After Volkswagen used software that manipulated exhaust values and defeated emissions tests, it has affected 11 million VW diesel cars built since 2008. A 2007 letter from VW parts supplier Bosch warned Volkswagen not to use the software for regular operations; in 2011, a Volkswagen technician raised concerns about the illegal practices in connection with the emissions levels.

“We should be allowed to know how the things we buy work,” Eben Moglen, a Columbia University law professor and technologist told the New York Times. “Let’s say everybody who bought a Volkswagen were guaranteed the right to read the source code of everything in the car. 99% of the buyers would never read anything, but out of the 11 million people whose car was cheating, one of them would have found it. And Volkswagen would have been caught in 2009, not 2015.”

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