> Uber has a team dedicated to collecting trade secrets from competing companies. Allegedly, the people involved use disappearing-message apps, anonymous servers, and secret computers and phones to communicate without leaving a trail.
When I hear stories like this I think of the developers who likely thought of and implemented the systems behind these criminal acts and I'm once more reminded that software developers, in aggregate, are on a similar level to '90s finance "tricksters" etc. We'll do whatever if the money is there.
One unfortunate side of progress and technological advancement is that it can be unethical, in the hands of people with less ethics.
Think of it this way: 1. Anybody in robotics/ai/ml is helping uav technology used for military purpose. 2. Anybody in financial lending could help fuel financial crisis. 3. Anybody in software could be enabling surveillance technology without even realizing.
Why do you say no NDAs were signed? Levandowski signed a NDA. Here's a quote from one of Waymo's filings.
> Waymo also requires all employees, contractors, consultants, vendors, and manufacturers to sign confidentiality agreements before any confidential or proprietary trade secret information is disclosed to them.
Edit: I screwed up the original quotation and had one that said he signed a NDA with Uber instead of Waymo. I've replaced it with a similar quote (also from a Waymo filing) saying he signed a NDA with Waymo...
Does that mean someone can't independently come up with the formula for Coke (Pepsi or any knock off) because it's their intellectual property? [Or KFC's 13 spices]
Or is Pepsi (and other knock offs) sufficiently different? Or something else working here.
there's also of course the possibility that uber violated the CFAA if someone exfiltrated data from waymo, though the distinctions re: access without autorization and access that exceeds authorization are quite nuanced.
if "uber-spy" had authorized access to many secrets, intended all along to steal it and bring it to uber, dumped a ton of data, then left and carried out their plans to give the data to uber, case law says "uber-spy" didn't violate any clauses of the CFAA, whether they signed an NDA or not ("contract based restrictions" are rarely if ever considered unauthorized access per the CFAA). however, there are many gotchas that can hook that data into access in excess of authorization (exfiltrating it on company property, even printed pages for example).
once you have a nexus to get a CFAA violation in, you can start bringing in intent and monetary gain and such and potentially even get into easy to prove strict liability offenses.
given the description of their anonymous server, secret phone team, there's a pretty good chance that stuff alone will open them up to CFAA based prosecution, which could go very badly. who knows though.
if you're interested in this sort of stuff, which may be tangential to uber/waymo (i'm not sure / don't care) , orin kerr is the person to read.
Trade secrets are intellectual property which is ... property. So stealing trade secrets is stealing property which is theft.
You can develop what is the equivalent of a trade secret. That is the risk and you have to make efforts to keep the secret a secret. But if an employee copies your trade secret that’s theft.
No, copyright infringement isn't theft even if it has been characterized as "stealing intellectual property". Intellectual property is a broad term without any real meaning.
Copyrights don't have to be registered to have effect. Patents do. Trademarks can be either. If you don't defend a trademark, you lose it. If you don't defend against copyright or patent infringement, you can just wait. Patents last for 20 years. Copyright lasts for life of the author + 70 years, or 95 years (publication date)/120 years (creation date) for corporations. Registered trademarks are renewed every 10 years; potentially indefinitely (?)
You can't make any assumptions about trade secret law based on other "types" of "intellectual property" without actually reading and knowing the laws around trade secrets.
As that page makes clear, it's now a federal offense to misappropriate trade secrets because:
"As a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and a party to the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual-Property Rights (TRIPS), the United States is obligated to provide trade secret protection. Article 39 paragraph 2 requires member nations to provide a means for protecting information that is secret, commercially valuable because it is secret, and subject to reasonable steps to keep it secret. The Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 created federal civil cause of action, strengthening U.S. trade secret protection, with a choice for the parties between localized disputes under state laws or disputes under federal law, heard in federal courts. While state laws differ, there is similarity among the laws because almost all states have adopted some form of the Uniform Trade Secrets Act. "
If for some reason you need a deeper explanation (although I'm already getting a bit suspicious as to what legitimate reason you might or might not have), that page links to a helpful Youtube video:
While unfortunate that the USPTO has no way to distribute video information without relying on its industry partners to help get the message out[1], the video clarifies that "The failure to identify and protect trade secrets can result in a loss of competitive advantage, loss of core business technologies, and reduced profitability. In many countries the importance of trade secrets is reflected in laws and regulations that protect against trade secret theft because of the impact it can have on the economic vitality of businesses."
Egad, the specter of "reduced profitability" and the loss of "economic vitality"! Underlying this important message are a series of cartoons subconsciously illustrating the principle that without federal protection of trade secrets, the recipe for the "World's Best Cookie's" would quickly be stolen by foreigners with funny looking facial hair, and then we would no longer have cookies.
Any other questions?
</sarcasm>
B. (the non-sarcastic answer)
Because businesses with lots of money gave some of that money to politicians to create laws allowing them to use the muscle of the federal government to preserve the competitive advantages they already have. Trade secrets are to patents roughly as the DMCA is to copyright: they add a layer of federal felony to what would otherwise be a civil dispute.
[1] Even the interstitial makes me gag: "You are leaving USPTO.gov. We provide this link to an outside website because it has information that may be of interest to users. The USPTO does not necessarily endorse the views or facts presented on this site. The USPTO does not endorse any commercial products that may be advertised or available on this site." They make the video, post it on an external website, and then say that are linking to an external website because it might be of interest to users? And what compelled them to say "does not necessarily endorse"? You really should watch the video, though, as its "smarminess" is almost beyond words.
The wording "does not necessarily endorse" is common language for a generic link that could be going to something do endorse or could be going to something they don't endorse. This means that people who want to add a link to an external resource don't have to stop and get their internal lawyers to decide whether that is an endorsed reference or not.
File a motion asking Judge Alsup to recuse himself (withdraw from the case). A recusal motion may be based on evidence that a judge is biased or lacks impartiality.
Yeh.. the judge has busted us, so he is not impartial because he knows we are guilty...
> Once a judge catches a lawyer in a lie the judge will question everything the lawyer says.
Not a lawyer, but isn't is taken for granted that lawyers (along with everybody else) are lying in courts and that it's the jurors and judge's job to find out who is lying?
No. Lawyers are officers of the court. Especially in civil cases which are just about the balance of evidence, their role is to put their side of the truth in the best light. Not to just make up whatever bullshit they think might win.
> the defense lawyer may not lie to the judge or jury by specifically stating that the defendant did not do something the lawyer knows the defendant did do.
I just don’t get why engineers want to work for Uber.
They have treated their drivers poorly (eg. under paying them and fighting benefits other cab companies have to pay), their riders poorly (eg. not telling them their personal data was stolen), their engineers poorly (eg. giving zero fucks about sexual harassment without the press getting involved), local governments poorly (eg. dodging law enforcement and regulators by making them wait for rides that never come), rival companies poorly (eg. ordering and cancelling rides from Lyft) and their investors poorly for not disclosing any of this shit.
Really, why do you work for them? Are you laughing your asses off when you hear another engineer leaving a company that does bad things because you’re going to make more money and that’s what matters? Or is the problems you’re solving really that interesting you couldn’t care less if someone is using what ypu built to mess with people’s lives in likely illegal ways? Our profession is about solving problems that makes people’s lives better, how can you just be ok with what they’re using what you built for? Don’t you feel any responsibility making the tools they need to do these things? And, if they haven’t done anything illegal and unethical with your system yet, how can you be sure they won’t given their track record?
Where’s your professional integrity is what I’m asking. If think our profession needs a license like stock brokers, realtors, accountants, physicians, attorneys or cab drivers have. Implementinh any of the systems that enabled any those shenanigans Uber has pulled off should be grounds for revoking it because I fear that’s what we need to do to make engineers stop and think ”yeah, they’re giving me boat loads of money and I get a good resume if I would want to work for Google or Facebook but what if I get caught?” because apparently otherwise they would gladly give Uber the tools to screw people over and sleep well at night.
"It should be noted that no ethically-trained software engineer would ever consent to write a `DestroyBaghdad` procedure. Basic professional ethics would instead require him to write a
`DestroyCity' procedure, to which `Baghdad' could be given as a parameter."
Integrity is a rare coin these days, but to be fair, it won't buy you much.
I still think it's worthwhile because...you know, be nice to people. But I'm fortunate to be in a position where I can be a sucker like that without serious consequences. I know that having integrity in the current market hurts me a bit, but I can afford it.
Maybe not everyone has that sort of option - maybe Uber's extra $20k keeps their mortgage above water or something. But I dunno, maybe that's also just being charitable. I'm getting pretty disillusioned these days.
OJ Simpson's prosecutor posted a similar idea on Reddit:(1)
>Most of the prosecutors I know are good people who are committed to protecting us from those who would prey on us. But these days, I sometimes run into prosecutors who just don't seem to have the character we used to have 20-30 years ago. People need to understand that prosecutors are lawyers, and like my grandmama once told me, a law degree is a license to lie.
Personally I am sad to think we're currently in a slide away from constitutional rights and individual liberty, and how this relates to our cultural ideas about integrity.
Unfortunately, it's nobody's actual job to worry about this.
Integrity is always an option, but it's definitely not always an easy option. I'm glad you're in a place where you don't have to test it and hope that I also won't find myself in a difficult place where it will have to be tested, but I do know that it's the only coin that is really worth anything.
So they tell themselves they have a right to a well paying job and that their right to a good livelihood is more important than the rights of the people Uber screws over?
"and with these I can fling small stones almost resembling a storm; and with the smoke of these cause great terror to the enemy, to his great detriment and confusion. "
Duke's enemies, Uber competitors - at least in the latter case no people got killed nor were intended to be killed, looks like we're making progress. The technology has, primarily, always served the interests of the "Dukes", i.e. of the ones who pay. It probably has all the chances for the second oldest profession title.
I personally do not think weapons make people’s lives better, but if you would have the opinion that an armed defense force is a public good that’s a separate discussion.
What you have to ask yourself is ”Is this illegal? Could I tell my grandchildren 30 years later what I did as an engineer and feel proud?”
Don’t think I’m completely excluding the people who pay from all responsibility, however.
I care about the 0.1& too. I don't believe in knowingly messing with people for the benefit of everyone else.
And if the last part of your argument is "why care about anything less than the worst things in the world?" I don't agree with that thinking, plain and simple. A company that big and influential being that completely disrespectful towards regulators, tax payers, riders, female engineers, drivers, competitors and investors is something we need to seriously mind.
Readit News
If true, then this is absolutely unreal.
Add it to the growing list of dodgy Uber tactics:
Ride-hailing company (Uber) hit by revelations it used custom-built tool to deceive law enforcement, while latest departure of senior staffer deepens troubles https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/mar/03/uber-secr...
Uber employees have ordered and canceled more than 5,000 rides from rival Lyft since last October, according to new data provided by Lyft. http://money.cnn.com/2014/08/11/technology/uber-fake-ride-re...
CNNMoney spoke to three Uber drivers who said they received a text message that said they were "forbidden" from driving with another company. http://money.cnn.com/2014/08/04/technology/uber-lyft/?iid=EL
Uber admitted on Tuesday that it underpaid its New York City-based drivers by millions of dollars over the past two and a half years https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/23/15681422/uber-underpaid-n...
Uber will stop its controversial practice of tracking users for up to five minutes after a trip has ended, as it attempts to turn around its mired public image. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/aug/29/uber-u-tu...
Uber’s Hell program used fake passenger accounts to track the location and status of Lyft drivers. http://www.newsweek.com/uber-used-hell-program-track-lyft-dr...
Think of it this way: 1. Anybody in robotics/ai/ml is helping uav technology used for military purpose. 2. Anybody in financial lending could help fuel financial crisis. 3. Anybody in software could be enabling surveillance technology without even realizing.
> Waymo also requires all employees, contractors, consultants, vendors, and manufacturers to sign confidentiality agreements before any confidential or proprietary trade secret information is disclosed to them.
Edit: I screwed up the original quotation and had one that said he signed a NDA with Uber instead of Waymo. I've replaced it with a similar quote (also from a Waymo filing) saying he signed a NDA with Waymo...
Deleted Comment
Or is Pepsi (and other knock offs) sufficiently different? Or something else working here.
Deleted Comment
if "uber-spy" had authorized access to many secrets, intended all along to steal it and bring it to uber, dumped a ton of data, then left and carried out their plans to give the data to uber, case law says "uber-spy" didn't violate any clauses of the CFAA, whether they signed an NDA or not ("contract based restrictions" are rarely if ever considered unauthorized access per the CFAA). however, there are many gotchas that can hook that data into access in excess of authorization (exfiltrating it on company property, even printed pages for example).
once you have a nexus to get a CFAA violation in, you can start bringing in intent and monetary gain and such and potentially even get into easy to prove strict liability offenses.
given the description of their anonymous server, secret phone team, there's a pretty good chance that stuff alone will open them up to CFAA based prosecution, which could go very badly. who knows though.
if you're interested in this sort of stuff, which may be tangential to uber/waymo (i'm not sure / don't care) , orin kerr is the person to read.
You can develop what is the equivalent of a trade secret. That is the risk and you have to make efforts to keep the secret a secret. But if an employee copies your trade secret that’s theft.
Copyrights don't have to be registered to have effect. Patents do. Trademarks can be either. If you don't defend a trademark, you lose it. If you don't defend against copyright or patent infringement, you can just wait. Patents last for 20 years. Copyright lasts for life of the author + 70 years, or 95 years (publication date)/120 years (creation date) for corporations. Registered trademarks are renewed every 10 years; potentially indefinitely (?)
You can't make any assumptions about trade secret law based on other "types" of "intellectual property" without actually reading and knowing the laws around trade secrets.
A. (the sarcastic answer)
The USPTO explains the reasoning here:
https://www.uspto.gov/patents-getting-started/international-...
As that page makes clear, it's now a federal offense to misappropriate trade secrets because:
"As a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and a party to the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual-Property Rights (TRIPS), the United States is obligated to provide trade secret protection. Article 39 paragraph 2 requires member nations to provide a means for protecting information that is secret, commercially valuable because it is secret, and subject to reasonable steps to keep it secret. The Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 created federal civil cause of action, strengthening U.S. trade secret protection, with a choice for the parties between localized disputes under state laws or disputes under federal law, heard in federal courts. While state laws differ, there is similarity among the laws because almost all states have adopted some form of the Uniform Trade Secrets Act. "
If for some reason you need a deeper explanation (although I'm already getting a bit suspicious as to what legitimate reason you might or might not have), that page links to a helpful Youtube video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dXA5A4l0Rg
While unfortunate that the USPTO has no way to distribute video information without relying on its industry partners to help get the message out[1], the video clarifies that "The failure to identify and protect trade secrets can result in a loss of competitive advantage, loss of core business technologies, and reduced profitability. In many countries the importance of trade secrets is reflected in laws and regulations that protect against trade secret theft because of the impact it can have on the economic vitality of businesses."
Egad, the specter of "reduced profitability" and the loss of "economic vitality"! Underlying this important message are a series of cartoons subconsciously illustrating the principle that without federal protection of trade secrets, the recipe for the "World's Best Cookie's" would quickly be stolen by foreigners with funny looking facial hair, and then we would no longer have cookies.
Any other questions? </sarcasm>
B. (the non-sarcastic answer)
Because businesses with lots of money gave some of that money to politicians to create laws allowing them to use the muscle of the federal government to preserve the competitive advantages they already have. Trade secrets are to patents roughly as the DMCA is to copyright: they add a layer of federal felony to what would otherwise be a civil dispute.
[1] Even the interstitial makes me gag: "You are leaving USPTO.gov. We provide this link to an outside website because it has information that may be of interest to users. The USPTO does not necessarily endorse the views or facts presented on this site. The USPTO does not endorse any commercial products that may be advertised or available on this site." They make the video, post it on an external website, and then say that are linking to an external website because it might be of interest to users? And what compelled them to say "does not necessarily endorse"? You really should watch the video, though, as its "smarminess" is almost beyond words.
File a motion asking Judge Alsup to recuse himself (withdraw from the case). A recusal motion may be based on evidence that a judge is biased or lacks impartiality.
Yeh.. the judge has busted us, so he is not impartial because he knows we are guilty...
https://cis.org/Feere/Federal-Judge-Issues-Stinging-Order-Ob...
They were ordered to take ethics courses and barred from appearing in court in the judicial district.
Not a lawyer, but isn't is taken for granted that lawyers (along with everybody else) are lying in courts and that it's the jurors and judge's job to find out who is lying?
> the defense lawyer may not lie to the judge or jury by specifically stating that the defendant did not do something the lawyer knows the defendant did do.
[source: https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/representing-client-...]
They have treated their drivers poorly (eg. under paying them and fighting benefits other cab companies have to pay), their riders poorly (eg. not telling them their personal data was stolen), their engineers poorly (eg. giving zero fucks about sexual harassment without the press getting involved), local governments poorly (eg. dodging law enforcement and regulators by making them wait for rides that never come), rival companies poorly (eg. ordering and cancelling rides from Lyft) and their investors poorly for not disclosing any of this shit.
Really, why do you work for them? Are you laughing your asses off when you hear another engineer leaving a company that does bad things because you’re going to make more money and that’s what matters? Or is the problems you’re solving really that interesting you couldn’t care less if someone is using what ypu built to mess with people’s lives in likely illegal ways? Our profession is about solving problems that makes people’s lives better, how can you just be ok with what they’re using what you built for? Don’t you feel any responsibility making the tools they need to do these things? And, if they haven’t done anything illegal and unethical with your system yet, how can you be sure they won’t given their track record?
Where’s your professional integrity is what I’m asking. If think our profession needs a license like stock brokers, realtors, accountants, physicians, attorneys or cab drivers have. Implementinh any of the systems that enabled any those shenanigans Uber has pulled off should be grounds for revoking it because I fear that’s what we need to do to make engineers stop and think ”yeah, they’re giving me boat loads of money and I get a good resume if I would want to work for Google or Facebook but what if I get caught?” because apparently otherwise they would gladly give Uber the tools to screw people over and sleep well at night.
– Nathaniel S. Borenstein
I still think it's worthwhile because...you know, be nice to people. But I'm fortunate to be in a position where I can be a sucker like that without serious consequences. I know that having integrity in the current market hurts me a bit, but I can afford it.
Maybe not everyone has that sort of option - maybe Uber's extra $20k keeps their mortgage above water or something. But I dunno, maybe that's also just being charitable. I'm getting pretty disillusioned these days.
OJ Simpson's prosecutor posted a similar idea on Reddit:(1)
>Most of the prosecutors I know are good people who are committed to protecting us from those who would prey on us. But these days, I sometimes run into prosecutors who just don't seem to have the character we used to have 20-30 years ago. People need to understand that prosecutors are lawyers, and like my grandmama once told me, a law degree is a license to lie.
Personally I am sad to think we're currently in a slide away from constitutional rights and individual liberty, and how this relates to our cultural ideas about integrity.
Unfortunately, it's nobody's actual job to worry about this.
1 - https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/6oybbr/hi_reddit_i_am...
Deleted Comment
since then? Have you seen resume of Leonardo da Vinci:
https://www.theladders.com/p/1523/leonardo-da-vincis-resume
"and with these I can fling small stones almost resembling a storm; and with the smoke of these cause great terror to the enemy, to his great detriment and confusion. "
Duke's enemies, Uber competitors - at least in the latter case no people got killed nor were intended to be killed, looks like we're making progress. The technology has, primarily, always served the interests of the "Dukes", i.e. of the ones who pay. It probably has all the chances for the second oldest profession title.
What you have to ask yourself is ”Is this illegal? Could I tell my grandchildren 30 years later what I did as an engineer and feel proud?”
Don’t think I’m completely excluding the people who pay from all responsibility, however.
Dead Comment
Dead Comment
There are millions of happy Uber drivers and 10's of millions of happy Uber customers, it's beyond pale for you to even ask this question.
Uber treats is drivers reasonably well or else nobody would be driving for them.
"to mess with people’s lives in likely illegal ways?"
99.9% of Uber is just connecting drivers and riders, that's not 'messing with people's lives, likely in illegal ways'.
Facebook, Google/Youtube and Twitter are literally active channels for literal terrorists to promote mass murder - and you're worried about Uber?
And if the last part of your argument is "why care about anything less than the worst things in the world?" I don't agree with that thinking, plain and simple. A company that big and influential being that completely disrespectful towards regulators, tax payers, riders, female engineers, drivers, competitors and investors is something we need to seriously mind.