Ashton Crusher wrote:
I don't see the logic of this. The purpose of the code is to produce
a specific level of emissions. As the EPA found, and I doubt it was
hard, the on the road emissions didn't match what was produced during
dynamometer testing. How would anyone realistically look at the code
and be able to figure out that it "worked" as far as controlling
emissions? You can't, you can only tell if it "works" by measuring
what comes out the tailpipe. Sure, a good code reader, if they had the
time to look thru god knows how many lines of code, *might* spot a
weird program execution loop but that it highly doubtful and certainly
not a sure thing. And even if they did, it would not prove that the
emissions out the tailpipe FAILED, it would only show that someone put
some weird stuff in the code. You would still need to measure actual
emissions to see if the car met the emissions requirements.

It's true that the proof is in the pudding and actual emissions measurements
tell the real story, but you cannot realistically measure emissions under
every possible driving circumstance, so at some point the test will need
to be simplified, and every test that is simplified will have a loophole.

However, seeing source code allows you to figure out what that loophole is
when the measurements don't make sense, and of course it also allows you to
determine intent. Booleans with name like EPA_ENFORCEMENT and SMOG_MODE
might be a giveaway too...
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."