PLEASE READ & SAVE BEFORE IT DISAPPEARS!
TOYOTA doesn't want the public to know the TRUTH!
An HEROIC WHISTLEBLOWER stepped forward at great personal cost because she felt a moral and ethical responsibility to expose TOYOTA'S LIES and DECEPTION [It's been revealed elsewhere by others.]
Three hot links within text. First one is the redacted court filing, the second one is Michael Barr's redacted PowerPoint slideshow, and the last is the EE Times article about "Task X."
Toyota appears to be wanting to clamp down on Betsy's websites.
Toyota Seeks to Close Public Access to 'Purloined' Documents
06/03/2014
An unidentified subcontractor at a language translation service hired by Toyota Motor Corp.'s defense counsel may have “purloined” materials that were redacted and subject to protective orders, according to a recent filing.
The subcontractor is identified as a woman but her name is redacted in the court filing in litigation over unexpected acceleration in Toyota cars.
Toyota alleges the subcontractor posted on unidentified websites stolen documents, including a native version of an unredacted PowerPoint presentation by a plaintiff's expert, according to the document. The plaintiff’s expert presented the information during the first trial to test whether Toyota’s throttle-control systems caused vehicles to spontaneously accelerate. See the redacted filing here.
Toyota wants to confirm that attorney-client privilege and work-product privilege still apply to some of the allegedly stolen documents. The plaintiffs don't oppose that, according to the filing made by plaintiffs' co-lead counsel for economic loss cases and personal injury/wrongful death cases.
The filing relates to the Oklahoma state court case of Bookout v. Toyota. A confidential settlement was reached in the case after the Oklahoma City jury concluded that a defect in a Toyota Camry led to one woman's death and another's injuries. The jury awarded $3 million in compensatory damages and concluded the carmaker acted with “reckless disregard." (The case settled before the jury made a decision on punitive damages).
According to court papers, the PowerPoint presentation was prepared by Michael Barr, a plaintiffs expert witness on embedded software who concluded that Toyota's source code was defective and led to unintended acceleration in the plaintiffs' Toyota Camry.
"Task X" was used on Barr's redacted PowerPoint to describe a car function being kept out of the public record. Barr testified that the "death of 'Task X’ ” ultimately led to the loss of throttle control in the Camry, according to a report by trade journal EE Times.
Amaris Elliott-Engel contributes to law.com.
Wow! Look at this GAGGLE OF TOYOTA ATTORNEYS silencing A SINGLE PERSON from REVEALING THE TRUTH!
MUST READS:
Toyota Trial: Transcript Reveals 'Task X' Clues
MADISON, Wis. -- Following an Oklahoma court judgment against Toyota for “unintended acceleration” in some of its cars, after which Toyota agreed to settle with the plaintiffs on punitive damages, the greatest frustration for court-watchers has been the blockade on information about what one expert witness referred to as Task X.
During EE Times’ interview with Michael Barr, CTO and co-founder of the Barr Group, who was an expert witness during the trial, he discussed the death of “Task X,” which he believes ultimately caused “loss of throttle control” and also “a disablement of a number of the fail-safes.”
So what is Task X? What tasks is Task X supposed to perform?
Barr said he’s not allowed to talk about specifics on Task X. However, the trial transcript offers ample clues about what it does.
Kitchen sink
EE Times went back to the transcripts of Bookout v. Toyota Motor and found the following:
EE Times went back to the transcripts of Bookout v. Toyota Motor and found the following:
On the witness stand, Barr described Task X as “kitchen-sink” function because of an extensive list of chores it’s designed to perform within an automobile’s electronic system.
In the context of the trial, he explained that Task X helps manage throttle control. “It selects the next throttle percentage, whether it should be 100 percent, 50 percent, 20 percent,” he testified. “And it does that based on looking at the accelerator pedal position, whether the cruise [control] is on.”
Further, Task X executes the cruise-control code. This makes it responsible both for turning on cruise control, maintaining speed in cruise control, and turning off cruise control.
More importantly, Task X “also is responsible for many of the fail-safes on the main CPU,” Barr said during the trial.
Excerpts of the court transcript
EE Times is publishing a portion of the court transcript relevant to Task X. The following Q&A was carried out when Benjamin E. Baker, Jr., representing the plaintiffs, called expert witness Barr to the stand:
EE Times is publishing a portion of the court transcript relevant to Task X. The following Q&A was carried out when Benjamin E. Baker, Jr., representing the plaintiffs, called expert witness Barr to the stand:
A [Barr] So the ultimate conclusion from the presence of these defects is that the software could malfunction. And the most dangerous such malfunction would be if the car had a portion of its software that was working, and that part was running the combustion feeding air and fuel and spark to the engine at the same time that the part that the driver was interacting with through the accelerator pedal or the cruise control switches was not listening to the driver because it crashed or hung, like one application might crash on your desktop while another one is still running.
Q [Baker] And are the defects that you're describing here that can cause an unintended acceleration, can that occur when the cruise control is on?
A Yes.
Q Can it occur when the cruise control is off?
A Yes.
Q And it is the same software defects that would relate to both?
A Yes.
Q Let's go to the next slide. You're talking about the software malfunctions here?
Bookout v. Toyota Motor transcript continues
A Yes. This just uses an analogy and makes the point that, of course, software malfunctions. And we see it all the time in our daily lives whether it your laptop or your desktop, sometimes you have to reboot things, restart applications, et cetera.A Yes. In Toyota's design, there were [REDACTED]tasks. And some of those tasks did things on a time basis. There were three of them, in fact. One of them that did something every [REDACTED] millisecond, one of them that did a lot of stuff every [REDACTED]milliseconds; and that's this one, [REDACTED], and another one that did a lot of stuff, again, every[REDACTED] milliseconds. And those are known as the [REDACTED] millisecond [REDACTED],[REDACTED], and [REDACTED] millisecond[REDACTED], [REDACTED]tasks.
It is a fact of life that software developers are well aware of, or should be well aware of that software malfunctions can occur. I don't know if you ever had the experience where is one app on your Smart phone is not working and the others are. And we all know, we are trained to reboot it. Just reboot it. Oh, you didn't get my phone call? Well, maybe your phone is not taking calls right now because of a software bug. That can happen in an iphone or an android. Even though you might be able to make outgoing calls, if one part of the software is not working, the rest is. So you reboot it and suddenly everything is fine.
The 2005 Camry has apps. They don't call them apps, they call them tasks. And so there are[REDACTED] tasks inside the engine. As an example, there is one task whose job it is to keep track of how fast the car is going. That is important, obviously, if you will have a cruise control feature because a cruise control needs to know not only what speed you would like it to be but what speed it really is.
Q Let me stop you right there.
MR. BAKER: Your Honor, my next question is going to involve some source code. So at Toyota's request, I think we need to clear the folks out of the courtroom again.
THE COURT: Is this going to be periodically, or is this the only time?
MR. BAKER: I hope this is the only time.
THE COURT: If not, I will just exclude everybody from this point on. You think this may be the only time?
MR. BAKER: I will transition into our nicknames for it so we don't have to do it anymore.
MR. BIBB (editor's note: J. Randolph Bibb, Jr., Attorney at Law, for the defendants): I think there is one other area that I noticed, but it is a long way from here in this slide show.
THE COURT: Again, if you do not have source code access, please exit the courtroom.
(Whereupon, the courtroom complies.)
THE COURT: You may proceed, Mr. Baker.
MR. BAKER: Thank you, your Honor.
Q (By Mr. Baker) You're talking about [REDACTED]tasks that run this system, correct?
A Correct.
Q All right. Earlier we heard some testimony from Mr. Osawa, and he mentioned a couple terms that I believe are tasks names, and I want to ask you about those. He mentioned [REDACTED]. Is that a name for one of these [REDACTED] tasks?
A It is.
Q He also mentioned [REDACTED]. Is that also the name of a task?
A It is.
Q All right. And in terms of [REDACTED], do any of those characters have specific meaning to you or a programmer who is looking at this?
Those are the only tasks that were named quite like that. Most of the other tasks related to moving the combustion process at a certain speed that varied depending on the engine speed, so it wasn't time based. And also there were some asynchronous things that happened separate from the engine speed, separate from the time, amount of time.
Q And these two terms that we have specifically referenced here, are those source code terms to which Toyota has claimed are confidential and they don't want the public to hear those characters?
A Yes. If you were to look at my report there, you would see every time I said [REDACTED] it is blacked out. Every time I said [REDACTED] it is blacked out. And other similar things are blacked out, and the same is true with the deposition transcripts from my testimony.
Q And so for these [REDACTED] tasks that you referenced here, each one has a name like this similar?
A Well, as I said, there is only the three that have time-based names.
Q In terms of our case here, are we going to talk a lot about [REDACTED]?
A We are.
Q In order to avoid having to clear the courtroom every time we talk about it, do you generally talk about in your work as task X?
A I do. I call it task X, letter X.
Q So whenever we say task X, you're referring to this specific task?
A That's correct.
Q For that specific task, can you tell us what particular functions that task has to perform?
A I can't, because it is a very extensive list. I actually also refer to this tasks as the kitchen-sink task, because it does so much in the system. But importantly, for our purposes, it does throttle control; that is it selects the next throttle percentage, whether it should be 100 percent, 50 percent, 20 percent. And it does that based on looking at the accelerator pedal position, whether the cruise it on.
It executes also the cruise control code, so it is responsible both for turning on cruise control, maintaining speed of cruise control, and turning off cruise control.
It also is responsible for many of the failsafes on the main CPU. We will talk more about that as well.
Q We also mentioned DTC. What do those stand for?
Q And in your Camry, is it this task X that has the job to either set or help set diagnostic trouble codes in the car computer, at least associated with what we will be talking about?
A Yes. I won't say all of them, but most of them, the vast majority of them, will not be recorded unless that task X is doing all its job.
Q You have gone through all these things, you told us this task has control over or performs. Is it unusual for a single task to have so many tasks within it?
A Yes. It is not a good software architecture.
Q Why is that?
A In particular, combining the part of the system that does the calculation of the throttle angle with the failsafes and trouble codes is a well-known bad design.
There is a pattern that people usually follow where you have a controller and you have a monitor. And so even within the software, it should have been architected so that the control of the throttle was separate from the failsafes related to the throttle and sensors that inputs them.
Q Let me ask about that then. The jury heard testimony about a brake override system. Are you familiar with that?
A Yes.
Q Wherein the accelerator is in certain condition, if you press the brake it will automatically cut the throttle. Are you familiar with that?
A I am. There is not one in the 2005 Camry, to be clear.
Q Right. Do you have an understanding of the system that Toyota has since used?
A Yes. I reviewed the one that they put into the 2010 Camry.
Q Where is the function for that brake override? Where is the task located, as you understand it?
A Yes. So the brake override that is supposed to save the day when there is an unintended acceleration is in task X, of course, because it is the kitchen sink.
Q All right. And we will later in more detail about task death where a task just stops running, correct?
A Yes.
Q And I think your focus is going to be in on the death of task X?
A That's correct. I don't think I will need to name any of the other tasks in order to talk about the rest.
Q Just to follow-up your example on brake override systems,if Toyota’s system were used, and task X died and caused a UA, would brake override work?
A No.
Q Why not?
A Because you have software watching the software. So if the software malfunctions and the same program or same app that is crashed, is supposed to save the day, it can't save the day because it is not working.
Q How would you fix that?
A Well, the right way to design a brake override, in my opinion, is to have it on an external chip. It is not just my opinion, it is also in a standard called EGAS (phonetic) for automotive makers. And in that design, you have a separate chip that looks at whether the driver is braking and whether the throttle is open. Does it make sense that you're braking but you are having to fight the throttle because it is open 50 percent or 100 percent?
It would be relatively simple, and I will have explain later how Toyota could have done this back in 2002 without any extra cost to the vehicle, that if you were braking and the throttle was stuck that there must be something wrong with the main CPU and it can reset. A car traveling at 60 miles an hour, a Toyota 2005 Camry traveling at 60 miles an hour, can reset its computer in about 11 feet.
So it's okay to reset the computer in order to solve the problem. And that would, just like resetting your iphone, solve the problem. And Toyota had the means and could have done that, but they didn't do that in the 2005 Camry. Even in the 2010 Camry, when they were responding to the NHTSA problems and investigations, what they did was software watching software. They didn't put a separate chip or have a proper brake throttle override.
Q Have you covered everything on this slide that you want to talk about? I have a question if we have.
A There is one thing that I want to talk about. I wrote there all of these tasks are meant to be running always. So I talked about task death a little bit, the idea that one app crashes, right?
So what if you're driving down the road and you only now have [REDACTED] of these tasks working but your car seems to be operating normal? Is that a good thing? No. Let's say that there are[REDACTED] tasks, each had assigned to it one programmer at Toyota or Denso. It is as if though one of them, you're not benefitting from the work of that[REDACTED] engineer that day while you're driving down the road until you restart your car. It may cause a malfunction that is dangerous. It may cause a minor malfunction that you don't even notice. Then when you restart the car, it goes back to being a car.
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