Wow this has got to be the worse single month for a company that I've ever seen.
Alphabet's Waymo Alleges Uber Stole Self-Driving Secrets
131–140 of 364 posts
Re: Alphabet's Waymo Alleges Uber Stole Self-Driving Secrets
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
This is all information a rudimentary desktop auditing tool can gather and store on a server. Most collect both hardware (which would include connected devices) and software inventory. Anyone SHOULD be auditing company PCs on a relatively regular basis. It wouldn't surprise me if Google was auditing much more frequently than the average and could catch something like this in the act.
Yup, lots of firms using HIDS that gather all sorts of system data. OSSEC is what I've seen rather frequently for this.
Re: Alphabet's Waymo Alleges Uber Stole Self-Driving Secrets
#133What kind of employee would download 14K files to a personal drive right before quitting? It is trivially easy to watch what files get copied over to external drives. I think you can follow the money trail here and find some answers for sure. Now if Uber/Otto has a clause that prohibits employees from bringing in confidential data from previous companies, how can they be held liable? Does Google have to prove that th…
A supplier of Google received the file from Uber and that supplier forwarded it to Google. This means the file was sent out by Uber to a supplier to try to get parts made. I think that's proof enough.
Btw that's 1 very sharp eyed engineer, whoever that is...
Re: Alphabet's Waymo Alleges Uber Stole Self-Driving Secrets
#134This is going to be interesting to watch. Alphabet just: - went nuclear on Uber/Otto - revealed what they track internally to all their employees
Google employees are probably aware they are being tracked. Keeping such a thing a secret would likely result in more leaks, not fewer.
Not only is it very well known internally, Google has even open sourced some of the tools that are used for that purpose: https://github.com/google/grr
Re: Alphabet's Waymo Alleges Uber Stole Self-Driving Secrets
#135So a junior engineer took the files, left Waymo to join Uber and tried to pass off the files? Correction. So he's not really a junior engineer. But how can he not think that everything he access on the Google's network is monitored?
Not quite... First, Levandowski is far from a junior engineer. He's been described as the tech lead at Waymo and worked on Google Maps and Streetview. Second, he left Waymo to co-found Otto, a startup which existed for six months before Uber acquired it for several hundred million dollars. Third, he's now described as a senior executive at Uber. I'm not sure where Facebook comes from here. Did I miss something??
Yes, yes. One must not comment on HN while coding (simple stuff) and eating snack, and telling kids to do their homework. I work from home today.
My apologies...
Re: Alphabet's Waymo Alleges Uber Stole Self-Driving Secrets
#136Re: Alphabet's Waymo Alleges Uber Stole Self-Driving Secrets
#137This is going to be interesting to watch. Alphabet just: - went nuclear on Uber/Otto - revealed what they track internally to all their employees
I think it's reasonable to be suspicious but what they described sounds mostly feasible without extra steps of tracking.
What evidence did they present and how could it be tracked?
- downloaded 9.7 GB of waymo data -> server logs of what files where accessed and downloaded by what user
- searched for special software -> he used google while logged into a work account, so they just looked up that work accounts search history
- Connected external hard drive and wiped data -> Short of automatic backups or something this seems like there is software explicitly for tracking when data is copied, where, and how much
Most of this besides the external hard drive part can be done by any employer who owns your work your gmail account. What really should be alarming is how easy it is for your employer to get lots of data on you even if they aren't some tech giant.
Re: Alphabet's Waymo Alleges Uber Stole Self-Driving Secrets
#138Interesting questions for google employees: Does Google force you to use specific version of OS? Do they have pre-installed software? Is it not-okay to format and install any OS you want? I work in startups, they provide only laptops and doesnt care about OS or software. There is no mandatory software requirement from company side.
My understanding is that Google has users on Linux, Mac, and Windows, and has resources for managing all of them. As the other commenter points out, Goobuntu is a custom distro of Ubuntu that Googlers use. I do recall hearing people tended to need a justification for needing Windows, but I'm pretty sure OS X users are common.
Re: Alphabet's Waymo Alleges Uber Stole Self-Driving Secrets
#139I 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…
Did you check the logs to see whether it had been opened in the meantime?
Re: Alphabet's Waymo Alleges Uber Stole Self-Driving Secrets
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Levandowski allegedly downloaded 14,000 files. The lidar circuit designs, while arguably trivial, are what Waymo can prove have been appropriated.