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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

#81

Post by makomk »

tyingq wrote: post #39
amaks wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who knows maybe they had somebody else from the Google self driving car project to steal self-driving car secrets earlier. Based on what this Levandowski guy did the industrial espionage may go unnoticed. I'm wondering if Waymo will require Uber to reveal schematics of their self-driving car project as part of the law suite.

I have doubts what was stolen was actually any of the secret sauce. An interface board for a lidar unit is probably one of the most simple things on the list. The actual self driving software, and more importantly, all of the collected data from the waymo fleet would have been the key.

Not so much an interface board as a whole new tested design for a LIDAR unit, including a unique patented optics setup and laser driver circuit, according to the complaint. Also testing, manufacturing, and characterization procedures and results and information on suppliers for the parts required. The PCB was just the component whose accidental disclosure lead them to conclude that Uber and Otto were using the stolen design. Since the PCB apparently dictates the position and orientation of the laser diodes and sensors, presumably it would only be useful if they copied the whole thing.

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

#83

Post by Jabbles »

taneq wrote: post #73
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.

Stealing is a rookie move. But I don't think there was a choice about using his work laptop. You can't connect an arbitrary device to Google's network.

https://research.google.com/pubs/pub43231.html

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

#84

Post by ABCLAW »

kbenson wrote: post #62
vgt wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The filing itself claims both [0]. [0] https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7dzPLynxaXuQjY3dkllZ2ZKb0k...

Patent infringement , or patent theft ? How do you steal a patent? If you steal (to be clear, illegally take) information and then use that to get a patent, is that stealing a patent? Is there case law on on something like that?

Infringement. The cause of action for infringement begins on Para. 88.

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

#85

Post by fuzzythinker »

w00tw00tw00t wrote: post #69

I had an interview there where the manager asked me to leave my laptop behind and go for a walk. I was hesitant after hearing stories of Uber conducting electronic espionage against its competitors. They could easily bypass Macbook security with a USB device (I had heard of that on HN too) so I was very nervous to leave my laptop behind and noted its exact orientation and position on the table. Sure enough when I ret…

Thanks for the info. Will know not leave my laptop behind in any interviews.

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

#86

Post by [deleted] »

w00tw00tw00t wrote: post #69

I had an interview there where the manager asked me to leave my laptop behind and go for a walk. I was hesitant after hearing stories of Uber conducting electronic espionage against its competitors. They could easily bypass Macbook security with a USB device (I had heard of that on HN too) so I was very nervous to leave my laptop behind and noted its exact orientation and position on the table. Sure enough when I ret…

[deleted]

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

#87

Post by Jabbles »

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…

Just to be clear "his" laptop is "the laptop issued to him by Google".

I'd think that standard antivirus software detects and alerts external drives being attached.

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

#88

Post by huangc10 »

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…

yeah...dude is going to jail.

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

#89

Post by tyingq »

makomk wrote: post #81
tyingq wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have doubts what was stolen was actually any of the secret sauce. An interface board for a lidar unit is probably one of the most simple things on the list. The actual self driving software, and more importantly, all of the collected data from the waymo fleet would have been the key.

Not so much an interface board as a whole new tested design for a LIDAR unit, including a unique patented optics setup and laser driver circuit, according to the complaint. Also testing, manufacturing, and characterization procedures and results and information on suppliers for the parts required. The PCB was just the component whose accidental disclosure lead them to conclude that Uber and Otto were using the stolen…

Interesting. Is the specific Lidar unit really that big a differentiator? I understand they aren't cheap or simple, but it seems odd that each self driving car company would want to design their own. I would guess you would rather have some healthy ecosystem of suppliers...Velodyne, etc.

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

#90

Post by ocdtrekkie »

polishTar wrote: post #23
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There's a number of tradeoffs to be made between internal secrecy/silos and trust/openness in any company, and google tends to lean heavily towards trusting their employees when it comes to corp data + resources, designs, strategy etc. User data is an entirely different matter, and is appropriately treated as such.

It doesn't need to be about "secrecy", it's about "security". Even when you ignore the employee trust issue, and assume everyone at your company would never betray you, "least privilege" is still not just best practice for security, it's common sense.

People should not be able to access data they don't need. If they need it, you can grant it. But the assumption should be that someone who doesn't use the design server shouldn't have access to the design server.

I don't want to know about or see information I don't need to have at work. It's not that I'm not trustworthy. It's not that I would abuse it. I just don't need the liability that it gets out through me.

Because your account credentials could get stolen. Your laptop could get stolen. Your laptop could get hacked into. Your laptop could get malware. Reducing the list of people who have access to a resource insulates against all of these things... automatically. And sure, all of those risks have other ways to mitigate them as well. But layers of security is key. And hey, it also stops employees from sneaking off with your data too.

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