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How Uber Used Secret “Greyball” Tool to Deceive Authorities Worldwide

nytimes.com

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Re: How Uber Used Secret “Greyball” Tool to Deceive Authorities Worldwide

#201

Post by kristofferR »

mikeash wrote: post #38
zymhan wrote: post #3

Uber's disregard for local laws and regulations is well known, so I find it hard to be shocked by this. But the chutzpah to implement something so blatantly designed to aide in breaking the law is still surprising. It reminds me of Zenefits in a way. It also seems similar to VW's Diesel engine "Defeat Device". The future of technology will probably include ever more shady uses of programming to mislead regulators and…

That struck me too. A normal company might do this, but they'd at least pretend it was meant to deter criminals or catch abusers or whatever. Instead their statement says: "This program denies ride requests to users who are violating our terms of service — whether that’s people aiming to physically harm drivers, competitors looking to disrupt our operations, or opponents who collude with officials on secret ‘stings’…

Both things can be correct if you believe the law in question is bad. The Jefferson quote comes to mind:

"If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so."

Re: How Uber Used Secret “Greyball” Tool to Deceive Authorities Worldwide

#202

Post by JorgeGT »

alphonsegaston wrote: post #46

What if local law enforcement officer was posing undercover as an Uber customer as part of a sexual assault investigation or trying to track down all drivers in relation to a recent crime? This is framed as getting around restrictions on taxi services, but any time you proactively thwart law enforcement, you're inviting a lot of dangerous unintended consequences. None of which I'm sure Uber is concerned about.

> any time you proactively thwart law enforcement, you're inviting a lot of dangerous unintended consequences.

I'm curious, what do you think about Google's "State-sponsored attackers are trying to compromise your account" warning? [1] Maybe it's police officers trying to break into the Gmail account of a pedophile or a terrorist, and Google is thwarting these efforts by warning the suspect.

---

[1] https://arstechnica.com/security/2012/06/google-state-sponso...

Re: How Uber Used Secret “Greyball” Tool to Deceive Authorities Worldwide

#203

Post by anigbrowl »

dqv wrote: post #130
alphonsegaston wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an absurd false equivalency. The NSA isn't tracking down drivers, this is local law enforcement. They could be investigating a crime related to an Uber driver, but not specifically about the legality of the service. What if you were just robbed or assaulted by a driver and Uber sends fake data about nearby cars when a cop is trying to use the app to track them down?

>What if you were just robbed or assaulted by a driver and Uber sends fake data about nearby cars when a cop is trying to use the app to track them down? Then I'd say "wow, why is this cop using an inaccurate and highly-likely-to-be-thrown-out-in-court method when the LEA has a stingray that allows them to track the driver directly and accurately?" >this is local law enforcement Yes, the poor, good, moral, ethical lo…

Enough with the derailment tactics already, this doesn't make for a civil discussion. Bringing in new arguments like referring to stingrays (as itf they were owned or used universally) is BS and just a way to avoid responding to the legitimate question that was presented by the gp.

Re: How Uber Used Secret “Greyball” Tool to Deceive Authorities Worldwide

#205

Post by a3n »

alphonsegaston wrote: post #46

What if local law enforcement officer was posing undercover as an Uber customer as part of a sexual assault investigation or trying to track down all drivers in relation to a recent crime? This is framed as getting around restrictions on taxi services, but any time you proactively thwart law enforcement, you're inviting a lot of dangerous unintended consequences. None of which I'm sure Uber is concerned about.

A sideways thought: this could be a good way for a criminal to vet someone before a meeting. "Take an Uber and meet me at 1st and Green."

Re: How Uber Used Secret “Greyball” Tool to Deceive Authorities Worldwide

#206

Post by csense »

Even if the law says that Uber must admit taxi inspectors, it's hard to say Uber's breaking the law if the inspectors don't "show their badge" or otherwise identify themselves as officials.

Of course if they do show their badge, there's a great incentive for Uber to say "Sorry, no drivers are available in your area" even if this is not really true.

So you have this curious cat-and-mouse game where the taxi inspector pretends to be somebody else, and Uber tries to penetrate the facade.

Re: How Uber Used Secret “Greyball” Tool to Deceive Authorities Worldwide

#207

Post by eddieplan9 »

I am trying to come up with an analogy to comprehend this.

Imagine a city government has a rule against palm oil and no restaurants are supposed to use palm oil. A restaurant think that rule is nuts and decides to protest it publicly by using it. At the same time, they rip off the label from the palm oil. The city was having trouble finding the palm oil in the restaurant.

You can claim that the restaurant has broken the city rule - which is not a secret. But I don't think ripping off the label or making the regulators life more challenging is a crime by itself.

Re: How Uber Used Secret “Greyball” Tool to Deceive Authorities Worldwide

#208

Post by rootsudo »

us0r wrote: post #182
SilasX wrote: post #111

It took me about 8 paragraphs in to figure out what Greyball is, so to save you the time: Uber used various data sources to identify which people are likely government officials who are trying to collect incriminating data on them, and then blocks them from the service so they can't be caught in sting operations. But there's a lot in the article that doesn't make sense: >Other techniques included looking at the user’…

Maybe not a popular opinion but I find this entire thing pure genius. >I couldn't find a good source, but it doesn't seem like that's something a CC merchant would have access to. Do they really get to see that? The first 6 digits of a credit card can identify the issuing bank (BIN number - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_card_number ). If you ask your merchant they can readily provide you and up to date list.…

Correct, First siz digits are the BIN. This is how you identify a CC and how carders can guess your limits. e.g. some cards are only allowed to customers with certain credit card profiles.

Re: How Uber Used Secret “Greyball” Tool to Deceive Authorities Worldwide

#209

Post by googletazer »

SilasX wrote: post #111

It took me about 8 paragraphs in to figure out what Greyball is, so to save you the time: Uber used various data sources to identify which people are likely government officials who are trying to collect incriminating data on them, and then blocks them from the service so they can't be caught in sting operations. But there's a lot in the article that doesn't make sense: >Other techniques included looking at the user’…

Whoever came up with this scheme at Uber earned their bread.
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