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Alphabet's Waymo Alleges Uber Stole Self-Driving Secrets

bloomberg.com

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Re: Alphabet's Waymo Alleges Uber Stole Self-Driving Secrets

#11

Post by xt00 »

chollida1 wrote: post #4

From another source to provide some colour: > According to a lawsuit filed today in federal court in California, Waymo accuses Anthony Levandowski, an engineer who left Google to found Otto and now serves as a top ranking Uber executive, stole 14,000 highly confidential documents from Google before departing to start his own company. Among the documents were schematics of a circuit board and details about radar and L…

I'm sure it doesn't sit well with google that a group of guys left and started a self-driving company that very quickly was acquired for a ton of money.. Most likely google wants to get a piece of the action since essentially they practically deserve it if their IP is being used to help the company make their technology.

Re: Alphabet's Waymo Alleges Uber Stole Self-Driving Secrets

#13

Post by smilekzs »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #6
chollida1 wrote: post #4

From another source to provide some colour: > According to a lawsuit filed today in federal court in California, Waymo accuses Anthony Levandowski, an engineer who left Google to found Otto and now serves as a top ranking Uber executive, stole 14,000 highly confidential documents from Google before departing to start his own company. Among the documents were schematics of a circuit board and details about radar and L…

It's kind amazing that Google keeps reiterating how their incredible security protects your data, and that even employees are extremely carefully monitored. Yet their confidential trade secrets were taken by a dude who seemingly didn't have access to them as part of his job (since he had to go install the software) and a portable hard drive. The post also says he talked about replicating their technology at a competi…

> is it also possible for Uber to sue the supplier for leaking their confidential data back to Google?

My first reaction to the waymo announcement is also on this. "apparently inadvertently" sounds like a blatant lie.

Re: Alphabet's Waymo Alleges Uber Stole Self-Driving Secrets

#16

Post by [deleted] »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #6
chollida1 wrote: post #4

From another source to provide some colour: > According to a lawsuit filed today in federal court in California, Waymo accuses Anthony Levandowski, an engineer who left Google to found Otto and now serves as a top ranking Uber executive, stole 14,000 highly confidential documents from Google before departing to start his own company. Among the documents were schematics of a circuit board and details about radar and L…

It's kind amazing that Google keeps reiterating how their incredible security protects your data, and that even employees are extremely carefully monitored. Yet their confidential trade secrets were taken by a dude who seemingly didn't have access to them as part of his job (since he had to go install the software) and a portable hard drive. The post also says he talked about replicating their technology at a competi…

[deleted]

Re: Alphabet's Waymo Alleges Uber Stole Self-Driving Secrets

#17

Post by glibgil »

> searched for and installed specialized software onto his company-issued laptop

That could mean he downloaded an SFTP client like Cyberduck. He could have searched the internet for a client and then installed it. It doesn't say he did not have auth.

Imagine a Google security engineer being deposed for this lawsuit.

Lawyer: "Show me on the MacBook how he downloaded the files"

Engineer: "Well, he used Cyberduck"

Lawyer: "Is that part of the Mac?"

Engineer: "No, he'd have to download it separately"

Lawyer: "So, he searched for and installed specialized software onto his company-issued laptop?"

Engineer: "Um, sure"

Lawyer: "Thank you, that's all the questions I had"

Re: Alphabet's Waymo Alleges Uber Stole Self-Driving Secrets

#18

Post by smilekzs »

xt00 wrote: post #9
chollida1 wrote: post #4

From another source to provide some colour: > According to a lawsuit filed today in federal court in California, Waymo accuses Anthony Levandowski, an engineer who left Google to found Otto and now serves as a top ranking Uber executive, stole 14,000 highly confidential documents from Google before departing to start his own company. Among the documents were schematics of a circuit board and details about radar and L…

Yea that's incredibly bad if that's what that guy did.. in general for EE designs, the schematic/layouts are not that hard to deduce how you would do it if you are in contact with the company that makes the LIDAR device (the unique and difficult part -- basically just need to ask them, like "yo, how roughly should I interface with this thing and whats your recommendation on a number of the components.. and can you gi…

There however could be custom-ordered parts on the BOM, documentation of which might be under NDA.
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