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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

#271

Post by snarf »

argonaut wrote: post #245
snarf wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Alphabet probably views Waymo as their next big thing, and Waymo appears to have a sizable lead over everyone else in the self driving space which they want to protect. Remember, Alphabet is a major investor in Uber through Google Ventures, and their stake is likely worth billions. They wouldn't pursue this unless Waymo was of critical importance to them.

I get that a lot of people on HN are highly skeptical, but Google Ventures claims to be completely firewalled from Google corporate (this issue is only made more confusing by the fact that Google Capital is not firewalled, and by the fact that Google corporate itself also invests in companies). I do believe them: many media firms have the same set up between the journalism and advertising departments.

GV may make decisions and operate completely independently from the rest of Alphabet, but that doesn't necessarily mean that Alphabet does not take into account GV's portfolio position in Uber, which is its largest investment. Waymo even hints as much in its Medium post: "Our parent company Alphabet has long worked with Uber in many areas, and we didn’t make this decision lightly."

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

#272

Post by dantiberian »

A really critical thing that hasn't got much attention is that shortly before leaving Waymo, Levandowski had a meeting with senior Uber execs(!). The day after the meeting, he formed 280 Systems which became Otto.

The implication in the filing is that Uber planned this with Levandowski, and he only created Otto as a plausible corporate vehicle for developing the LiDAR technology before Uber acquired them. Given what we know about Uber and the assertions in the complaint, this sounds entirely plausible, maybe even likely.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7dzPLynxaXuQjY3dkllZ2ZKb0k...

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

#274

Post by sah2ed »

argonaut wrote: post #245
snarf wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Alphabet probably views Waymo as their next big thing, and Waymo appears to have a sizable lead over everyone else in the self driving space which they want to protect. Remember, Alphabet is a major investor in Uber through Google Ventures, and their stake is likely worth billions. They wouldn't pursue this unless Waymo was of critical importance to them.

I get that a lot of people on HN are highly skeptical, but Google Ventures claims to be completely firewalled from Google corporate (this issue is only made more confusing by the fact that Google Capital is not firewalled, and by the fact that Google corporate itself also invests in companies). I do believe them: many media firms have the same set up between the journalism and advertising departments.

In practice, when it comes to outside investments, I don't think the artificial separation between Google Ventures (GV), Google Capital (Capital G) and Google Corporate matters that much.

FWIW, David Drummond, longtime Chief Legal Officer took a board seat after GV's $250m investment in Uber in 2013 but eventually stepped down last August [0].

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/23/technology/google-self-dr...

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

#275

Post by Qworg »

Fricken wrote: post #140
tyingq wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Discovery will likely find more things, no?

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

#276

Post by Qworg »

philsnow wrote: post #148
tyingq wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I thought waymo's lidar sensors were much, much cheaper than other sensors: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2017/01/googles-waymo-invests-i... We're talking about reducing a ~$25000 part to ~$2500.

A factor of 10 and at least 3-4 years of engineering work? Yeah, that's no small potatoes.

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

#277

Post by kuschku »

bmon wrote: post #260
kuschku wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

How about a whitelist of hardware fingerprints, similar to what Microsoft does with Windows installations. Also, Google is known to have custom manufactured hardware, specifically with security in mind. I don't think the idea that Google is able to secure their own network against foreign devices is really that far-fetched.

None of that would solve the issue.

Google can only verify what hardware you're running by sending a packet via ethernet to your device. You control all software running on your device, and can send a spoofed result.

If you were crazy, you could even just emulate Google's hardware entirely and proxy all requests to that emulated hardware.

Nonetheless, while this guy certainly wouldn't be able to do it, many Google employees would.

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

#278

Post by klodolph »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #239
klodolph wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to add to what other people are saying here. I've worked at a company where people were given, basically, the minimum level of trust. All the horizontal projects were dead, teams competed with each other for the same clients, and we chose meeting rooms to avoid being overheard by other teams when we were discussing things. It sucked. I left.

This is entirely not related to what we're talking about here. It's not about trust, it's about good practice. If someone needs access to something, they request it, you grant it. Simple. But there should be common sense controls on data access, for everyone's benefit. You're talking about a hostile work environment. I'm talking about a secure one.

That's more than just an oversimplification.

Security is inherently hostile, I don't see any other way of putting things. We tolerate a certain amount of hostility in order to reap the benefits that security gives us, and we tolerate a certain amount of vulnerability in order to reap the benefits that laxness gives us.

> If someone needs access to something, they request it, you grant it. Simple.

The saying goes that for every complex problem, like security, there is a simple solution, like that one, and that solution is wrong. The cost of such a process is just too high for most companies. You have to request access, explain why you need access, someone has to review it, then grant it. That's how it worked at the company I was complaining about. Processes that should take minutes took hours, those that should take hours took days.

Security, like so many things, is subject to cost-benefit analysis. Better security systems use the full triad: prevention, detection, and response. From the article, it sounds like these are working as intended. The security team detected the exfiltration and responded with a lawsuit. Trying to rely only on prevention will just lead to paralysis.

I might also be jaded, because when I hear phrases like "good practice" my instinct is that it means "omitting the cost-benefit analysis."

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

#279

Post by linkregister »

w00tw00tw00t wrote: post #121
andreyf wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not possible unless you have zero-days against the USB drivers or firmware on your laptop, in which case being logged in or not doesn't really matter.

Proof I'm paranoid. My greater point, however, is that they have done some really shady stuff, and stealing competitor's IP is part of their culture, so their behavior itself promotes and justifies paranoia on my part and on the part of anyone looking to work for or do business with Uber. Reputation is everything.

I must've missed that story, when did Uber steal competitor IP?

(Except this one, of course. To be fair it was Otto before the acquisition)

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

#280

Post by kuschku »

Jabbles wrote: post #263
kuschku wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The problem is that it’s basically a fancy version of using MAC addresses for auth.

I’m more surprised a Google engineer couldn’t circumvent it.

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