Living in the era of cheating software

FOR the past six years, Volkswagen has been advertising a lie: "top-notch clean diesel" cars - fuel efficient, powerful and compliant with emissions standards for pollutants. It turns out the cars weren't so clean. They were cheating.

The vehicles used software that cleverly put a lid on emissions during testing, but only then. The rest of the time, the cars spewed up to 40 times the legal limit of nitrogen oxide emissions. The federal government even paid up to US$51 million in tax subsidies to some car owners on the false assumption of environmental friendliness.

In a world where more and more objects are run by software, we need to have better ways to catch such cheaters. As the Volkswagen case demonstrates, a smart object can lie and cheat. It can tell when it's being tested, and it can beat the test.