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Uber employees used the platform to stalk celebrities and their exes

businessinsider.com

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Re: Uber employees used the platform to stalk celebrities and their exes

#21

Post by llukas »

mwfj wrote: post #3

This seems like a good place to tell Uber users that the only way of removing your credit card details from your Uber account is to either: a) plead with Uber's customer service to do so or b) add another payment method (like another credit card) This, of course, is horribly bad practice. I can only imagine that they arrived at this very peculiar arrangement after extensive A/B testing - Uber has hired plenty of FB f…

LOL. That's why some banks have option to generate CC numbers on the fly and tying those numbers to particular vendor.

Re: Uber employees used the platform to stalk celebrities and their exes

#22

Post by johansch »

llukas wrote: post #21
mwfj wrote: post #3

This seems like a good place to tell Uber users that the only way of removing your credit card details from your Uber account is to either: a) plead with Uber's customer service to do so or b) add another payment method (like another credit card) This, of course, is horribly bad practice. I can only imagine that they arrived at this very peculiar arrangement after extensive A/B testing - Uber has hired plenty of FB f…

LOL. That's why some banks have option to generate CC numbers on the fly and tying those numbers to particular vendor.

That is exactly what I ended up using (to create a second "payment method" with limited funds so that I could delete the real one).

But still, this is not something that I expect to have to stoop to when dealing with an Internet company valued at ~$68B.

Btw: This is what you get when you try to delete the first (and last) valid payment method:

http://i.imgur.com/Y4PEOS4.png

Re: Uber employees used the platform to stalk celebrities and their exes

#23

Post by click170 »

tedunangst wrote: post #10
taneq wrote: post #6

A few days ago (on the discussion of the Uber app tracking users' movements after the end of their ride) an Uber employee commented on their data handling: [0] > Individual users' data is very closely guarded internally. It's immensely difficult to look at user data without specific access. Overwhelmingly, this data is queried in aggregate and fed into machine learning systems. The risk of abuse is exceptionally low.…

"Uber continues to increase our security investments and many of these efforts, like our multi-factor authentication checks and bug bounty program, have been widely reported" That has absolutely nothing to do with preventing insider access. Where there's smoke screen, there's fire.

This.

This bit stood out to me (emphasis mine):

> Uber says employees don't receive across-the-board access to customer data and there are several controls in place to ensure that employees only access that data for work purposes.

The choice of the word "control" in this context I think gives away a little bit here, it's auditor-speak.

This word does not always mean to an auditor what it means to you or I. Having a written policy that says "Don't access X unless it's required for your job" and keeping access logs can satisfy a "control" from an auditor's perspective, depending on the certification.

That's better than nothing, but back to your point, you're right that it doesn't prevent insider access. Which isn't something I worry about normally...

Edit: Typo

Re: Uber employees used the platform to stalk celebrities and their exes

#24

Post by firloop »

mwfj wrote: post #3

This seems like a good place to tell Uber users that the only way of removing your credit card details from your Uber account is to either: a) plead with Uber's customer service to do so or b) add another payment method (like another credit card) This, of course, is horribly bad practice. I can only imagine that they arrived at this very peculiar arrangement after extensive A/B testing - Uber has hired plenty of FB f…

Airbnb works the same way with credit cards.

Re: Uber employees used the platform to stalk celebrities and their exes

#25

Post by JumpCrisscross »

mwfj wrote: post #3

This seems like a good place to tell Uber users that the only way of removing your credit card details from your Uber account is to either: a) plead with Uber's customer service to do so or b) add another payment method (like another credit card) This, of course, is horribly bad practice. I can only imagine that they arrived at this very peculiar arrangement after extensive A/B testing - Uber has hired plenty of FB f…

the only way of removing your credit card details from your Uber account is to...

You could also ask them to delete your account and certify that all PIO and payment information has been purged. Depending on your state if residence, there may be other things you can ask for.

Re: Uber employees used the platform to stalk celebrities and their exes

#27

Post by mbreedlove »

llukas wrote: post #21
mwfj wrote: post #3

This seems like a good place to tell Uber users that the only way of removing your credit card details from your Uber account is to either: a) plead with Uber's customer service to do so or b) add another payment method (like another credit card) This, of course, is horribly bad practice. I can only imagine that they arrived at this very peculiar arrangement after extensive A/B testing - Uber has hired plenty of FB f…

LOL. That's why some banks have option to generate CC numbers on the fly and tying those numbers to particular vendor.

Who still does that? I know American Express used to offer one-time CC numbers, but no longer does.

Re: Uber employees used the platform to stalk celebrities and their exes

#28

Post by employee8000 »

EugeneOZ wrote: post #14
taneq wrote: post #6

A few days ago (on the discussion of the Uber app tracking users' movements after the end of their ride) an Uber employee commented on their data handling: [0] > Individual users' data is very closely guarded internally. It's immensely difficult to look at user data without specific access. Overwhelmingly, this data is queried in aggregate and fed into machine learning systems. The risk of abuse is exceptionally low.…

This quote from another employee also looks naive now (and I'm not trying to offend him): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13086454

No, I'm not naive, and I, proudly, stand behind everything I wrote.

The person in the article was terminated before I joined, so I don't know what the systems were like back then, but every time I access production systems, I have a ton of messages telling me that our access is being completely tracked and we are prohibited from doing anything that was mentioned in the article. I haven't actually tested to see what I can get away with because I'm not in the habit of risking my job and career over curiosities.

Re: Uber employees used the platform to stalk celebrities and their exes

#29

Post by droopyEyelids »

Can we make the rule that it's not OK to post negative stories about YCombinator companies on this site?

There are a million places to talk negative about everyhing. Here, we're trying to build things. We know no one is perfect. Lets make this place a bastion of positivity instead of negativity.

Re: Uber employees used the platform to stalk celebrities and their exes

#30

Post by fgandiya »

mbreedlove wrote: post #27
llukas wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LOL. That's why some banks have option to generate CC numbers on the fly and tying those numbers to particular vendor.

Who still does that? I know American Express used to offer one-time CC numbers, but no longer does.

Bank of America does. Only for credit cards though.
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