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Uber employees used the platform to stalk celebrities and their exes

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

#151

Post by funnyfacts365 »

employee8000 wrote: post #46
droopyEyelids wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if you're being serious or you're trying to damn them with faint praise by mentioning they changed their MOTD as a 'security measure' If you want to defend uber, it's pretty easy, just say there you know people that work on the team that audits the logs of employee access to personal data every quarter, and if those logs aren't justified by a ticket people get fired.

I have no idea what you're talking about, I'm just telling the truth. I don't access customer information, and I don't know anyone who audits the logs so I can't comment on those. I also don't know what other processes are in place, I'm sure there are others, but I've just never had to deal with it so I don't know. But I trust that Uber takes the security of their customers information very very seriously. The image…

So, do tell, how many of your fellow programmers do you know worked on building that employee tracking/logging system?

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

#152

Post by throwaway199128 »

curryhowardiso wrote: post #126
robrenaud wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it legal to refuse to delete a users account?

This is actually a great technical and legal question. And it depends a lot on the type of service you have, and which jurisdiction's law governs you and your service provider. On the one hand, we have the EU's "right to be forgotten" actions against Google, which seem to be gaining ground and are essentially bona fide in their protection of the consumer/society, in the sense that it might be a good idea for other ju…

Google retaliates though by putting the reasons for removal on "chillingeffects.org". Chilling indeed that a company has no respect for privacy.

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

#153

Post by swang »

hyperhopper wrote: post #144

> Reveal reports that Uber also changed the name of that tool [from "God View"] to "Heaven View." What a useless change just for the sake of being politically correct. Are companies going to start removing "God Mode" from video games and calling it "super mode"? Seems crazy they would muck with naming to be PC even for internal tools

calm down. how is this being "politically correct"?

the name was most likely changed because the connotation of a "god view" means its omnipotent or at the very least omniscient. aka, it knows everything about you.

so it was most likely changed because of the backlash of the name being associated with invading your privacy and seeing what you were doing in uber. this again is why everyone is upset about uber forcing their app to be always on.

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

#154

Post by mschuetz »

"stalk celebrities and their exes" sounds to me like it could mean:

- stalk celebrities, as well as the exes of said celebrities

- employees stalk their exes and also some celebrities

It's obviously the latter but couldn't the same sentence imply the former as well? Is their a better way to formulate this sentence in a non-ambiguous way?

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

#155

Post by grey-area »

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…

Google Adwords do this, and vultr.com do it as well. I agree it's really user-hostile and a dark pattern to allow users to enter payment details and then refuse to delete them.

I don't want to leave my credit card details on the servers of hundreds of companies, or allow them to charge at will, but it's obvious why from the companies point of view why this is attractive.

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

#156

Post by eeeeeeeeeeeee »

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…

I uninstalled Uber after it wanted to track my location before and after using the app. That wasn't the only reason, but it was the final straw. As much as I loathe using taxis, I'm actually more annoyed with Uber and their business practices.

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

#157

Post by DanBC »

curryhowardiso wrote: post #126
robrenaud wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it legal to refuse to delete a users account?

This is actually a great technical and legal question. And it depends a lot on the type of service you have, and which jurisdiction's law governs you and your service provider. On the one hand, we have the EU's "right to be forgotten" actions against Google, which seem to be gaining ground and are essentially bona fide in their protection of the consumer/society, in the sense that it might be a good idea for other ju…

RtbF is possibly not relevant here. More important would be the EU regulations on data protections. These say that companies must explain what data they're gathering and why they gather it; and that companies can only gather what they need; and only keep it for as long as they need; and that it must be accurate; and that customers have a right to see the data and to have corrections made.

But even the EU has exemptions and complications around data that's used to prevent crime.

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

#158

Post by CaptainZapp »

employee8000 wrote: post #46
droopyEyelids wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if you're being serious or you're trying to damn them with faint praise by mentioning they changed their MOTD as a 'security measure' If you want to defend uber, it's pretty easy, just say there you know people that work on the team that audits the logs of employee access to personal data every quarter, and if those logs aren't justified by a ticket people get fired.

I have no idea what you're talking about, I'm just telling the truth. I don't access customer information, and I don't know anyone who audits the logs so I can't comment on those. I also don't know what other processes are in place, I'm sure there are others, but I've just never had to deal with it so I don't know. But I trust that Uber takes the security of their customers information very very seriously. The image…

  But I trust that Uber takes the security of their customers information very very seriously.
Looking at Uber history and a number of major gaffes that came to light i call bullshit.

Trust is something that needs to be earned. I can't speak for others but I don't trust Uber at all.

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

#159

Post by Fnoord »

michaelvoz wrote: post #47
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #18

Don't forget that Uber now requires you allow them to access your location, even when you aren't using their app [1]. Side note: consider the value to foreign (or domestic) intelligence agencies of this weakly-guarded pot of gold. [1] http://www.theverge.com/2016/11/30/13763714/uber-location-da...

Disclaimer: I work for Uber. However, my opinions are mine. I am also not defending nor attacking in any way Uber gathering location data. With that out of the way - you know your cell phone carrier already has this data right? They have way better data than Uber ever will about all your habits, including establishing relationships based on who you call, which sites you visit, who you are signed up on a plan with, et…

> With that out of the way - you know your cell phone carrier already has this data right?

Its close to fascism when the argument becomes that the government (ie. NSA) already has this data.

> including establishing relationships based on who you call, which sites you visit, who you are signed up on a plan with, etc etc.

Not if you use Signal and Tor.

Also, the phone company supposedly doesn't abuse that data (they certainly don't have my permission for that); Uber supposedly doesn't either, but it is proven time and time again that it is being abused. Just like the NSA watched people on watchlists watching porn.

For evil software practices like the ones from your employer we need two things:

1) FLOSS applications, and legislation against these practices. (Ironically, your employer is already breaking the law in many jurisdictions as we speak.)

2) If that fails, and for the time being we can still work around it by uninstalling your application. We can also still work around it using magic like LD_PRELOAD faking the geolocation. There already exists libfaketime, not sure about geolocation.

Its also already possible to fake this in the browser: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/disable-fake-location-firefox-i...

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

#160

Post by [deleted] »

michaelvoz wrote: post #47
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #18

Don't forget that Uber now requires you allow them to access your location, even when you aren't using their app [1]. Side note: consider the value to foreign (or domestic) intelligence agencies of this weakly-guarded pot of gold. [1] http://www.theverge.com/2016/11/30/13763714/uber-location-da...

Disclaimer: I work for Uber. However, my opinions are mine. I am also not defending nor attacking in any way Uber gathering location data. With that out of the way - you know your cell phone carrier already has this data right? They have way better data than Uber ever will about all your habits, including establishing relationships based on who you call, which sites you visit, who you are signed up on a plan with, et…

[deleted]
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