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Display Name Taken wrote: The whole thing is a "storm in a teacup"
Í totally agree, see also my post below. I do not get what all the fuss is about, it is pretty much like realizing suddenly that a cow produces milk.
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Keith Barrett wrote: didn't think about the ethical or commercial consequences of what they were doing
At the end of the day it is most likely that they just did what the Director told them to.
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How naive ! You must not know the car industry very well : The "Volkswagen scandal" is only a scandal when viewed from outside of the car industry. Nobody working in the car industry thinks this is a scandal, since everybody is doing it - it is usual business. One example : fuel. Do you honestly believe fuel consumption figures given by a car manufacturers ? Have you already measured how much fuel you can put in your tank ? Do you believe the figures on the gas station are correct when you go and tank ? One subject, already three cheaters.
BUT car industry is not the only one -> finance, pharma, real estate are other very interesting areas...
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I agree completely, my car "should" get 75mpg I actually get around 50mpg.
They are effectively lying about this as well, I bet "special software" is used to get the lower mpg figures too.
The main reason the emissions fixing is an issue is because government revenue is affected.
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Or it could be one person that modified it at the request of some manager, or it could be someone who did it without anyone's knowledge. But those five steps -- spec, approve, modify, review, test -- well, I think you assume too much in this world of agile software development. 
More than likely, the requirements were outsourced to a consulting agency that was tasked to write that piece of corruption, and the consulting agency didn't really give a damn or, when asked "if in test mode, change the values" didn't realize how the code would be used / abused.
Marc
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I suspect the original code was done by engineers during R&D to see how "clean" they could make the engine and the impact of that. When management saw the reports, they freaked out how much gas mileage was affected and then started the process you listed.
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Kevin Marois wrote: WTF would I want to see the disassembly for?
Maybe to
1. check code optimizations if you had selected that option.
2. debug if you do not have actual source code and are well versed with what is displayed on screen.
I have never used and can't figure out head or tail of it.
You can always use Tools -> Customize -> Commands dialog to change context menus as per your liking.
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I had used it and it's been helpful to detect crashes happening in the core APIs in production code, for which I don't have the source. Tough because of optimization, but useful.
GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- ++>+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP. -- TNCaver
"When you have eliminated the JavaScript, whatever remains must be an empty page." -- Mike Hankey
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Probably the same genius that put "Eject" right beneath "Format" in the removable media context menu in Explorer.
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Perfectly logical place, IMHO.
Kevin Marois wrote: WTF would I want to see the disassembly for?
For debugging when things go crazy; something I have used often in my professional life.
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Microsoft is great at helping you out. Even if you do not want or need the help.
Mongo: Mongo only pawn... in game of life.
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Please don't set me on fire. Serious question. Why is everyone's "privacy" of such grave concern to them, in the case of anonymous usage data?
I understand that mistakes happen, oversights happen and it's possible that personal information could slip in, or based on a process of elimination from the set of data you might be able to narrow down to a likely person, etc. But in the case of agreeing to have anonymized data collected, anyone actually doing so with that data would seem to me to be an illegal use of that data, so of what practical use would this be?
There are obviously cases where a data collection policy goes too far and the risk that personal details of importance might leak is too high, but everyone FREAKS OUT and uninstalls a piece of software that adds "You agree that we can collect basic aggregate usage data in the application such as the frequency that each menu option is used." OMGGG MY PRIVACY HAS BEEN VIOLATED!! Slight exaggeration but you know what I mean. This kind of data is used to help improve the application you are using, why wouldn't you want to help the developers make it better?
I would like to demonstrate with a specific example of a privacy concern that completely eludes me. Gmail once upon a time decided to start scanning the contents of your emails to deliver targeted ads that are more likely to be of interest to you. Everyone lost their bananas over this.
WHY??? They aren't sharing the contents of your emails to anyone, nobody is reading it, they are using a bot to scan the email for keywords and match an ad to it. People are so scared of targeted advertising, I don't get it. If there is going to be a portion of the screen dedicated to showing an ad, wouldn't you rather it be filled with developer tools or services you might *actually* be interested in instead of a random ad? I know I would.
Why all the privacy hysteria these days?
*Ducks and hides under desk in preparation of being attacked by crowd with pitchforks and torches*
EDIT (2015/09/24 11:02 AM) - EPILOGUE: I guess for the most part my question has been answered. There are several compounding factors that add to all the problems:
- corporate misuse of the data
- companies "promising" to anonymize the data but failing to actually do so through malice or ineptitude
- leaks of this misused and improperly anonymized data (added 11:34 AM)
- and one *really* big problem that I neglected to take into account, mostly because it hasn't become as big a deal where I'm from as the US: government access to the *all* the data from *all* the companies, effectively allowing them to de-anonymize much of the data through cross referencing
I will concede that as a concern to the well being of the general public, this makes almost all types of default data collection policies something to be worried about.
Personally, in the rather few and far between instances that I actually care about my privacy, I take precautions that I'm confident keep me protected from being identifiable. We can't expect that of the general user base though, so I now definitely agree that this should not be allowed to be the default.
Me, I will continue to check that little box that says "I agree to submit anonymous usage data to help blah blah blah" for the benefit of the developers and thus ultimately the users (including me).
Thanks CP 
modified 24-Sep-15 11:37am.
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I think the problem isn't that first step, but rather where you end up when you've been sliding four steps further.
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Everything you said is perfectly valid and reasonable, as long as you assume that these big corporations are being completely honest.
The trouble is, what a corporation says and what it means are really two different things...
What they say: "We will only collect anonymous user statistics, and you will not be identifiable in any way"
What they mean: "We collect all of your data, and some guy downstairs is supposed to strip out all of your personal information. All of that stuff is cached and logged somewhere, but no one ever really looks at it. It's not secured or anything... We just all forgot about it. Oh, and we also save everything to a special archive in case the government wants to know the intimate details of your life, because, ya know, it's the law."
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If you are worried about a corporation being dishonest, then well, the EULA is pointless anyway...they might be collecting all your information and just not telling you.
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Well yeah... That was my point.
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And every Joe in IT has full access to everything and can make copies to sell.
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Mike Marynowski wrote: Why all the privacy hysteria these days?
It's not where does it start, it's where it stops. It's creepy in some regards, and I mean hell you already can't board and airplane now without exposing yourself to the scanners. It's dehumanizing it what it is. It's a bit too analytical and too logical.
We ain't machines. We be people. And sadly, most people into tech know very little about people.
Jeremy Falcon
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I understand, but then why not put up a stink once questionable policies get put into the EULA, as opposed to when the reasonable ones are in there?
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Fear sells. Just look at the news. Fear and greed are two of the strongest human emotions.
Jeremy Falcon
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The average Joe will never read a EULA. They're boring. However, some reporter type who is looking to create an uproar to get more readers might, and then make a stink of it.
Jeremy Falcon
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You have some good examples there of why you should be very cautious to agreeing to data collection and take precautions when doing anything you don't want others to find out about, but those don't relate specifically to my examples.
I used my examples specifically because in the application example it was *aggregate* usage data being collected, and the GMail example because they *already* have your email contents - all they were doing was scanning them internally to select an Ad for you. On Gmail, while you are looking at your emails. Not on other google services.
There's tons of examples of data collection gone wrong, I know, but I'm specifically talking about very limited and targeted usage of data collection.
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Mike Marynowski wrote: There's tons of examples of data collection gone wrong, I know, but I'm specifically talking about very limited and targeted usage of data collection.
What really constitute limited, targeted and anonymized data usage? It might be very limited and targeted usage (if you choose to believe), but what happens when sh*t hits the fan? AOL data supposed to be anonymous.
Another example that I've just remembered: Motorola Is Listening[^]
I don't know what their privacy policy looked like, but I'm sure as hell it didn't say they were collecting passwords and send them over unsecured HTTP channel 
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