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Alphabet's Waymo Alleges Uber Stole Self-Driving Secrets

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

#71

Post by Gargoyle »

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…

Doesn't sound like anyone stole anything.

Waymo/Google still had the documents, and copying isn't theft.

Right?

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

#72

Post by Kostchei »

glibgil wrote: post #17

> 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" Lawye…

It could also be a e-discovery tool like Nuix. If you want to find all documents containing X amongst millions of docs- that's the sort of tool I would use (work in computer forensics) *edit. And 9.7 GB of data, assuming it's docs not "just' a lot of CAD is a lot of docs..

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

#73

Post by taneq »

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…

And this "over 14,000 highly confidential and proprietary design files for Waymo’s various hardware systems" is what, an engineering repo? (Edit: My money's on repo. It says 'searched for and installed specialized software', I'm translating that as 'installed git.') Or did he just take a copy of his mailbox?

Sounds like a rookie move to be downloading this stuff on his work laptop either way.

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

#75

Post by tyingq »

mevile wrote: post #59
xt00 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It seems criminal. I remember an engineer from goldman sachs went to prison for doing something similar.

It also seems like the least interesting thing to steal. The hard part is probably the software and access to real world driving data. It is like holding up a bank and walking out with just the coins. The risk reward profile is terrible.

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

#76

Post by Kostchei »

icelancer wrote: post #25
fasteddie wrote: post #14

Maybe I have a selective memory as a former Zynga employee, but generally these "stolen documents" lawsuits in high profile tech companies have generally turned out to be pretty factual. Easy to prove, and hard to fake.

And lawsuits like this generally don't get filed unless it's near slam-dunk considering the burden of proof is high on stolen electronic documents.

Considering even with logging off: journaling file systems, "user assist", device connection logs, pre-fetch (or your OS's equivalent)- these are all huge tranches of data if you are looking at a system shortly after an event. Ask me 6 months later- probably not. Give me a system that hasn't even rebooted, has a heap of ram and hasn't been used much since- 6 weeks is fine, not ideal, but doable.

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

#77

Post by foota »

startupdiscuss wrote: post #70
tajen wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does Google build such forsenics? Do they have spyware monitoring all their company laptops?

This was the noteworthy part for me as well. They had to know that he: 1. modified the software on his laptop 2. logged into an area he should not have had access to (this is probably standard) 3. attached an external drive (possible, but standard?) 4. and they got all this info after he deleted the drive, which means they either went in and found remaining data on the drive or else they captured the info in real tim…

Maybe video footage?

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

#78

Post by xapata »

Gargoyle wrote: post #71
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…

Doesn't sound like anyone stole anything. Waymo/Google still had the documents, and copying isn't theft. Right?

In fact, copying can be theft.

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

#79

Post by [deleted] »

Gargoyle wrote: post #71
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…

Doesn't sound like anyone stole anything. Waymo/Google still had the documents, and copying isn't theft. Right?

[deleted]

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

#80

Post by msbarnett »

glibgil wrote: post #17

> 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" Lawye…

> 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.

They weren't trying to claim he hacked in. They're making the case he went out of his way to get his hands on these documents, and building a timeline that suggests why he went to that trouble.

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