Security

Tesla Engineers Claim Deadly “Autopilot” Failures Since 2016 Treated as Wontfix

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Tesla engineers have now confirmed what is being measured by safety experts outside, so it’s been proven to be no exaggeration to call the brand willfully negligent.

Let’s back up for a minute and admit that 2016 should have seen the end of Tesla’s “Autopilot”.

In January of that year, then again in May, Tesla’s bug-riddled software killed drivers in what has become widely known as a poorly engineered car that has an unusual propensity to crash into giant trucks. Instead of fixing the defects, or cancelling the project, the Tesla CEO dangerously instructed staff to blatantly lie (in a carefully planned deception) to generate rapid wealth from “Autopilot” sales promotions that drowned out escalating safety failures.

In April of 2018 when both Uber and Tesla each ran over and killed a pedestrian, only one of these ill-conceived “driverless” companies cancelled such ruthless public experiments. Tesla kept lying, people kept dying, and it cynically began advanced fee fraud (AFF) tactics to up-sell software with a “premium” charge even while it repeatedly failed to deliver what they promised.

2019 recorded another Tesla “Autopilot” fatality identical to 2016, despite hardware and software being different… raising the unavoidable conclusion that Tesla wasn’t even trying to fix dangerous safety flaws. This again should have shut it all down. Evidence that Tesla had been ignoring the very thing they were charging high-fees for, should have completely destroyed their competitive claims against other cars.

For at least the third time in as many years the 2019 Tesla safety claims fraud clearly should have been ended immediately by the market, let alone regulators, to prevent more lives being lost unnecessarily.

Source: Tesladeaths.com

Instead, here we are still counting ever more unnecessary fatalities, documenting even more preventable harms.

Bernie Madoff went to jail for less.

The latest case in 2023 looks like a sad repeat of the 2019 disaster, which was a repeat of the 2016 disaster. There obviously have been many more of same or similar crashes (millions of people and more are at risk presently without any warning), yet these three crashes seem to have produced the best documentation yet facilitating easy proof of an intentional deception conspiracy by Tesla.

When I first saw the new crash report, and that police had filed charges against the truck driver, I immediately suspected Tesla software would be implicated.

Crashing into trucks is a weird class of Tesla error all of its own, notably different from the growing “veered” class of Tesla crashes.

In other words, the truck driver had likely anticipated any other car would have reacted to his giant obvious broadside crossing the road. This was a notable finding from the 2016 crash, when the truck driver watched and wondered why a Tesla would suddenly change lanes to drive under his trailer at full speed and decapitate the driver.

And in 2023 a truck driver might also have read the news and innocently assumed that Tesla engineers with blood on their hands would have worked to prevent more tragedy.

These unfortunately were not two assumptions he could make, given the intentionally cheapened, blind, deaf and dumb suicidal Tesla products. The police want trucks crossing highways to keep altering behavior, when really they should be throwing the book at Tesla for operating unsafely on public roads by design.

And the NHTSA has indicated Tesla engineering is again under investigation, likely to be found at fault again.

While police are plausibly correct that a truck driver’s math didn’t calculate properly for any cars unwilling to apply brakes to prevent a crash, it’s a pedantic application of law obscuring the abject intentional failure of Tesla safety to apply brakes instead of killing someone.

Drivers and their automation experiments should be under an obligation to at least attempt to avoid certain death.

Tesla engineers say quite literally the opposite:

Tesla’s Autopilot engineers have claimed the automaker’s leadership not only knew the software was unable to detect and respond to cross traffic, it did nothing to fix it.

DID NOTHING TO FIX IT.

The Tesla CEO ordered staff to lie egregiously about safety in 2016 and has obviously continued the practice every year since even as the tragic data grows.

Lance Armstrong lost everything for less.

Communities repeatedly mourn loss of life and property after the gross negligence of a Tesla comes to town.

Why are they even allowed to sell, or keep operating on public roads? Again, let me remind you that Uber cancelled their operations in 2018 after just one fatality exactly like a Tesla, while Tesla has only increased the risks from rapidly ensnaring more victims into a giant fraud (e.g. the Bernie Madoff of car manufacturing).

Security

Widow Sues Defective Tesla: Sends Death Trap Design to Court

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It’s pretty obvious to even the casual observer that Tesla designs not only are seriously defective and subpar, but that the safety record of the brand has precipitously declined as time goes on.

According to a new lawsuit, obtained by TMZ, Jiyoung Yoon claims her late husband, Jyung Woo Hahn, died when his 2020 Tesla Model 3 malfunctioned, crashed into a tree and burst into flames. […] She claims the Model 3 was defective in design, manufacture, and warning … she says it was not crashworthy, making it “unreasonably dangerous for its designed and intended purposes.”

Her claims sound correct to me.

More and more people die in Tesla crashes just like this lawsuit documents, the fatalities piling up faster than ever. This is quite unlike how other car brands have rolled out (e.g. Nissan LEAF and Chevy Bolt both sold hundreds of thousands of cars with close to zero fatalities).

The simple explanation for the uniqueness of huge Tesla failures is they were “gaming” test scenarios and regulations (e.g. getting an artificial high score in a closed room), while ignoring known critical fundamentals of physics in the real world. And then they refused to improve or react appropriately after deaths started to skyrocket.

Source: Tesladeaths.com

A dummy mannequin in a crash test isn’t going to try and locate a hidden emergency handle to simply open the door, for example. And yet Tesla continues to build hidden, almost impossible to use, emergency door handles. In fact, defects are often buried in Tesla’s “closed loop” proprietary service model that prevents transparency and accountability.

Wait, it gets worse… Tesla engineers say they were ordered to NOT FIX known “Autopilot” safety failures, while Telsa lawyers ran a coverup campaign (publicly observed “Autopilot” tragedies were reclassified to private secrets) in order to deny the public knowing about rapidly increasing dangers to anyone in or even around a Tesla.

“Tesla requested redaction of fields of the crash report based on a claim that those fields contained confidential business information,” an NHTSA spokesperson told Insider in a statement. “The Vehicle Safety Act explicitly restricts NHTSA’s ability to release what the companies label as confidential information. Once any company claims confidentiality, NHTSA is legally obligated to treat it as confidential unless/until NHTSA goes through a legal process to deny the claim.”

Tesla cared about getting five stars from an agency they disrespected, covering up defects, and not at all about the hundreds of people soon dying in their hands.

Far too many people have been killed by Tesla management decisions, in other words. This is a repeat of the callousness documented during the Ford Pinto lawsuits. It’s easy to believe today, because we’ve seen it before in America.

Families and friends seem to grieve over the same set of Tesla circumstances (sudden erratic car control loss, trapped in a fire, burned to death while trying to escape): any other late model car brand, engineers would have ensured people had a far higher chance of survival.

Friends and family shouldn’t let anyone they know ride in a Tesla. Don’t wait for a ruling to confirm what the data shows, because many lives already can be saved.

Meanwhile we will have to wait and see how courts catch up to what has been known, given more than a decade of evidence pointing to the gross negligence of Tesla.

History, Security

2023 Biography of Marian Rejewski: “The First Enigma Codebreaker”

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A management professor at WSB University in Bydgoszcz, Poland has published an impressive biography of the amazing codebreaker Marian Rejewski. We are very fortunate since Rejewski largely has been completely ignored by Americans and British who have fixated and over-sensationalized another man (Alan Turing).

The First Enigma Codebreaker:
Marian Rejewski Who Passed the Baton to Alan Turing
By Robert Gawlowski

Published: April 15, 2023
ISBN-10: 1399069101
ISBN-13: 9781399069106
Pen and Sword Military

The fact that this book is promoted by the U.S. Naval Institute says to me people who really know codebreaking, and the balance of secrecy with integrity, are trying to get the word out.

The fact that Robert Gawlowski comes from the same hometown as Marian Rejewski… well, you get the idea.

Alan Turing’s story is important. It should be known, not least of all because he was killed by his own government due to ignorance and bias. But telling the sad Turing tale also shouldn’t take away from the fact that Rejewski and many, many others have very important stories to be known as well.

And I don’t mean just rehashing French military literature of the 1970s, as it were. Gawlowski brings a distinctly Polish perspective to the story of a Polish war hero, challenging British dominance over English storytelling.

Rejewski was unquestionably the first person to break the German Enigma, and also a man who kept the utmost secrecy for years, which undermined his reputation of being the first. Note the complete absence of credit in articles like this one:

Among the academics were great figures in the history of computer science, not least Max Newman, whose lectures Alan Turing attended at Cambridge University. Newman’s work at Bletchley was critical to cracking the “Tunny” code used by the German High Command. Convinced that codebreaking could be mechanised, he was a driving force in the creation of Colossus, the world’s first programmable computer. It was the remarkable technological breakthroughs of Newman, Turing, Welchman and others that the scholar George Steiner had in mind when he described Bletchley as perhaps the greatest achievement of Britain not just in the Second World War but in the 20th Century.

Newman was convinced codebreaking could be mechanised because Rejewski already proved it to be true with his early cyclometer and then a 1938 “Bomba”… before Bletchley Park even existed.

Poland’s decryption work was so superior to Nazi military intelligence, while remaining entirely unknown, that the British on first glance basically refused to believe that Rejewski’s team could be so very far ahead of everyone else in the world. It’s not hard to imagine in that context why the Polish distrusted British intelligence, let alone the French.

For reference, here’s a quick recap of a timeline showing where clever Poles entered the fray relative to the late arrival of British interest:

  • 1918 Arthur Sherbius’ proposal for rotor-based encryption device is denied by the German Navy
  • 1923 Sherbius founds a company that markets his encryption proposal as a machine for privacy of banks and post offices
  • 1926 The German Navy starts using one version of Sherbius’ machine
  • 1927 The German Army starts using another version of Sherbius’ machine
  • 1928 The Polish Ciper Bureau acquires a commercial version of Sherbius’ machine
  • 1929 Poznan University runs a cryptography course, where three students stand out in the exams: Marian Rejewski, Henryk Zygalski and Jerzy Rozycki

You should be asking at this point where are the British in 1928, given that Germany is known to be using Sherbius’ machines in Navy and Army communication. Indeed, the British seem to have been primarily interested in the use of such machines by Spain and Italy.

Germany was not investigated by the British with the same serious urgency as in Poland, or France for that matter. In fact by the end of 1931 the French Intelligence had a mole in the German signals service with the codename Asche (Hans Thilo Schmidt).

Polish and French attention to German encryption is critical to understand because in 1932 Germany introduced the Enigma I — the foundation of its rotor-based Sherbius’ machines throughout WWII. That was also the year Marian Rejewski, not the British or French, created a dedicated effort (operated in Warsaw General Staff HQ) to break Germany’s Enigma I.

Nearing the end of 1932, as the French begin sharing Asche briefs with Polish intelligence, Rejewski already has been decoding Nazi military communications. He successfully calculated Enigma I wiring of its rotors.

Henryk Zygalski and Jerzy Rozycki join his efforts the following year. Poland in 1933, as Nazis violently seize power, is now producing exact replicas of the German military Enigma. The Polish Cipher Bureau achieves nearly 80% success with intercepted messages. They pioneer Enigma codebreaking such as a method that British working at Bletchley Park would later simply call their “Zygalski Sheet”.

You should be asking at this point where are the British in 1933, given that Nazis are an obvious threat and the German Enigma has been broken by the Polish. Sadly, I have to repeat the point above, the British seem to have been primarily interested in the use of such machines by Spain and Italy.

Poland continues to improve their methods such that by 1937 a high security codebraking compound is running in the remote wooded area south of Warsaw (foreshadowing Bletchley Park). This is where Rejewski’s team invents the incredible Bomba Kryptologiczna for automated brute-forcing of Enigma keys.

Newman’s later thoughts about automation, presented by the British as their own greatest moment of history, were quite clearly based on the prior work of Poland.

Source: “Campaign for Recognition of Polish Enigma Codebreakers” i-Programmer 2012

The threat from Nazi Germany becomes so clear that on January 9th, 1939 France and Poland try to meet with British intelligence in Paris. Trust is weak and little is accomplished. Another attempt is made 27th July when the Polish invite the British and French into the compound, exposing the Bomba decryption automation machine.

After the second meeting, with far more disclosures of how far ahead the Polish are, the British and French each receive a dump with documentation of the Engima along with a replica machine made by Poland. The speedup comes because in August of 1939 Poland knew it was running out of time and had to take risks, while also never exposing how much it knew.

One week after Germany and the Soviet Union signed the poisonous Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact to collaborate on destruction of Poland, the Nazi invasion begins 1 September 1939. As Poland is overrun by Nazi troops the British establish an Enigma Research Section at Bletchley Park.

Late? Better than never.

More to the point, in January 1940 the center of codebreaking had shifted to Paris briefly. For example the Zygalski Sheet was used by Alan Turing, who had traveled to Paris to learn Polish Cipher Bureau methods, as such training was no longer possible in Poland. The Nazi invasion into Denmark and Norway in April and early May 1940 foreshadowed the 10th of May invasion of France. Thus Polish codebreaking methods, increasingly in the hands of the British including Turing, reverted across the Channel to relative safety from further Nazi disruption.

The British replication of Polish intelligence operations after 1939 Warsaw and then again after 1940 Paris makes sense, in retrospect looking at the Nazi invasion maps, yet it almost never is told as such.

Bletchley Park became known as the wartime codebreaking operation because it survived better than Warsaw or Paris. It’s only lately that people have started to ask why and how the original Enigma codebreakers Zygalski, Rozycki and especially Rejewski were for so long completely cut out of the picture by British story-tellers. I mean think hard about the fact that Zygalski, Rozycki and especially Rejewski were not given much help themselves, neither spirited away nor housed in the relative secrecy and safety of Bletchley Park.

Supposedly the first big reveal of Bletchley Park, which sparked a boom in international attention, came from a single RAF officer spilling the beans in the 1970s. He intentionally omitted the Polish from his story of British superiority, due to his own basic bigotry. It’s taken a long while to undo that unfortunate inertia. Bletchley Park itself has done a lot over the years to bring the Polish story up to the front and center.

A 2002 commemorative plaque to honor the first to crack the Enigma, oddly placed behind some trees and a brick wall in the far back area of Bletchley Park

This book fits in well to the growing body of literature about who really was doing what, where and when, to defeat the technologically inferior Nazi operations. Even though the book has a few curious historical errors and omissions, it provides perspective with fascinating personal details of an important figure in security history. It is a very overdue and welcome addition to the study of WWI and WWII.

Bottom line is whenever someone brings up the Enigma, ask them if they mean the one made by Rejewski. If they reply “who”… you now know what to do.

Security

Tesla Driver Who Rammed Cyclist Charged With Homicide

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Tesla’s fraudulent practices are evident through a tragic incident involving a drunk driver in a Tesla who rammed into a motorcyclist at almost 100 mph while running a red light, resulting in the motorcyclist’s death. This event highlights several dangerous aspects of Tesla’s approach to safety on public roads, illustrating the extent of their predatory fraud.

As Noon, on her motorcycle, approached the intersection of Boca Rio Road the light began to change from green to yellow. She began to slow her motorcycle for the upcoming red light.

Within the report, deputies state Dorfman, in his Tesla, was traveling at 95 mph and accelerating 104 mph prior to the collision. Way above the speed limit of Boca Rio Road which is 45 mph.

Ignoring rules of the road

Running red lights at high speed has become a common occurrence among Tesla drivers, who seem to possess a disregard for traffic rules and safety signs. The car’s engineers have programmed it to treat safety signs as optional, and “test” drivers have further ingrained this behavior into the software. As a result, police have commented on a significant increase in intersection crashes caused by Tesla vehicles. Even recent tests in 2023 show the Tesla software consistently running red lights and ignoring stop signs.

Ignoring cyclists

Another concerning issue is Tesla’s repeated involvement in fatal collisions with motorcyclists. Safety experts have been investigating this problem for years. Ironically, or perhaps knowingly fraudulent, Tesla’s CEO initially introduced the “Autopilot” feature in response to a cyclist’s death caused by a Tesla. The entire promise of “Autopilot” since introduction in 2013 was to eliminate accidents because of a cyclist killed by Tesla. Even recent tests in 2023 show the Tesla software consistently ignoring cyclists.

Ignoring the inability to operate safely

Tesla has also attempted to suggest that their cars can drive themselves to address the issue of drunk driving, similar to Uber’s claims. This has led drunk drivers to believe they can exploit this feature as a safety loophole, leading to incidents where they attempt to evade responsibility by relying on Tesla’s CEO’s statements about the safety of drunk driving in their vehicles. Multiple crash reports in 2023 show the Tesla software consistently being engaged by drivers who are completely unable to safely operate the vehicle.

Ultimately, the recent crash highlights three dramatic failures and that the concept of “Autopilot” has always been a profit-driven fraud rather than a genuine safety effort.

Tesla’s blatant disregard for safety in order to juice profits has caused numerous tragedies, drawing parallels to Bernie Madoff’s balloon approach to fraudulent schemes. The only remaining question is when Tesla’s façade will crumble and how the CEO will be held accountable for the growing unnecessary suffering caused by obviously deceptive practices.