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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

#531

Post by Digory »

iamcasen wrote: post #517
Digory wrote: post #304

Of all the things Uber is accused of this week, I'm pretty sure this one is the least concerning. It seems to involve the ethical dilemma of a radar detector. Speed limits are about public safety, too, but speed traps are usually about money. Ride-sharing regulations might be about safety, but Uber 'stings' seem to be about hurting drivers (not Uber) and preserving the value of taxi medallions. If the police want inf…

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks this. Seems like a waste of an article.

Oh, it's clever, just not particularly evil.

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

#533

Post by yummyfajitas »

ForHackernews wrote: post #378
avn2109 wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I seem to be the minority here, but I don't see how any entity (including Uber) has an obligation to make it easy for the law to ticket them. Anyone who uses e.g. the Waze app to evade speedtraps is similarly guilty of "systematically avoiding the law." Lastly, let me just disclaim that I think Uber is run by assholes and so is the police.

> I don't see how any entity (including Uber) has an obligation to make it easy for the law to ticket them. Corporate citizens have an obligation to obey the laws of the jurisdictions in which they operate. If they find the laws unacceptable, they should lobby to have them changed.

Do regular citizens, such as Rosa Parks, not have the same obligation?

Personally I consider civil disobedience of unjust laws to be acceptable, for either a single person or for an organized group of people (such as Uber).

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

#534

Post by candiodari »

And what if the tool doesn't actually track police officers ? Tracking bad customers by credit card, and making it difficult for them to inconvenience other drivers after doing it a few times would seem to be a quite normal thing for any credit card payment receiver to do.

I mean this thing would probably be looking for jokers (think ordering pizza to your neighbour's house), people with invalid credit cards, people who abuse drivers, and so on and so forth.

So what happened is probably more like this: officers order cars, have the Uber drivers drive up to them, cancel the ride and ticket the driver. The Uber app then proceeds to ask the drivers to "rate the passenger". Needless to say, the police accounts get very bad scores. After doing this 2 or 3 times, the app still shows the police officers the normal interface, but doesn't actually calls cars, knowing the rides will be canceled. The tool now has 2 or 3 separate pieces of information indicating these are not good-faith customers and stops acting in good faith towards them. So it don't tell the bad users it's ignoring them, because they'll just get a new account and start harassing more drivers again. And there you have it: "greyballing".

So it could very well be this isn't designed to catch law enforcement. It just happens to.

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

#535

Post by lacampbell »

sgift wrote: post #241
darawk wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 'say' you have in government is much smaller than the 'say' you have in using Uber. I can choose not to use Uber any time I please. I can not choose not to be pulled over for speeding, or opt out of murder laws temporarily. The fact that you don't have a say in Uber's corporate decisions is irrelevant, because you can simply stop using it. You don't need a say. The fact that you can't opt out of government is why…

> The 'say' you have in government is much smaller than the 'say' you have in using Uber. I can choose not to use Uber any time I please. I can not choose not to be pulled over for speeding, or opt out of murder laws temporarily. Sure you can. Just leave their jurisdiction. I've heard Somalia is nice.

What have you heard about Somalia? Please give a brief over view of what you know about it, and what about it you heard was nice.

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

#536

Post by bsder »

Magically your Uber cars never arrive and the system LIES to you about it. At the very least shouldn't this qualify as false advertising?

How does this not disturb people here greatly? Are you really so sure that you will never magically be in a group that is considered "undesirable"?

If you want to defend Uber on the axis that they are a "proper" taxi replacement who is "just" sweeping away old, stupid regulations, this just lost you the argument.

In addition, lying to people is how you get MORE regulation piled on you, not less.

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

#537

Post by rpdillon »

st3v3r wrote: post #504
mindcrime wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, corporations - as a rule - don't have huge armies made up of many people with guns, tanks, jet fighters, nuclear bombs, etc., which they can use to impose their will on you. It's a lot easier to divest yourself of a bad relationship with a company, than a nation-state. (And no, "move" isn't a reasonable response to this, so don't waste your digital breath with any Somalia references).

Yeah, no. Move is about as reasonable as any other libertarian nonsense.

It seems reasonable to say switching cost is higher when it comes to citizenship than it is with which company you choose to get a taxi from.

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

#538

Post by bri3d »

SilasX wrote: post #338
jfoutz wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. It's genius in a Lex Luthor kind of way. If I understood the full scope of the application, I like to think i'd decline to work on that. It's easy to imagine engineers working on small parts of the system, and never really connecting the dots that the whole point is to evade law enforcement. There's a big difference between keeping secrets for market advantage and to evade the law. In the first case, I want…

>If I understood the full scope of the application, I like to think i'd decline to work on that. It's easy to imagine engineers working on small parts of the system, and never really connecting the dots that the whole point is to evade law enforcement. It reminds me of the VW emissions cheating case: "Hey, have it detect whether the test cycle is running and emit a signal if true." 'Um... why would the system need to…

The system has extremely obvious use cases in abuse mitigation - it's basically HN shadow banning for car service. Only a few needed to know about the spot-the-officials aspect, and the rest is legitimate. And support don't need to know anything - if someone is reporting fake cars, they're an undesirable customer anyway so from Uber's standpoint, it's fine if support get confused and do a bad job.

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

#539

Post by yummyfajitas »

jlarocco wrote: post #425
ForHackernews wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't see how any entity (including Uber) has an obligation to make it easy for the law to ticket them. Corporate citizens have an obligation to obey the laws of the jurisdictions in which they operate. If they find the laws unacceptable, they should lobby to have them changed.

I agree they have an obligation to obey the law. I disagree that they should lobby to change it. I understand that realistically that is what they will do, but I don't think it's the ethically correct thing. Laws are in place to benefit all of society, they shouldn't be changed on behalf of specific corporations, regardless of how much money the "donate".

So you oppose Apple and other tech companies lobbying for gay and transgender rights? Or Google lobbying for net neutrality?

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

#540

Post by booleandilemma »

avn2109 wrote: post #309
austenallred wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would imagine there are people who don't view it as a breach of ethics. And those types are probably more inclined to be working at Uber on the first place. I mean if you really believe the various transportations administrations are corrupt and that the way to solve it is to temporarily disregard the law, then Uber is probably the place to be

I seem to be the minority here, but I don't see how any entity (including Uber) has an obligation to make it easy for the law to ticket them. Anyone who uses e.g. the Waze app to evade speedtraps is similarly guilty of "systematically avoiding the law." Lastly, let me just disclaim that I think Uber is run by assholes and so is the police.

Greyball makes it easier for Uber to continue breaking the law.

It's like drug dealers using police scanners to determine if the police are nearby.

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