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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

#261

Post by blackguardx »

OJFord wrote: post #151
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…

> One of our suppliers ... sent us an attachment (apparently inadvertently) of machine drawings of what was purported to be Uber’s ... Ouch, this doesn't play well for the supplier either! Presumably if Uber wins, it'd have a solid case against the supplier. If it loses, or while Waymo v Uber is ongoing, might there be a case anyway?

This happens more than you would think. The mistake is probably compounded by two designs being almost the same and potentially the same engineers involved.

I'll bet the supplier searched for the engineer's name in his inbox and responded to a big email thread about the project with many people involved. The Otto engineer's old colleagues got the email instead of him.

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

#262

Post by retSava »

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 wonder what this "specialized software" is. It sounds like it could be a haxxor hacka-thing software, but likely it's just a FTP-client or similar.

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

#263

Post by Jabbles »

kuschku wrote: post #258
Jabbles wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's... an impossible task. All ways to identify a machine in a network are dependent on the machine itself — if properly configured, I can create a machine that can not be told different from another machine. Just extract the device certificate from one device and store it on another. Problem solved. Extracting data from the TPM or equivalent stores in ARM devices is also not impossible, as the DRM-breaking commun…

Please don't dismiss something from your armchair. I've just mentioned that Google relies on this technology to secure their network.

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

#265

Post by bmon »

home_boi wrote: post #234

Despite the damning alleged evidence, I get the feeling that all the offenders knew that they would be found out ahead of time, evaluated the risk reward trade-off and decided that they could somehow get away with it. Are there any lawyers here who could make an educated guess how they could?

Well a good start would be using a different supplier than Waymo.

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

#266

Post by grogenaut »

kuschku wrote: post #258
Jabbles wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's... an impossible task. All ways to identify a machine in a network are dependent on the machine itself — if properly configured, I can create a machine that can not be told different from another machine. Just extract the device certificate from one device and store it on another. Problem solved. Extracting data from the TPM or equivalent stores in ARM devices is also not impossible, as the DRM-breaking commun…

Leaving TPM breaking aside, is dude who did all these things on work network the same dude who's going to break a TPM?

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

#267

Post by retSava »

retSava wrote: post #262
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 wonder what this "specialized software" is. It sounds like it could be a haxxor hacka-thing software, but likely it's just a FTP-client or similar.

I'm answering my own question, well sort of. The complaint doesn't state this, just "specialized software". This doesn't make the complaint lesser of course.

There are all sorts of other tidbits in the complaint that further strengthens the case in favor of Waymo, it's an interesting read, and I'm surprised it's very readable even for a non-lawyer.

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

#268

Post by rasz_pl »

aidos wrote: post #61
tajen wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yeah, they definitely have some really specific accusations about what went on: >>> To gain access to Waymo’s design server, Mr. Levandowski searched for and installed specialized software onto his company-issued laptop. Once inside, he downloaded 9.7 GB of Waymo’s highly confidential files and trade secrets, including blueprints, design files and testing documentation. Then he connected an external drive to the lapt…

You cant restore SSDs. I would assume Googlers are rolling SATA SSDs, if not M.2 PCIE ones.

What Google could be doing is remote logging on the laptops - logs uploaded to ze cloud every time you connect to the mothership. Plugging in USB drive leaves trace with USB ID, volume information etc. Windows also logs this and more http://www.forensicswiki.org/wiki/USB_History_Viewing

Protip: to exfiltrate data with minimal trace your best bet is taking out the drive and reading it in another computer (using write blocker for best effect), this can still be traced if someone is logging SMART written/read data (I am, but Im paranoid), not all HDD/SSD vendors provide this info. Second best is booting from USB drive so the original OS never sees the plug/unplug event in the first place, I have no idea about current state of UEFI/AMT logging going on tho.

Disclaimer: I used to do forensics.

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

#269

Post by rasz_pl »

rajathagasthya wrote: post #94
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…

> They could easily bypass Macbook security with a USB device Isn't this only possible if the laptop is unlocked?

I can install hardware backdoor in a macbook in under 3 minutes (with prep obviously).

Even you could do it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGPGOoJn54E hint: there are internal USB buses in the macbook, you can hijack one for something like rubberducky +management circuity to trigger only when laptop is powered on for a longer period of time but not touched (no imu/keyboard/touch events/dimmed screen).

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

#270

Post by rasz_pl »

w00tw00tw00t wrote: post #192
kartickv wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You didn't ask why?

as a candidate you're trying to please and build trust, so naturally I wouldn't raise questions that would indicate my lack of trust

Recruiter A to recruiter B: Well, I hoped this one would be sharp enough, guess we need to search harder for people that wont be careless with our company sensitive stuff laying around simply because someone told them to leave laptop behind and take a walk ...
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