[FRC Blog] Einstein Report Released

[shawnz]

It's a joke, guys. I think he was trying to make an analogy between incriminating individuals and incriminating a whole team. It's not a great analogy for a lot of reasons, though.

EDIT: Late

[techhelpbb]

Originally Posted by O'Sancheski

Do you have the source for this? Because to my understanding, Apple sued Samsung and told them to stop producing the Nexus.

To be clear they can't stop the production of the Nexus or the Galaxy Tab 10.1. I can produce anything I like and so can they (assuming it's not something subject to military restriction). They just can't sell them in the American market.

I can in point of fact still buy the Nexus, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 (GameStop has them) and of course the Galaxy Tab2 10.1 (which I just returned the other day for specific technical reasons).

The court did not order them to even empty the distribution of the product. Merely to stop offering to sell new stock until the matter is resolved.

Adding:

Sorry but that's sort of not a funny joke. You do realize that I have relatives that supply parts to Samsung and I know other FIRST members that if they read that would be wondering where their paycheck will come from. It's a tough economy out there, and this is a popular topic for people to read. Please think before you spoof your joke might not be funny if someone else panics. Misunderstandings like that can themselves shift the value of a stock.

[LeelandS]

Originally Posted by Libby K

You're taking an incredible moral high road, and saying that this person feels sorry. Good for you for believing in people, but what if they don't?! Unfortunately I've seen plenty of attitudes that say "I'm GLAD Einstein screwed up, because FIRST sucks and they had it coming". Paraphrased from many emails/FB comments/tweets/what have you, but that's the sentiment.

Maybe my moral road borders on "So high, the oxygen is too thin up there." So I understand what you mean. But for right now, it's "What if..." vs. "What if...". We don't know the person's motives. We don't know how they feel about their actions. Maybe they really do feel bad, maybe there is no remorse what-so-ever. We just don't know.

In my personal views, any way we slice it, all involved parties remaining anonymous just seems like the best route. Realistically, what does the person coming public do for the FIRST community and, possibly more importantly, the 12 Einstein teams. Obviously 1114 wants the team/individual to come forward, but what obligation does the team/individual have? Yes, it would be the "Bigger man" thing to come forward. But they don't need to come out publicly to apologize. I would recommend that the person in question write a personal letter to each of the 12 Einstein teams, FIRST, and MAYBE an anonymous letter addressing the FIRST community. I don't think we have any business knowing, personally, who the person or team is.

That's just my view. Maybe I'm being to forgiving or careless. Oh well.

[techhelpbb]

Originally Posted by LeelandS

Maybe my moral road borders on "So high, the oxygen is too thin up there." So I understand what you mean. But for right now, it's "What if..." vs. "What if...". We don't know the person's motives. We don't know how they feel about their actions. Maybe they really do feel bad, maybe there is no remorse what-so-ever. We just don't know.

In my personal views, any way we slice it, all involved parties remaining anonymous just seems like the best route. Realistically, what does the person coming public do for the FIRST community and, possibly more importantly, the 12 Einstein teams. Obviously 1114 wants the team/individual to come forward, but what obligation does the team/individual have? Yes, it would be the "Bigger man" thing to come forward. But they don't need to come out publicly to apologize. I would recommend that the person in question write a personal letter to each of the 12 Einstein teams, FIRST, and MAYBE an anonymous letter addressing the FIRST community. I don't think we have any business knowing, personally, who the person or team is.

That's just my view. Maybe I'm being to forgiving or careless. Oh well.

The real risk is statistical. If we know the team by admission then the number of suspects for the individual is reduced to below 300 people. Then all you need to do is cull the list of former team members from the last year and you're down below 50 people who could have done the deed. That's actually a small enough number that a dogged investigator will find the person in question shortly and with specifics.

I wouldn't be surprised if FIRST has bound them legally to silence it would be the smart move.

[Greg McKaskle]

My own personal wish is that this situation will serve as a somber discussion point within each team. What would the correct response be if YOU found this or a similar issue? What if ... 's are a very valuable teaching tool for life, and the FIRST community is a safe harbor for learning so many of those life tools.

The fact that this statistically unlikely combination of wifi components left the door to the FIRST field partially unlocked doesn't make it that unique. A lost wallet, an unlocked or easily bypassed physical door, an online account with a weak password, all of these take place day-to-day and are worth considering and discussing along with the Einstein vulnerability. All systems have weaknesses, and for me it is cultural expectations more than the strengths of the locks that provide a sense of security in my day to day life. I am not intending to make excuses for the field issues. Locks and alarms are certainly a necessary part of the solution, but what really counts is how people behave when the lock is missing and there are no witnesses.

Relatively speaking, I'm still new to FIRST, and I'm still amazingly proud of the impact it has on people. The level of trust and generosity displayed within the community is practically unparalleled. And yet, it will not maintain itself. It can be improved. I hope that the ultimate outcome of this unfortunate situation is that thousands of individuals consider their own actions in this and similar what if ... scenarios and use it as motivation for self-improvement.

Greg McKaskle

[Steven Donow]

Originally Posted by Nate Laverdure

Wow, I just found this:

I personally applaud this bold move from Samsung. They've understood that we won't be able to move forward as a community until the individual Galaxy Nexus phone, and Samsung as a whole, is held to account.

My mom's 3 day old Galaxy S3 randomly died this morning. This makes sense.

Anyway, I don't think the team nor the individual needs to come forward. The team could easily come out and say that they didn't know about it/weren't involved with it, but whose to say that's the truth? I could easily say right now, "I did it.", and if I phrased it as an eloquent apology, people would believe me.*

Also, just a random idea here, whose to say the team knows about it? Maybe the interferer didn't tell his/her team why they were leaaving, and just treated it as a retirement or something.

Just throwing out some possible scenarios here.


*For the record, no, that was not a confession, wasn't a smartphone owner when I was at CMP, and I was the only one on my team there.

[Racer26]

Two things I noticed:

The letter from Jon Dudas, and the report itself state that the culprit of the intentional interference was not a member of one of the winning teams. If the team associated with this individual was not one of the 12 Einstein teams, why wouldn't Jon simply say that? It's possible Jon simply overlooked this, but the wording is interesting.

It also said that the culprit was fieldside. Trying to speak with the FTA during the confusion.

As I recall (I've only been to CMP once), the number of people allowed fieldside at Einstein would be restricted to the drive teams of those teams participating on Einstein, plus some volunteers.

That leaves a VERY small number indeed.

I definitely agree with others that the individual in question likely WILL be found out in relatively short order.

I also suspect that the 12 teams (or at least their representatives present at the investigation weekend) probably know, and were asked not to talk.

[Hjelstrom]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

As for the individual who caused interference on Einstein... It's all been said at this point. The individual has been punished, and there isn't really anything else we can do about it. Part of Gracious Professionalism is not pointing fingers. When we find bugs at work, we don't ask "who wrote that section of code?" We ask "Who is the best, most knowledgeable person to work on fixing this bug?" As a community, lets move past the actions of the individual and show our support for the job FIRST has done.

Do people at your job purposely hide bugs in other peoples code to get their rivals fired? I work as a software engineer too and take the exact same approach to bugs (they are unintentional mistakes after all). That analogy does not work at all here.

Look, there is more to this story. We actually do know exactly who did this and we know more about their motive than you'd think. No it wasn't curiousity or accidental. We had eye-witnesses to some suspicious behavior right on Einstein. We took pictures of the person. We told the FTA right on the spot. We even told our opponent 1114. We didn't put the whole puzzle together until New Hampshire (i.e. we didn't fully understand what we were seeing at the time) but now we know exactly what happened and who did it. This person was cheating plain and simple. It was definitely not a scouting app. Right now if we just wanted to crucify the team we could. That is not the purpose of us asking them to come forward.

Here is the reason we ask: We've already seen other specific teams mentioned and considered as potentially involved. I've also seen people minimizing what happened and even some saying FIRST didn't really figure anything out! Go ahead, how many of you have a suspect in mind! This is not a good situation to leave this community in. I honestly believed the team would have come forward by now to bring closure to this. It makes me extremely upset that they haven't because by their secrecy it damages the other teams that were there. We're trying to be *gracious* and *professional* by allowing them time to do the right thing rather than throwing the book at them.

For the people trying to rationalize or minimize this, you don't know the whole story yet. I believe that every case of interference in the report was in fact interference and if it comes to it we can present a very convincing argument why.

[Racer26]

@Hjelstrom: As I understand it, being one of the people who was AT the investigation weekend, you may wish to be careful how much you say, especially when its things you don't have proof of.

[Hjelstrom]

Fair enough. I removed the speculation at the end.

[Racer26]

Originally Posted by Ekcrbe

I'm not entirely sure about that incident, but I had a sneaking suspicion even before Worlds that we were somewhat vulnerable to dropouts when being hit near the battery. It could have been that, considering it coincided with a collision right there with the corner of another robot.

Plus, it was only once, and the NI experts in the pits actually reviewed our code and found it to be fully functional and efficient enough (~50% CPU usage average).

Video here

RSL is clearly flashing while it's dead, suggesting the cRIO is still running. Symptoms match what the report says happens with FCA.

Also, 1717 in this video. Symptoms match again.

[Hjelstrom]

Originally Posted by 1075guy

Video here

RSL is clearly flashing while it's dead, suggesting the cRIO is still running. Symptoms match what the report says happens with FCA.

Also, 1717 in this video. Symptoms match again.

Those videos give me chills. Wow.

[smurfgirl]

Wow, I'm completely shocked by what I read. I can't imagine what drove someone to do that.

I think FIRST handled this the best they could, though.

[Pat Hart]

One question to ask when demanding the person to come forward and apologize is "Could I forgive this person?" If the answer is no than perhaps the only reason you want to know the name is so that you can string this person up. Which leads to more ungracious and unprofessional behavior.

Only if the answer is yes will there be anything productive coming from a public apology.

What the person did is terrible and there should be just punishment and consequences, but this person does not need to be forever hated or despised.

[Holtzman]

First off, I must thank FIRST for its thorough investigation. They did a pretty good job of keeping us in the loop when it was appropriate. Frank, Matt, Ryan, and Kevin were all very supportive through this difficult time for us.

To all the people who have thrown in their two cents, I ask you to consider this. You have absolutely no idea what we have been through this season.

I had to stand in front of a room full of my students, parents, and our sponsors and explain to them that after we had worked so hard, and come so far, that someone felt the need to intentionally disable our robot on Einstein and prevent us from even competing on the world’s biggest stage. How many of you can say the same thing?

I attended the Einstein Weekend with Eric Mech, one of our graduating seniors. Eric never left the school before 9pm this season. He was our lead programmer and poured his heart and soul into the team. All the teams on Einstein were brought together and told about the FCA attacks at a meeting on Sunday morning of the Einstein weekend. We were told that FIRST had evidence that our robot was specifically targeted and disabled. I raised my hand and asked what evidence they had, and then Frank Merrick told me that the person had openly admitted to it. I got up and had to leave the room. I was furious. Eric stayed, and handled the news a lot better than I did. He graduates this year not knowing of what we could have achieved.

Would we have won on Einstein? Maybe, maybe not. 180, 25, and 16 were a very strong and deserving alliance. If we had lost to them, or to 987, 233, and 207 on even terms, we would have held our heads high, and congratulated the better alliance. I'm proud to call many members of these teams friends. But the fact is we were denied the chance to even compete by one incompetent jerk.

Trips to Einstein don’t come around very often. Even if you build the best robot in the world, you still need a darn good bit of luck to make it there. I just hope we get the chance to go back and play on even terms.

We in no way blame the entire team for the actions of this individual, but do feel they should stand up and acknowledge that a member of their team was responsible for the FCA attacks on multiple Einstein teams, and potentially others at the Championship and other events. We will give them time to do this properly while being respectful to the innocent members of their team.

On a separate note, the events of GTR-E have absolutely nothing to do with the events of Einstein. All the Canadian teams at the championship were hugely supportive, and we thank them all for that. We are looking forward to playing with 781, 772, and 907 as well as the rest of The Eh Team at IRI next weekend.

I will close with one rather ironic story. I had a gentlemen come up to me on Thursday at The Championship, and thank me for a recent post I had made on Chief Delphi on an unrelated topic. He told me that 2056 is usually very quiet, and likes to let their robot speak for them. Under normal circumstances, this is the way we like to operate. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to let our robot do the talking when it sits dead on the field.