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Comment by ajross | Hacker News Reader

> You wouldn't know that it would be possible to ask for more information, unless you knew they were collecting it.

Only if Tesla purjured themselves during discovery. That's not the way court cases work. You can ask "Do you guys record the accelerometer data anywhere else but on the MCU?" and they have to answer truthfully.

What you write here mostly amounts to a conspiracy theory. You're taking the idea that Tesla is "hiding something nefarious" as a prior and then taking evidence that their storage was reverse engineered as evidence for that prior.

But that's not how engineering works either.

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Eh, that’s generally not how the procedure works. A defendant quite explicitly doesn’t need to proactively provide all information that could possibly incriminate themselves. If the plaintiff isn’t asking for something then, cool. The plaintiff COULD ask for ‘all self driving data’, but often that can be objected to and/or thrown out, as it’s a fishing expedition and that data is proprietary. So that can tie up things for a long time while everyone argues back and forth in court, and it’s likely they’d only get the bare minimum to address whatever the case is alleging. That is very expensive to do.

If they know it’s there and can proactively argue it’s appropriate, that changes the equation dramatically.

You don't have to know it's there, you just have to understand the problem space enough to find it. You depose an engineer and you ask "do you store this information?", and they have to answer. Then you can ask "where do you store it?", and so on. There's complexity about some questions being procedurally allowed, etc... But that's how it works.

Fundamentally this process isn't any different than reverse engineering. If a good hacker can figure out how something works based on knowledge of the problem domain and technology in use, then those same questions can be answered in a deposition and provided via discovery, by definition.

They can - but as evidence shows do not always, or even often. It will now more often of course as the information gets out.

> It will now more often of course as the information gets out.

AGAIN you are arguing from a conspiracy as a prior. There is no "information" to "get out". The car stores telemetry and sensor input. We always knew that. This is a story about someone figuring out how to recover it.

There is literally zero implication of a conspiracy in any of my prior posts?

Rather no one dumps everything in a deposition. If there is something that could help opposing counsel, then it will be avoided as best as possible. This is basic law 101.

Just because you, and some others, know exactly what is there (presumably) doesn’t mean everyone else does! And I’ve seen first hand how opposing counsels can screw themselves over by not spending time and effort to figure out how the technology actually works, and many times plaintiffs don’t either, so they just don’t know where to poke.

And that is avoiding that knowledge of a previously hidden area (such as if something is recoverable that seems like it should not be because they have the wrong assumptions or don’t know how it actually works internally!) can radically change the actual strategy and applicable law.

You seem to keep asserting that everyone already knows everything and all optimal strategies are already known because of this, which does not apply to the real world at all.

The article states, “Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI) said it had discovered far more data than investigators had previously been aware of.” The implication is that Tesla has not shared all of this information with investigators before.

We know for a fact Tesla is doing something nefarious, i.e. the self driving scam.

But I suppose Tesla isn't hiding anything nefarious. Most of their malfeasance is plain to see.

As someone who actually purchased FSD and has yet to receive it, it's not a scam. It's just a really hard problem that I think Tesla will solve before anyone else.

If someone promises you’ll have it any day now, so you pay them a lot of money, but they delay it years and years - and you note it’s a really hard problem - at what point is it fraud?

Most legal precedent I’ve seen says a lot less time than they’ve already delayed it, frankly.

> at what point is it fraud?

It's fraud when someone is harmed. People like you who didn't buy the product and don't want it don't have standing here. People like me, who did, do. And almost without exception, we're all lined up to get the beta release. Offer me a $10k refund today in exchange for never getting access to FSD releases, and I'd turn it down.

"People willfully paying for something I don't like" isn't fraud. Find a FSD owner willing to sue for a refund.

1. Securities fraud is fraud.

2. Tesla is currently advertising their cars as being capable of driving themselves. They have videos of people driving with their hands off the wheel. They have failed to implement safety features that make drivers pay attention while using driver assists. People have died because of this.

3. There are no FSD owners because FSD does not exists.

4. You are a victim too. You will realize it someday.

5. I sure as hell have standing. Have you seen the video of the current FSD version? It just plain does not work and is being released on public roads for "testing" by untrained drivers. Tesla is putting my life in danger, and shame on you for going along with it.

My admittedly layman understanding of 47 USC §1001 is that no actual harm needs to be demonstrated for it to be an instance of fraud:

(a) Except as otherwise provided in this section, whoever, in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the Government of the United States, knowingly and willfully—

(1) falsifies, conceals, or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact;

(2) makes any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation; or

(3) makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry;

So if Tesla is knowingly taking pre-orders for FSD without being certain on when they could deliver it _and_ they don't make it clear that they don't know when or if FSD could be delivered, that would likely qualify as fraud.

And considering that it isn’t clear that a legally viable FSD implementation will ever be possible on the hardware Tesla sold, it’s a pretty ballsy move for anyone but a time traveler.

And given the length of time it’s been going, at some point someone is going to call time and it’s going to be a big mess for Tesla. Unless they actually deliver it.

No pressure!

Why would getting a refund preclude you from buying self driving if/when it's released? I think that "pay now, maybe get it later" or "don't pay now, can't buy it later" is a false dilemma.

> Why would getting a refund preclude you from buying self driving if/when it's released?

It wouldn't. It would be an existence proof that this isn't fraud: I want the product, they offer it as a pre-purchase with disclaimers, I bought it, ergo I wasn't harmed. Getting a refund now for a product a fully intend to purchase again in the future is called a "loan".

Again, fraud is a crime. It requires damages. I have to have been harmed.

Crimes DO NOT require concrete damages. Civil claims do require concrete damages.

Being convicted of drug possession being one really clear example - there is often no need to even prove the person was aware of the existence of the drugs. Mere actual possession is usually enough (depending on the jurisdiction). And there is no need to prove the person intended to sell, distribute, harm, or even do anything with them. Even if the person literally was taking them to be destroyed, they can still be convicted of the crime.

What if it can be proven they were never serious in their claims about the feasability of self-driving. What if it was all a scam to milk investment money, and yours as well. Would it be fraud then? Point being you were given a disclaimer that was accepted in good faith about receiving a product/service in a reasonable time frame. If that time frame turned out to be 100 years, I'd say you were damaged.

> What if it can be proven they were never serious in their claims about the feasability of self-driving. What if it was all a scam to milk investment money, and yours as well. Would it be fraud then?

Yes, it would. Because then I would want a refund. But that would be asserting facts not in evidence, and I refer to my point upthread about arguing from a conspiracy as a prior.

Where do you see any conspiracy? Because I don’t see anyone referring to one.

There are plenty of videos on Youtube showing the state and rate of progress of self-driving. It's clear it's got a long way to go but is improving quickly.

Everyone knows that Elon Musk's twitter is not a reliable indicator of feature release dates.

>It's clear it's got a long way to go but is improving quickly.

First part yes, second part no. It has been in development since at least 2015 and still drives straight into walls. Meanwhile Waymo and Cruze are putting down tens of thousands of miles between interventions.

You can see the same route being driven better as new betas come out. There's just not the same openness from Waymo and Cruze as Tesla which has vehicles out there in varied conditions able to be recorded by members of the public.

Tesla is miles behind everyone else. It is hard, yes, but it is even harder if you try to do it with hardware that is not up to the task.

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