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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

#621

Post by codedokode »

mkolodny wrote: post #563
booleandilemma wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Or like non-Jews hiding Jews from the Nazi police. Obviously that's a dramatic example, but so is the drug dealer example. If Uber believes that the taxi industry is wrongfully colluding with the government to try to stop Uber from operating, then it's not necessarily wrong for Uber to do whatever it can to continue operating.

If Uber thinks law is wrong why don't they start a campaign to change it? England or France are supposed to be democratic states, aren't they?

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

#622

Post by azernik »

aantix wrote: post #611
azernik wrote: post #582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She was not, as far as I understand, opposed to laws just because they are laws. She had very specific moral objections to very specific laws. Anti-racism != anarchism.

Uber is... Anarchy? Like in the movie Thunderdome? Sure. Their opposition wasn't arbitrary; they knew they could provide a better service outside the monopolistic constraints that were already in place. So they fought those battles and because of those battles, everyone gets to experience a much better ride service than the antiquated taxi system.

Not uber in particular; the anarchism is in the mentality that "you want me to circumvent the law and avoid law enforcement? in principle, I'm in!" Which seemed to be the position mindcrime was taking.

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

#623

Post by codedokode »

aantix wrote: post #609
doctorcroc wrote: post #587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While subjective, there is a difference between breaking laws / fighting authority for moral reasons, and breaking laws for financial gain. Yeah, maybe you as an engineer would feel morally righteous for "fighting the man", but Uber doesn't care about that -- it just wants $$$.

Uber is fighting the man, in effort to capture $$$/market. That's their market. A business makes money? As much as you wouldn't like to admit, they've broken through a market that was once monopolized and the cities had zero interest in doing anything about it. You now have superior car ride services in part for the work they've done in the market. They have raised the bar.

But their competitors who comply with the law are losing now.

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

#624

Post by codedokode »

lithos wrote: post #447
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…

But imagine how interesting the system is. Tying together so many data sources, and creating any output you want.

I guees it just makes a list of suspicious people and later managers look through them and ban them manually.

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

#625

Post by charlesdm »

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.

> Corporate citizens have an obligation to obey the laws of the jurisdictions in which they operate.

To some extent. If the fine is $50 for each infraction, and you have $10bn in the bank, you really don't have to obey the law.

You can lobby to have the law changed and not obey the law (if you are willing to pay any and all fines, while you are lobbying). Uber's use case didn't exist 10+ years ago, and as such, most laws weren't made for that not set up to account for that.

I personally find that to be a valid example of where it's acceptable not to follow the law.

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

#626

Post by steveax »

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).

Civil disobedience implies actions in the open and being willing to suffer the consequences of your actions. If Uber had made a public statement that they were instituting a policy to refuse service to city and law enforcement officials and were willing to take their lumps, you might have a point.

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

#627

Post by pharrington »

nikcub wrote: post #605
pharrington wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

In cities where Uber is legal and regulated, they are not breaking any laws and have no requirement to track city investigations against them. Uber were also being disobedient in order to get better laws for they and everybody else to abide by. Better yet - their technique pretty much won. There aren't many cities remaining that still attempt to ban ride sharing.

My reply to aianus applies equally to this.

Consider further; how did the narrative of Uber needing to break the law to disrupt (read: try to overthrow) the existing taxi industry morph into excusing their practices as affecting positive social change? Remember, the context of the boycotts during the American civil rights movement was never to "disrupt" southern businesses.

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

#628

Post by booleandilemma »

mkolodny wrote: post #563
booleandilemma wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Or like non-Jews hiding Jews from the Nazi police. Obviously that's a dramatic example, but so is the drug dealer example. If Uber believes that the taxi industry is wrongfully colluding with the government to try to stop Uber from operating, then it's not necessarily wrong for Uber to do whatever it can to continue operating.

No, sorry, Uber doesn't get to resort to some kind of corporate vigilantism and "do whatever it can to continue operating".

Uber can go through the proper legal channels to address the concerns it has.

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

#629

Post by ThrustVectoring »

PhantomGremlin wrote: post #584
ThrustVectoring wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

spam the government with fabricated false positives Right. So you say people should lie to their government???! Martha Stewart thought that she was so smart that she could lie to the FBI when they came to talk to her. Unfortunately for her, it turns out that making false statements to government investigators is a federal crime. Martha wound up doing time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Stewart#Sentence I have…

Right, good point. I (embarrassingly) forgot that that was an option for dealing with invalid input.

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

#630

Post by nohugsneeded »

pikzen wrote: post #560
yummyfajitas wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. only on HN

Its worse on Reddit
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