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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

#551

Post by lacampbell »

ska wrote: post #170
Florin_Andrei wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not normal. But on Ayn Rand, it is.

Like other drugs many people experiment with in high school, a little won't hurt you but prolonged exposure to Rand can lead to cognitive deficits and antisocial behavior.

I experimented with socialism in High School. I was actually reading authors much more banal than Ayn Rand could ever hope to be - like Karl Marx and Leon Trotsky. Really glad I grew out of that stage.

Gave up half way through Atlas shrugged I'm afraid. I did enjoy how accurately it depicted socialists and social democrats though - as I was reading it I could help but laugh as I've come across people talking like that so often.

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

#552

Post by ams6110 »

SilasX wrote: post #212
chris_wot wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to see them subpoenaed to explain what they were doing. They were deliberately violating the law, and trying to avoid detection just makes things much, much worse. This has got to be illegal.

The article says Uber's legal team approved it: >At least 50 to 60 people inside Uber knew about Greyball, and some had qualms about whether it was ethical or legal. Greyball was approved by Uber’s legal team, headed by Salle Yoo, the general counsel. I (though not a lawyer) assume their reasoning was: "It's legal to use public sources to identify possible law enforcement agents, it's legal to deny services to them.…

Seems to imply that they knew they were breaking the law, which would also seem to constitute mens rea. IANAL.

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

#553

Post by sprafa »

mindcrime wrote: post #311
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…

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. I would volunteer to work on that project because its whole point is to evade law enforcement. A lot of us (hackers/technologists) take a pretty dim view of arbitrary State regulations and "laws" and are quite happy to work to evade them. Most people who fit the t…

Grow up. You're defending destroying society so you can get what YOU think is right (based on how much it increases your net worth?). Did you similarly fight for the end of copyright? Did you join the pirate party? What about racial equality or gender equality ? Did you fight for those with the same fervor you propose to fight tor Ubers profits? For a company to replace a million others? that's all that's happening btw - one million small businesses are being replaced by one huge one, with a price advantage only because it erodes or destroyers worker protections.

Get a grip. Under any reasonable government Uber would be destroyed tomorrow under the same argument as pirate bay or a torrent tracker - it's conductive to illegality.

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

#554

Post by tkone »

downandout wrote: post #215
hackuser wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I declare myself to be an enemy of a given entity, I fully expect them to use every resource at their disposal to attempt to defeat me For dealing with individuals, I don't agree that it's ok to use every resource at their disposal. For example, getting the person fired or slandering them is not acceptable. But this is dealing with government. Avoiding the law and law enforcement is wrong and often illegal.

This program was cleared by what I assume to be a highly paid, competent legal department. So I'm going to guess that you are wrong about the "illegal" part. They are a private business that can refuse service to anyone. Even businesses that aren't even close to breaking the law may have perfectly legitimate reasons to avoid serving people in law enforcement, whose job it often is to cause problems and increase expen…

Just because a lawyer has said something is "OK" doesn't make it legal. Lawyers (even expensive ones) give bad advice all the time for lots of various reasons, or advice that isn't bad at the time, but bad going forward.

Did the lawyer understand this was being used to circumvent the law? Or did they understand it was to prevent violations of their terms of service? Is it possible the company either changed the plan after the lawyer saw it, or didn't fully explain the capacities to the lawyer?

Accused of a crime? Likely not to many of the scenarios you mentioned. Indicted on criminal charges? Likely yes, but that's why we have criminal indictments. It makes it much harder for the government to falsely accuse you of a crime.

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

#555

Post by ThrustVectoring »

poyu wrote: post #351

Well, the final call for Uber in Taiwan is this, the government let anyone to report the driver and can receive reward in money if successfully doing so. Soon enough, Uber stopped operating.

Obvious-to-me countermeasure: spam the government with fabricated false positives. If most Taiwanese citizens opposed the government on this, it'd work.

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

#556

Post by spinlock »

Fede_V wrote: post #39

This is incredibly awful, but not particularly surprising. One of Paul Graham's most read essays is about the qualities that YC looks for in founders ( http://paulgraham.com/founders.html ). In that essay, he specifically discusses 'Naughtiness' as a positive quality, and how it's one of the most important features of potential founders. The problem is that being clever and hacking around a system for curiosity is go…

Do you remember how hard it used to be to hail a cab in SF? There was an entrenched system that was bad for drivers, bad for passengers and great for the 1% that owned the taxi medallions. A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I'm sure the system made sense but it had been abused by entrenched interests to enrich themselves. Look at NYC, medallions used to go for $1M+ and are becoming worthless.

If your entire industry crumbles when you face competition, you're not the "good guys."

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

#557

Post by wav-part »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #509
wav-part wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Notice the word "voluntary". From libertarian point of view, Socialism is ok if you voluntary opt-in. Voluntary/Consent is central point in libertarianism.

In real world (as opposed to theoretical libertarian utopia), voluntary market interactions aren't that common. People are trivially manipulated. Consider that the entire marketing industry is literally about taking away agency from one side of the business relationship.

Manipulation != Coercion.

Yes both are problems but libertarianism claims to solve only one of those. For the other one, if you are unable, follow/place-your-trust-on someone else. There is no need to solve one problem by creating bigger problem.

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

#558

Post by [deleted] »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #533
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.

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).

[deleted]

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

#559

Post by aianus »

pharrington wrote: post #521
nikcub wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is best exemplified by the 20th centuries most famous authoritarian, Martin Luther King Jnr

Again, civil disobedience accepts the legal consequences of its actions and is part of a vocal, public effort to change the laws the person or group deems unjust. The entire premise is to create better laws for everyone to abide by. Uber uses deception to shield itself from the consequences of its criminal actions and consolidate wealth for itself. I'm assuming you're not trolling, so think long and hard about your o…

I don't see how they aren't "creating better laws for everyone to abide by".

They're not a monopoly on ridesharing and because of their efforts converting the hearts and minds of consumers and politicians others can do it too like Juno, Tesla, Lyft, etc.

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

#560

Post by pikzen »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #533
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.

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).

>comparing Rosa Parks, who fought for civil rights to Uber, who actively contributes to undermining worker's rights in over 20 countries.

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