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
BillGate
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
What you gonna do if Bill Gates is ever involved in a scandal? Call it Gatesgate?
No kidding. Why do large scandals get "gate" attached to them anyhow? I understand the Watergate thing as it was the actual name of the complex it happened in. But the hundreds of scandals since, that have used it, just seem silly. "Deflategate", "Donutgate[sic]", "Nannygate(1, 2 &3)", "Antennagate", "Pengate", "Nipplegate", and my current favorite, "Pussygate". "Pussygate" sounds more like a chastity belt than a scandal.
Re:Can we stop adding GATE to every scandal? (Score:5, Insightful)
The simple answer is simply that enough English-speaking individuals over the last 43-44 years have decided that "-gate" as a suffix at the end of a word can be used to give a scandal as a memorable name. You do understand, I hope, that human language is not a static construct, that words and even morphemes and other elements of speech evolve over time, old words taking on new meanings, new words being formed either by adoption from other languages or by joining together two existing words, and so forth. So, "-gate" as a suffix has now come to a scandal, and has for over four decades gained sufficient penetration in most English-speaking jurisdictions that I'd say it's now a permanent part of the language.
Re: (Score:1)
Yip, 300 years from now people will say, "I think that planet just trumped their government all up."
Re: (Score:1)
Yes, I understand that English is not Latin and is not a dead language. I just find that in this particular case it's fairly silly. Perhaps it's because I remember Watergate. Or perhaps it's because I'm old enough to remember Watergate.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
If Bill G. breaks through a fence gate using gate-array circuity, then the scandal is called "GatesGateGateGate". Or, G4.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, at least it's not G8...
"If"...? Are you too young too remember...? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Can we stop adding GATE to every scandal?
Apparently not.
Re: (Score:2)
Can we stop adding GATE to every scandal?
Can we? Yes! WIll we? Well, the origin of it is from 40 years ago so... unlikely.
What you gonna do if Bill Gates is ever involved in a scandal? Call it Gatesgate?
It's funny you mention that because Mr. Gates has been involved in about a dozen human trafficking scandals but they fail to report it because can never figure out a working headline.
Re: (Score:2)
Too late (Score:2)
It may be etymologically dumb, but it's a handy bit of syntax. Sort of like "-aholic" for being addicted to something other than alcohol.
Re: (Score:2)
Bill Gates Watergategate?
Re: (Score:2)
Billy Bath Gate
Damn, they're going after the right guy (Score:4, Interesting)
Here's hoping this leads to some actual changes.
In all fairness.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
The investigation into Holmes and Theranos is still ongiong. I suppose it's not yet clear whether she and the company were malicious or just sloppy.
She has been hit with a two-year ban on owning or operating a lab. [wikipedia.org]
However, in the case of Volkswagen, there's no question that they wrote software designed to bypass emission tests.
Re: (Score:2)
Is Oliver Schmidt the top of this criminal tree? (Score:2)
And - no - this is not hyperbolic. That's my air those VW's are polluting. I've often been asked if I would just stop breathing and my answer has always been "no, thank you". I
Re: (Score:2)
It's a shame I can't get the same high-quality air I used to get last century.
If you could have their air, but also had to live with their technology and medicine too would you still take the trade?
Meanwhile, depending on where you live, 100 years ago was pretty filthy... London air quality in 1917.... sulpher dioxide and soot from the smokestacks... and that was on a good day... 100 years ago puts you right in the middle of World War I ... a little soot in your air would be right pleasant compared to the 50,000 tons of chlorine, phosgene, mustard, and other gases that some of your
Re: (Score:1)
And - no - this is not hyperbolic. That's my air those VW's are polluting.
The affected VWs produce no more NOx than contemporary diesel cars and their particulate emissions are exceptionally low. This is a regulatory compliance issue, not an air quality issue.
It's a shame I can't get the same high-quality air I used to get last century.
At no point in the previous century was the air in the populated parts of the West as clean as it is now.
Florida Man reference? (Score:2)
How did we miss this Florida Man opportunity!?
Re: (Score:1)
Memo to FBI (Score:3)
Arrest? (Score:2)
Sacrificial goat (Score:2)
Just one guy? Obvioulsy a token sacrificial goat, probably set up by VW themselves. You can't tell me the whole of the VW upper management didn't know about and agree to this.
For you AC Whiners (Score:2)
Plenty of ACs have posted here that the U.S. is only going after non-American firms. Well, here's your red meat...
http://abcnews.go.com/Business... [go.com]
Re: (Score:2)
I think anyone who cares that the laws of the land are enforced cares. If emissions standards are set, and someone cheats on those standards, then they should be punished. Maybe we don't get the top people involved, but is that an argument against anyone being prosecuted?
Re: (Score:2)
Looking at the pattern of your posts [slashdot.org] I sincerely hope that you get in touch soon with someone who cares about you.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder can be cured.
Re: (Score:2)
Sure, let's just punish the shareholders instead of the jackasses who were actually responsible. If Merkel is dumb enough to start a trade war over that, then so be it.